>> is this enjoyable watching us drink? >> so just to be clear, so the 19th century would have seen a profusion of styles. there would have been the golden age of beer. >> you mean the 19th century is the golden age? i thought it was the 18th century. >> that would have continued to grow until prohibition. so it's a discontinuous history and there's not a general american taste for or tendency for a lighter beer -- >> i think that was part of the marketing push. there was this great mass marketing homogenization in the '50s and '60s and the idea you could have a single beer in terms of consistency was a big issue, to have the same taste no matter where you lived. there was this great expansion in population across the country. >> also so much of this was for taking to your house rather than drinking in a tavern or drinking in a pub. >> that too, that, too. but really we have in i think the golden age of american

brewing is now. we are now back. >> we're living in the golden age? let's hear it for ourselves. ladies and gentlemen. >> as of last month, the united states now has more than 2,000 breweries in operation. >> yea. >> yea for america. we're back to where we were a century ago. >> yeah. >> sort of a rebirth. i guess now is it kind of a self-conscious, or is this natural, is this kind of forced by a yuppieficationing? >> i think it's a natural outgrowth. >> as natural as this beer. >> but also i think it's the interest in foods that are local handma handmade. how many of you home brew? i'm sure there must be some home brewers. >> yes, all the people in the front row. >> that's a good sign. >> exactly. exactly. >> so. >> so what does it taste like now? >> well, your ppr i think is a little bland but that spreker dopple bach is a good example of

-- >> let's drinking to 2012. >> and suggest that this drink moves in more than one direction would be the implication i draw from this in that -- i'd need just the smallest amount of that because -- >> and then just so you know. >> i think maybe i'll just -- >> how much of the show the do we have left? better stop right there. >> thanks so much for having me on. >> we'll see you. thank you, lucy. >> cheers. >> thank you very much. [ applause ] >> that is lucy saunders. and you can find some of her recipes and all kinds of information at beer cook.com and thank you so much, lucy. that was really terrific. >> yea. [ applause ] ♪ the old woman begged me not to go.

>> back at the bar. >> many times before ♪ ♪ she says love and happiness can't live behind those honky tonk doors ♪ ♪ you're to blame, boy, not me ♪ too late you finally see ♪ what's made milwaukee famous done made a loser out of you and me ♪ >> well, if you're just tuning in, we're tuning out. >> oh, no. this is back story. and we're coming to you today from the annual meeting of the organization of american historians and the national council on public history in milwaukee. our theme for the hour, alcohol in america. s if. >> you know, guys, we're having a lot of fun with this, lots of

yuks but to be honest, through american history, alcohol has not been a laughing matter. there was prohibition, of course, but i think we know that americans were concerned about alcohol long before prohibition. am i wrong, peter. >> yeah, well i was telling you about those people crowding the taverns were up to no good especially after independence. thing about it my fellow democrats. sorry i didn't mean big "d," i mean little d democrats here we are in the land of the free and we very to govern ourselves and that requires self-mastery, right? so you should not do what we're doing on stage today. >> any young people in the audience, this is purely for the interest of academic. >> that's right. stay away from radio. >> knowledge. >> and stuff. >> well, there's really concern emerging with benjamin rush's, the heavy hitter in terms of

anti-alcohol and the campaign against intemperance. we're going to trial another neat visual trick on radio but you're here to model it for us. and that is we're going to take a look and many of you have this on your seats or might even be sitting on it right now. stand up and get it out. in 1784, dr. benjamin rush of philadelphia gives us the moral and physical thermometer. and i just want to share some of the insights that rush gives us here and this would be a bit of a warning. we're moving into the darker portion of our program. and if you are a water drinker, then i want to tell you things are looking good for you because i can predict health and wealth, serenity of mind and reputation, long life and happiness, what more could you want. >> all you have to do is read. >> it's up there, number 70 at the very top but benjamin rush is not an absolutist.

