Quick, Grab a drink

[slngsht]

http://www.stufffundieslike.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/prohibition.png

[DLW]

Woo-hoo! The Women's Christian Temperance Union! :party:

 

*takes a sip of Guinness for each woman in the photo*

 

I actually knew an old bartender whose mother took him to WCTU meetings in the 1920s and early 30s, he told stories of their rhetoric and ideologies to anyone in the bar who'd listen.

[Sevnn]

The woman in the middle just below the sign, is that a chicken on her hat.

[Kitcat]

Just read a book about them and the 18th amendment (Prohibition) appropriately named "Last Call."

 

It makes several interesting points including: To get it passed Congress had to come up with a substitute for the revenue lost on booze (then about 50% of the federal budget). So the 17th amendment passed first, allowing the federal income tax. Since women disproportionately favored Prohibition, and their continued support was considered vital to enforcement, that was a major factor in the passage of the 19th amendment (woman's suffrage), a year later.

 

When the 18th Amendment was rescinded, the major force behind it was the ultra rich, who hated the income tax and longed for the good old days of the liquor tax. They got half their wish: the liquor tax resumed (but the income tax was here forever:)).

 

Prior to prohibition, the per capita alc consumption was 4x what it is today. So the effects continue (apart from the inc tax).

[Boxologist]

also consider what alcoholic beverages were before 20th century dietary advances. Even 19th century canning. It was a food staple. High carbohydrate value, would not spoil, and for the most part easily transportable. Refridgeration did not exist. U were lucky if there was an ice house nearby.

[gjslutz]

A Liquor sales Co.dream poster!!!

[escondidoron]

Boxologist said:

also consider what alcoholic beverages were before 20th century dietary advances. Even 19th century canning. It was a food staple. High carbohydrate value, would not spoil, and for the most part easily transportable. Refridgeration did not exist. U were lucky if there was an ice house nearby.

 

Boxologist's comment got me to thinking about the relationship between productivity, alcohol and coffee.

 

Here's an interesting thought to ponder: Did coffee make the industrial revolution possible in western society at the expense of alcohol?

 

Coffee was introduced on the European continent in the 1640s in Venice, with coffee houses appearing in Paris in the 1660s. Prior to that time alcohol was the staple beverage in European society for the reasons mentioned by Boxologist. At that time coffee's availability was limited to the rich who could afford the time and expense of drinking at the coffeehouses. At the same time the European colonialists were starting coffee plantations in their various colonies to exploit the crop. Prior to this time it had only been grown in significant quantities in Ethiopia.

 

As coffee became more readily available its cost went down. As its cost went down its availability to the masses went up. As the masses began to consume more coffee they consumed less alcohol and productivity went up dramatically. Fast forward to the 1700s (the age of the industrial revolution). With the increase in societal productivity there was an increase in consumerism and the eventual emergence of a large middle class.

 

Hey, I don't know if there is a direct corollary between alcohol, coffee and western society as we know it but it seems reasonable to me. Just a thought.

[solder_guy]

that reminds me that production is always down in Russia and many of the former Soviet Bloc countries .. because of so much Vodka drinking amongst the workers .. before and now after the fall of communism ..

 

BTW: Ever see the '70s science show _Connections_ by James Burke .. now completely on Youtube ..