reform movement in history. the thing that people have worked hardest on in the united states history from then until today to try to contain the evil effects of alcohol. >> how did they do that, said? >> they mobilized. they mobilized. in the early 19th century t evangelical churches come along and women are key parts of all of this. and women at this tavern culture you're talking about are often the victims of this, the women and children who are the -- related to the men who think it's so much fun to do this. they begin to think there is a great social cost, great personal cost. in the 19th century we discovered that the family is the most important component of society. anything that damages the family is damaging society. and so we must -- put your beer down, i'm talking to you. we must persuade people to begin drinking water instead of alcohol, and who should they

emulate? george and martha washington, washingtonians movement. going through and trying to get them to abstain from alcohol. >> so drinking is kind of a disease, it's a social disease, it's an individual disease. it's the demon rum can do terrible things. >> there can be no doubt that along with other threats to the nation, that it's something that is going to have to be brought under control, if this young country is going to succeed. >> what about benjamin rush's idea of moderation? i get excited about cheerfulness, strength and nourishment. >> no. because you've shown in the first decades of the 19th century you cannot be trusted to drink in moderation. alcohol is out of control. we have the machinery to deliver as much alcohol as people can drink. it's being mass produced, we're going to have to find ways to get this under control. >> who is going to control this? >> we prefer that you control it yourself. >> no way. >> i think early on that's the way we think slavery is going to

come to an end as well. and so we'll begin by just talking to you a lot. trying to persuade you of this. if that doesn't work we'll do -- >> i did that with my kids. didn't work out so well. >> by the 1850s, maine has decided that's not going to work, so going to pass a state law that's going to make it illegal so. you have prohibition in the 1850s. so even as we know, peter says they didn't know the revolution was coming. they don'ts know the civil war's coming. if you see the things that they are animated about it's about controlling alcohol so. the main law that becomes a model for the rest of the nation. and the civil war comes in and sort of you know, disrupts all of this and shows that there's even greater stakes than we imagine to controlling all of this. they have seen how it shattered lives, men come out shattered. so women's christian temperance union decides to use the great moral power, moral suasion.

and to mobilize and get rid of these saloons that you were talking about being so nice. >> and the saloon league eventually. >> exactly. they also ask that the members of the wctu make a pledge, could we hear that. >> i hereby solemnly promise, god helping me, to abstain from alcohol distilled, fermented and malt liquors, including wine and cider and to employ all proper means to discourage use and traffic in the same. >> you can tell she was serious. she had the sense of purpose in her voice. remarkably clear recording from 1877. and it seems to be a direct rebuttal to benjamin rush. including wine and cider. i don't care if it's distilled or fermented or malted we don't want it and i'm going to make a pledge and i'm going to try to stop its spread.

so, across the last third of the 19th century, north and south and east and west, urban and rural, the great campaign is to bring alcohol under control, as a matter of fact, remove it. there is no good reason to have that. back in your day the water was bad. now we have public water supplies, other reforms, no excuse. >> they can go out in the pu public parks that aring built. >> exactly. >> or the new cemetery. >> you hand me this mess in the early 19th century. i clean it up and i hand it to the 20th century. what do you do with that? >> you almost clean it up. and you're so on the right track. but not quite. look, we wouldn't have a 20th century if you leaned everything up. >> i guess not. >> so you're on the right track, you mention control. three or four times. you know, you meant well. >> always do. >> when it comes to control, there's nothing like the federal

government. in the 20th century, we're so smart and we figure, hey, control, this is bad for people, we need control. >> it's proven in the states. >> exactly. the laboratories of democracy, let's get the federal government involved. plus, we invented tape-recording in the 20th century so we can actually record real people being themselves on tape >> rather than actors. >> rather than actresses. >> don't give away. >> that's exactly right. so i want to hear from a real person recorded on tape. >> his problem is bigger than the individual states. it's a grave national problem and it touches all our lives. >> you didn't see that coming. >> problems so clear cut and the proven solution at hand we have no misgiving about this judicious use of federal power.