he's not like those people that make ed's century and brian's even more a pretty grim fair. he's not a prohibitionist. he says you can drink a small beer. now, that's only 1%. you can follow me down which is actually up. we should turn it upside down. well, down is right. >> wait, i'm getting dizzy here, peter. >> oh, man. >> maybe that's the beer. >> you go to criider could be 7 wines could be 10, 12%. strong beer, things are still okay. and this is the important take away for us moderate drinkers as we were up until the third one here. and that is if you incorporate this into a healthy and moderate lifestyle, this is my words of wisdom for the day, you will be rewarded with cheerfulness, strength and nourishment. it's food. particular little taken at meals in moderate quantities but this

is the grim part that i need to share with you, and i told you this was going to get dark. things get worse when you drink punch. now, as you see here, my friends, this is the big pivot point. if it's weak punch, you're still in the temperate zone. this is very scientific. it's calibrated. it could be strong, whoa. you're on the slippery slope because next thing you know, you're going to be drinkinged toy grog, flip, slings, bitters, morning drams, oh, a bad habit. john adams used to drink cider every morning. pepper in rum. >> that's the worst. >> that is at the very bottom of your thermometer. now, i haven't told you the price you're going to pay for this, the advices from idleness to hatred of just government. now, that's an important one for someone like benjamin rush. this is the critical period. and next thing you know, you'll be a murderer.

now, in case you weren't aware of the implications of these various advices, many diseases go out to of apoplexy will accompany these advices. and then the punishments take you from debt to black eyes, i think you need help on that one. usually rags, hunger, the alms house, the work house jail, the whipping post, castle island and folks, if you're there doing pepper in rum, you are either going to commit suicide or you're simply going to dial or we'll hang you. >> so let me hear it. who had pepper with rum at the reception here before? anybody? >> well, peter that's harrowing. and fortunately, we had might century to come along and tidy up after you once again because we launched then in the 19th century the longest-running reform movement in american

history. thing that supreme worked hardest on in the united states history from then until today to try to contain the evil effects of alcohol. >> how do they do that, ed? >> well, they mobilized in the early 19th century, is the the evangelical churches come along and women are a key part of all this. and this tavern culture you're talking about, women are often the victims of this, the women and children who are are related to the men who think it's so much fun to go do this and they begin to think there's a great social and personal cost. in the 19th century, we've discovered that the family is the most important component of society. anything that damages the family is damaging society. and so we must simply put your beer down, i'm talking to you. we must persuade people to begin drinking water instead of alcohol. who should they emulate? george and martha washington.

washingtonian movement going through and trying to get them to abstain from alcohol. >> so drinking it a kind of disease, a social and individual disease. the demon runl can do terrible things to you. >> there can be no doubt that along with other threats to the nation, that it's something that's simply going to have to be brought under control in this young count is going to succeed. >> i got excited about 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 >> well, we would prefer that you control it yourself. >> we think that's. >> no way. >> early on, that's the way we think slavery is going to come to an end, as well. so we'll begin by just talking

to you a lot and trying to persuade you of this. if that doesn't work -- >> i do that with my kids. that didn't work out so well. >> by the 1850s, maine has decided that's not going to work and going to pass a state law that makes it illegal. so you have prohibition in the 1850s. even as we know, peter says they didn't know the revolution was coming and didn't know the civil war is coming. they're animated about controlling alcohol. so the main law becomes a model for the rest of the nation. and the civil war comes in and sort of you know, disrupts all this and shows there's even greater stakes than we imagined to controlling all this. . they've seen how it shatters the lives of young men who never had drunk much go to army camps and come out shattered. so the women's christian temperance union decides to use the great moral power of women across the nation. >> 1870s, they get starred. >> that's right and to mobilize and to get rid of these sal

loons that you were talking about being so nice. >> anti-saloon league eventually. >> exactly. and they asked that the members of the wctu make a pledge. could we hear that? >>. >> i hereby some lem little promise god helping me to abstain from all distilled fer meanted and malt liquors including wine and cider and to employ all proper means to discourage use and traffic in the same. >> and you can tell, she was serious. she had the sense of purpose in her voice. remarkly clear recording from 1877 and you'll note, it seems to be a direct rebuttal to benjamin rush. including wine and cider. i don't think care in it's distilled or fer mentioned or malted we don't want it. i'm going to trial to stop it 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's nols good reason to have that now. back in your day, the water was bad. now beat have public water supplies. there's nols excuse for it. >> they can go out in the new public parks being built across the country or they go to the new cemeteries. >> so p so you hand me this mess in the early 19th century, i clean it all up and 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. >> not quite. >> darn. >> look, we won't have a 20th century if you cleaned everything. >> i guess that's right. >> so you're on the right track. you mentioned control, three or four times. and you know, you meant well. but when it comes. >> i always do. >> when it comes to control, there's nothing like the federal government. >> oh. >> now, in the 20th century.

