"For there can't be good Living where there is not good Drinking,"
wrote Benjamin Franklin. George Washington was a famed toper, and
in 18th-century America "no class imbibed more freely than the
clergy." This full-brimmed history of U.S. drinking habits and
temperance movements describes Dr. Benjamin Rush of Revolutionary
War fame as the first major reformer, followed by growing
organizations ("teetotal" comes from the American Temperance
Society's "T" for total abstinence). Kobler gives profuse
biographies of such leaders as Frances Willard, who possessed a
semi-lesbian magnetism as well as an intelligent concern for other
reforms. Unlike her WCTU, the Women's Crusade used guerrilla
coercion against (usually) German barkeepers ("Go vay, vimmins!")
who in turn hired mercenaries to stone the Crusaders off the
streets. It isn't clear, Kobler says, whether the majority of
Americans favored the bone-dry Volstead Act. He reviews the
debates, which reflect post-World War I ferment: abstainers
attacked "the Bolshevistic liquor interests" while Sam Gompers
protested that to take away the workingman's beer would foment
revolution. The varieties of bootleg poison, homebrew
paraphernalia, speaks and rum-running strategies (airplanes tanked
up in Canadian air) are wittily detailed. A wholesome, effervescent
study. (Kirkus Reviews)
"Ardent Spirit" covers the full range of the temperance idea in
America, beginning in the early seventeenth century and continuing
through the prohibition years, 1919-1933. Using a wide variety of
sources, Kobler quotes the amusing and often startling comments
relating to the efforts of prohibitionists and lawmakers, so that
the speakeasies, the rum-running, the bootleggers, and the gang
wars all come vividly to life. Here too are portraits of
eccentrics, instant millionaires, law enforcement officers, and
murderers--all part of the Noble Experiment which proved to be one
of the most tragicomic sagas in American history.
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