>> shhh don't tell him who that was. >> that was not an actual person, that was an actor. [ laughter ] >> yeah. but he happened to go on to be president of the united states. >> i saw that coming. >> ronald reagan. what is the problem that was so grave? what was bigger than the individual states? >> he didn't believe in using the federal government for much. >> star wars. >> or astrology. >> wrong. wrong. >> i'm convinced that it will help persuade state legislators to act in the national interest to save our children's lives by raising the drinking age to 21 across the country. >> this was about drunk driving. this was about alcohol. this was about something that i think most of us in this room

think is a terrible thing, driving while drunk. but it's an example of how commonplace it became for the federal government to get involved in issues of health and safety in the 20th century. so much so that even perhaps the strongest anti-big government president of the 20th century, well, there is competition, but ronald reagan who defended the tenth amendment who stood up for states' rights says the federal government has to get involved when mothers against drunk drivers say that this is real, real trouble. those comments come from ronald reagan's remarks on the signing day for the national minimum age drinking act of 1984. how did that act work? it cut off federal highway funds to states who didn't raise the minimum drinking age.

ronald reagan was in essence holding the states hostage. we're going to take all of this money away from you if you don't listen to us in the federal government. >> did they all buckle? >> they all buckled. even wisconsin although i think wisconsin was the second to last state. >> i'm sure grudgingly. >> very grudgingly. now of course the story is much earlier than that, the story of the federal government getting involved and speaking to a knowledgeable group of school teachers and historians and public historians, i don't have to tell you about prohibition. and the federal government's great social experiment. what i did have to tell my fellow guys here, this was about the legacy of prohibition. >> brian, seems to me from what you're saying alcohol drives the expansion of the federal state. >> that's exactly right. and one can make a very good

case for big government, so called, beginning not with the new deal but beginning with prohibition. for those of you who want to say sayonara, good riddance to big government, we got rid of prohibition, think again. think about the laws on search and seizure, think about the laws about wire tapping, they all come out of the 1920s an era when the federal government is very involved in intervening in day-to-day lives to make sure that we create a safe environment. those laws on search and seizure, those laws on wire tapping are still very much with us today. >> so, seems to me we've had a lot of continuities back and forth across all of the centuries. i would say as reform movements go anti-alcohol is still top.

mothers against drunk drivers. interesting how that has women and feature the word mothers. >> we added layer on top of layer, including, peter, moderation, not too much. counting on the individual to do -- think about the large corporate advertising campaigns, drink responsibly. some might say that's an oxy moron. look at pete e for instance. >> only do it on national television. >> so that brings us back to benjamin rush. drink responsibly. >> i think the darker conclusion we did say this was the best of all possible times but alcohol continues to be associated with lots of pathologies but so does anti-alcohol. so it's lose-lose. i'll drink to that. >> it's interesting i would say to bring us up to tait date on the patterns that alcohol consumption has been remarkably stable over 25 years now. we're living in a trendless time

in that regard. and it looked for a while in early 90s that wine overtook beer, the normal state, the correct state of things, and milwaukee is again at the center of the american alcohol universe. now, this is the time that you have been waiting for, which is -- >> they actually were waiting for the beer. >> the beer is gone. you want to leave, not going to get beer. >> or even better, go to the microphones and ask really hard questions of peter and brian about things that you would like to know about. >> we're going to defer them to ed. >> the best question will be awarded that 24-ounce. >> slightly flat. slightly luke warm. >> so when you can't restrain yourself any longer -- they could do this out in television land. >> they can. directly into the camera. >> this is for you. >> in tv land.

waiting so long to talk with you. here's your chance to send us an e-mail with your question. >> tweet us. >> you may tweet us. the e-mail is backstory@radio -- no. >> get it right. >> back story virginia.edu. >> it is. you can e-mail this. it is. what you're thinking about is our website back story radio.org. >> i never e-mailed myself. >> you can tweet us @backstory radio. there are so many ways. those of you in the room and i see a gentleman on the side, i need to you move up to the microphone. and we have another on the other side. >> give us your name and tell us where you're from. >> i'm joel, i'm from duluth, minnesota. i work in superior. welcome to wisconsin, where tavern culture is alive and well. [ applause ] >> we had some real interesting meeting at the old town taverns

last february and march. i'm to do some planning for things in the streets. i've always heard or i once heard that when new hampshire was debating ratifying the constitution -- >> oh, no. >> i like the way this is going. >> that it was going to be a close vote and the pro constitution forces, some delegates took some antis out to lunch and they missed the vote. is there any truth to that? >> duh. >> that will encourage people. >> you know what, we're doing capitalism and democracy, you know where they come together. it's election time and it began before the revolution with treating in virginia. that is if you're in one of those contested elections and most of them weren't, you would treat every voter. and they would be totally drunk. so yeah, it's one of the things that had to be reformed if there

was going to be ultimately with the australian ballot. as long as voting was a polite public activity it was surrounded with booze. >> even new hampshire, though. virginia we can believe but new hampshire? >> vote for your guy. >> i guess that's right. >> we should say something about our mutual centuries. although it didn't rise to a constitutional level, saloons were not just places that union leaders organized folk, i mean, saloons are where politicians walked in and treated -- >> the smoke filled rooms were? >> that was one of them. they treated everybody to a drink and of course the custom of drinking was if somebody treated you, you had to treat back, one beer led to another. and it's really where a lot of americans begame familiar with the political machine. they didn't have fox news. they weren't smart enough.