>> federal government? >> we're so smart in the 20th country and century, we need control? duh. >> it's been proven in the states. >> exactly. the laboratories of democracy. let's get the federal government involved. you know, 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. >> get away. >> that's exactly right. so i want to hear from a real person recorded on tape. >> this 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, huh. >> the problem so clear-cut and the proven solution at hand, we have no misgiving about this judicious use of federal power. snuxt don't tell them who that

was. >> that was not an actual person. that was an actor. >> yeah, but he happened to go on to be president of the united states. >> right. >> 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 much so it must have been the russians. >> star wars or banning as trol jill. >> wrong, wrong. >> nothing? >> i'm convinced that it will help persuade state legislate tors 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's some 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 really, really trouble. and those comments come from ronald reagan's remarks on the signing day for the national minimum drinking age act of 1984. how did that will 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 this money away from you if you don't listen to us in the federal government. : 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. but what i did have to tell my fellow guys here, this was about the leg sill of prohibitioning. >> brian, it seems to me from what you're saying alcohol drives the expansion of the federal state. >> that's exactly right. >> is that a fair statement? >> that's exactly right. one can make a very good case for big government, so-called cd

beginning, not with the new dee buw t beginning with prohibitio. for those of you who want to say sayonara good riddance to big government, we got rid of k abo prohibition, think again. think about the laws on search and seizure. think about the laws about wiretapping that all come out of 1920s, an era when the federal e government is very involved in intervening in day to day lives to make sure that we create e eight safe environment. and those laws on search and seize url, those laws on wiretapping are still very much with us today. >> so it seems to me we've had a lot of continuities weaving back and forth across all the unite ises. today i would say as reform movements go go, anti-alcohol is still at the top of the list. it's interesting d how that wil has women in the forefront and

they feature of the word la mothers. >> we've just basically added layer on top of layer including, peter, moderation, not too much. counting on the individual to do -- think about the large arge corporate advertising campaigns. drink responsibly. >> yeah. >> some might say that's an oxymoron. look at peter, for instance. >> only do it on national te television. >> so that brings usle to back what rush was saying. basically drink responsibly. >> i think t the darker ay conclusion, we did say this was the best of all possible times o but alcohol continues to be wi associated with lots of pathologies but so does an anti-alcohol. so it'sso lose/lose.i'll d i'll drink to that. >> it's interesting i would sayu to bring us up to date on the patterns that alcohol ol consumption has been remarkably stable for over 25 years now. we're living in kind of a me trendless time in that regard. and it looked for a while in the early '90s wine overtook beer

for one year.rtook unfortunately -- >> beer's made a comeback. l >> the correct state of things f reasserted itself and milwaukeee once again is at the center of the american alcohol universe. now, this is the time that i ou know you've been waiting for h s which is ---- >> they actually were waiting for the beer. bee >> there was that. >> the beer t is gone.gone. if you want to leave, you're not going to get any beer. ette >> even better, go to the and as microphones and ask really hardn questions ofs peter and brian about things that you would like to know about. >> because we're going to defer them to ed. >> >> and that the best question will be awarded 2456r8 a ounce pabst blue ribbon. slightly flat. >> slightly warm. >> okay, so when you can't selfa restrain yourself any longer, do they could do this out in land. television land. >> i'm going to look directly into the camera. >> this is for you. >> so in tvland, i've been waiting so long to talk with