they didn't even have you know, internet. they got to know the political system literally through the mechanism of treating buying a drink. of course that happen ond election day but it happened on a day-to-day basis. it's a way that constituents got to know their elected officials. >> we're not running for office so we're not treating. let's have another question. >> i'm at the george washington university. i recently found bout my cousin maynard who was an enologist at university of california davis in 1939 he was hired to rebuild the department most prohibition. i wonder, more for brian, the california wine industry before prohibition, and how long it took them to really figure it out later. and really, the role of academia

in all of this, as i understand it he and his research partner walker i think was his name, basically invented napa valley. they basically went around california and studied the regions and figured out what were the growing regions and the idea to approach it scientifically. >> we love these questions because we keep asking you questions. brian. >> i have no idea. what i can tell you is that americans were not huge wine drinkers. there were two ways of the real increase in wine drinking. one had to do with one of the latest ways of european immigrants to the united states. primarily atoolians and jews. they preferred wine to either beer or with whiskey. they got won over to beer, many of them, by the 1910, 1920s.

the second wave of increase in wine drinking happened in the 1970s and the 1980s and it was a very interesting period. you know, when we talk about red necks, white sox, and blue ribbon, they weren't just responding against people like me wearing literally white collars. they were responding to a real diversification among elites in their drinking. fern bars, i remember, i lived in manhattan at the time. you had wine bars, fern bars. >> i thought imported beer. >> exactly so. wine drinking took off in the 1970s, and ed's referring to imported beers. he was drinking those faux imported beers with the s wits. there was this real

diversification in the drinking habits. >> wine in the 70s, that's interesting because as i understand he also wrote his second career after he retired was to try to reform wine tasting language and toia what he called scientific, flavors of i guess trees, bark, like oak and pine, and flowers and other odors to describe wine than masculine and feminine and terms like that. he was part of that movement. as i understood that was in the 70s. >> i think it developed a beautiful bouquet in the 70s. >> a wonderful finish. >> thank you. this is an important fact. wine has now tied beer, late-breaking news. >> you just looked this up. >> no. it came in by itself. but it shows -- i think you're

onto something. to really answer your question, academia i believe has been very involved in the whole -- >> and davis is absolutely at the center of it, right. >> but i think people would often see drinking wine as a step back toward the moderate familial based alcohol consumption. so it's interesting that what we consider to be the most healthful blend of -- is constantly coming and going. as long as it has a good okee flavor it's fine with me. the messages are flowing in on twitter. yeah. >> should we take a remote message. >> there is an impossible one. >> actual humans or two twitter messages. it's hard to know. >> i want to go with real people. >> i want to go with the impossible one. here. >> you don't get to choose. >> is there a connection -- is there a connection between the landing of the pilgrims at plymouth rock and the ship mates

running short of beer? that's a twitter question from doug. i had to get even for being clueless on the last question. >> i'm going to say yes. that beats duh. >> brian, since you did this. >> no, no. let's go to the live audience. >> yes, sir. >> jim from eau claire. i heard the phrase there is no free lunch. from saloons. maybe brian or ed could help with that. >> i can help. ed? >> there is no free lunch. a fascinating story. we associate that with you know, bureaucracy, today you got to pay for what you get, et cetera, et cetera. this really does come from the late 19th century. and workers when they started leaving those factories they would go to saloons, drink during lunch time, go back to

work, and the temperance forces that ed was talking about, prohibition forces, pre-prohibition, said it's a shame that those workers are getting so inebriated. they are drinking on an empty stomach. the saloons at a minimum should provide them a lunch. the breweries said hey, no problem. and the breweries started shipping in food, usually sausages, cheese. are you getting hungry? i notice they didn't provide food. and so, the tradition of providing a free lunch in the back room really became synonymous with saloons and it was so powerful not only would guys go have a schooner of beer and go back to the back room and have lunch but lots of respectable women would actually go, just to the back room only have lunch and they literally did have a free lunch. >> sounds like there was a free

lunch. >> there was. >> not -- >> until prohibition. >> not according to the temperance forces. having encouraged saloons to serve lunch they came up with the slogan, there is no free lunch. and they used that to underscore the price that workers were paying for that so called free lunch. the price in drunkenness, it et cetera. >> thank you for asking a question i could answer. >> since he's your brother. >> not really. on the other side. >> hi, i'm from the university of california. >> i see trouble. >> no. >> you're not from uc davis, are you? >> this is a question for 18th century guy and 19th century guy. >> i love it. bring it on. >> the question is about the regulation of alcohol and slavery and the regulation of alcohol and interaction between

whites and native americans. i know that those two were the focuses of early focuses of the regulation of alcohol. >> that's a great question and it's absolutely true. if you want to see the state begin to operate effectively, whether it's through the regulation of indian trade and trade and alcohol, you see it with groups perceived to be dangerous and ungovernable and this is where the state and i think i'm actually going to bring brian in on this, too, it's where the state is largely invisible in the 19th century but in precisely these areas. as i think ed has mentioned before, there is a tight regular of alcohol among slaves. it's seen as incentive for holiday festivities. but it's again tightly regulated. >> yeah. the real problem comes for white

south after the end of slavery. and people often don't know that the south had an even more active movement toward prohibition and local control. they adopted the main law. and the abc stores developed in south carolina in the 1890s as ways to do two things, one, get state revenue from alcohol, a major reformers getting rid of these illicit forms of distribution, a major concern was that they were selling directly to african-americans and they were concerned about interestingly, the marketing of these forms of alcohol by using white women on the labels and it became an explicit concern and in the atlanta race riot one of the reasons that the white people put forward for the reason for the riot is this irresponsible use of advertising that inflamed. so it becomes a major reason. one reason i think that the south has been at the forefront

of control of alcohol just for the reasons that you say. you know, the twitter sphere is going crazy. someone said you didn't answer my question so i don't know whether to -- i think it's going to be short. >> i attributed the question to the wrong person. >> okay. >> in fairness, and i'm sorry for you humans standing here live in person, but dog and tap did not ask question you attributed to him. he did ask, was part of the reason for the income tax loss revenues from prohibition? part of the reason for the income tax lost revenues from prohibition. well, no. chronologically we have things a little backwards there. weed that income tax first.

but there is no question that lost revenues from prohibition were really hurting the federal government and there is no question that one of the reasons that roosevelt, franklin roosevelt, wanted to end prohibition was to restore that $5 tax, federal tax, on crates, on barrels of beer. so yes. >> we haven't talked about sin taxes, that's an interesting topic because it suggests the close connection between the federal state and alcohol. >> it's a -- it's a symbiotic relationship and we know it's from tobacco as well. so good question. sorry i screwed up. >> another human. >> yes. we don't screw up with humans, though. >> thanks. i'm from indiana. my question is a literary question. you know when you think about the 20th century's greatest writers, they are like a pack of pickled scoundrels, drunks.

i guess my question was who was the first i guess american writer who kind of would write about drinking as a literary asset? and my second question would be as in the last 30 years where people are working more and going into more debt, where did the trends with drinking, people drinking less or more? >> who booked this gig? i'll answer the second question. if you look at alcohol consumption, it actually corresponds with income. so that the people with the greatest disposable income or the wealthiest drink the moxt people who make less than $25,000 a year drink the least. >> i think on the first question it has something to do with that era of sensational literature in the antebellum period in which temperance reformers produced what you might call a

pornography of intemperance, and since one of the rituals in the temperance movement was to enact a kind of conversion experience and tell your story, is sort of anticipating alcoholics anonymous. i answer not with one of the authors or some obscure author but with a general trend in literature, toward a kind of sensational pornography and confessional literature of the 30s and 40s. >> i think it is. it skips until the earliest 20th century. the idea that an author is supposed to reveal as terms heavily gendered male, all about himself, the literature is real and true. and if you can enact it as well as convey it, it becomes sort of an expectation we see acted oud in the rock 'n roll era as well f. what you are telling me is so powerful and true it should be killing you. so i think alcohol and drugs become part of that.

>> the notion of demon rum is deeply attractive to some tormented and tortured souled and i think it's a romantic response to the whole culture of regulation, prohibition and temptation. >> one of the things you can see how an imnauls was there in the antebellum period and skipped several generations i think youed that bohemian, but i think to answer your question i do believe it's in the culture celebrity in the 1920s. we received a question i feel i need to answer from twitter. want to know if i could say more about why women were in the forefront of these movements against alcohol. and peter referred to the fact that it's easy, kind of an americ americanistic. if you had seen what was the most corrosive force on violence against women, to have seen abuse against children, it would have been alcohol. so, you know, i think prohibition retrospectively