you. here's your chance to send us al e-mail with your question. >> tweet us. >> you may tweet us.the the e-mail address is back story at radio -- >> get it right. >> back story virginia.edu.irgi. yes, it is. you can e-mail. that is our e-mail address. e >> is that our e-mail address? >> it is.it what you're thinking about is i our website. back story radio.org. >> i've never e-mailed myself. >>en an you can tweet us at back story radio.story there's so many different way.ya but those of you in the room an i see a gentleman standing on the side, i feed you to walk right up to the microphone. >> give us your name. hone >> we have another one on the se other side. >> give us your name and tell ue where you're from. >> i'm joeljo cypress from dulu, minnesota. i work in superior.wisco welcome to wisconsin where s tavern culture is alive and use] well. >> thank you. >> we had some real interesting meetings at the old town taverny last february and march to do some planning for things in the

streets. i've always heard or i once heard that when new hampshire wp was debating ratifying the constitution. >> oh, no. i like the way this is going. >> no. >> that it was going to be a close vote and the pro constitution forces, some delegates took some anti-s it out lunch and got them drunk ano they missed the vote and that'sn how the constitution got truth ratified. is there any truth toing that. >> duh.th >> this is the respect with which we will answer any question. >> that will really encourage people to ask questions. >> we're doing capitalism and yu democracy. you foe where they come together is at election time and it begao before the revolution are treatinging in virginia, that is if you're in one of those con oe testified elections and most ofh them weren't for the house ofburg ess, you would treat every voter. and they would halliburton totally drunk. of so yeah, it's one of the things that had to be slug reformed iff there was going to be with the

ultimately with the australian v ballot but the as long as voting was a public activity, it was surrounded with booze. n >>ew even new hampshire though,a virginia we can believe that. but new hampshire? >> live free or die. >> i guess that's right. ght. >> ed, we should say something t about our mutual centuries, ce right? because although it didn't rise to a constitutional level it, l sal loons were not just places h that union leaders, organized folks. i mean saloons are where politicians walked in. >> is that where the smoke-filled rooms were?th >> that was one of them. and they treated everybody therm to a drink and of course, the i custom of drinking was if somebody treated you, you had td treat back.an one beer led to another. it's really where a lot of americans became familiar with the political machine. they didn't have fox news. they weren't smart enough. they didn't even have internet.

they got to know the political l system literally through the e mechanism of treating, buying a. drink. of course, that happened on election day but it happened on a day to day basis.basis it's a way the constituents got to know their elected officials. >> we're not running for office. so we're not treating. but let's have another question. >> i'm phillip troutman at the george washington university in washington, d.c. and i just recently found out about my cousin maynard amorinea who was a vitty cult you'rist at the university of california at davis starting in the 19 i think '39 he was hire there had to rebuilded department post prohibition. i'm wondering what you all knowr about, this is maybe for brian.y the california wine industry before prohibition and how long it took them to really figure i out later.eally, and really the role of academia in all of this. as i understand it, he and his e

research partner, walker i thinm was his name basicallye, invent nap pal valley. th went around california and theic idea was to approach it ns scientifically. >> we keep asking you questions. >> i have no idea. >> all right. >> what i can tell you is that americans were not huge wine drinkers. there were two ways of a real e increase in wine drinking. in wi one hadne to do with one of the latest waves of european immigrants to the united states. primarily italians and jews. they will preferred wines to et either beer or whiskey. although what's interesting is they got won over to beer, manye of them by the 1910s, 1920s. the second wave of real increase in wine drinking happened in the

1970s and in the 1980s. it and it was a very interesting t period. you know, when we talk about red necks, white socks and blue ribbon, they weren't just responding against people like e me wearing literally white collars. they were also responding to a o real diversification among ifict elites in their drinking. >> it was fern bars, right? >> exactly. fernútmá%tbj w3bars. >> i remember. >> i lived in manhattan at that time. you know, you had wine bard. you had fern bars. >> i think i'll go have an imported beer. >> >> exactly. so wine drinking really took off in the 1970s. and ed's referring to imported beers. was he was drinking those faux imported beers with the up lats on the lowen brow michelob was another one. but there was this real diversification in the drinkingk habits of inamerica.

>> wine in the 70s. that's interesting because as i understand it, he also wrote like his second career after hey retired was to try to reform wine tasting language. 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