Prohibition

Going back to Rotisserie Baseball, remember the co-founder from the 30for30 documentary, Dan Okrent? Apparently he's a pretty famous media dude too. He was an editor for the NYT and Time, and a Pulitzer nominee. His recent book is about the hidden history of prohibition, and the interview below is pretty interesting.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126613316

Some factoids:

- "Brand name" liquors started from prohibition. Before that, people just ordered "scotch" or "beer" at a saloon and didn't care who made it. But due to the spread of nasty improvised booze (in some cases, filtered from industrial alcohol in paint thinner), you had to buy brand name to feel more confident that you wouldn't sicken yourself from knock-off crap. But of course the spread of phony booze labels made it harder for the consumer. So China learned from us.

- Prohibition did more for woman's lib than we would imagine. Women's suffrage groups made deals with anti-booze groups, like "you vote for my cause and I'll vote for yours". Also before prohibition, "bars" were men-only saloons. Speak-easies were the first co-ed alcoholic social establishments, persisted after prohibition, and never again did hot chicks have to drink at home alone, or pay for a drink. 

- Due to the advent of federal income tax, Washington had less need to tax liquors, so the anti-booze conservatives had more clout. And the crash of 1929 was one of the big economic motivators to repeal prohibition and recoup liquor tax revenues.

- Turn-of-the-century America was getting more anti-immigrant, much like 100 years later. WWI created anti-German sentiment, and there was also the usual anti-Jew/Catholic bigotry. Those people happened to be big booze makers at the time, so the Midwest WASPs used prohibition to indirectly promote racism/xenophobia. Speaking of racism, I find it funny today, but part of prohibition was to keep booze out of black hands. I guess whites were fearful of drunk out-of-control blacks.

- Sacramental and medicinal alcohol were still permitted during prohibition. As you would expect, the number of prescriptions for alcohol and the number of rabbis authorized to distribute wine (as well as the size of Jewish/Catholic congregations) ballooned during prohibition. It was pretty similar to the "medicinal pot" fad now I guess. Drug stores were one of the "dispensaries" where one could obtain medicinal booze. Not surprisingly, the Chicago-based Walgreen's chain exploded from 20 to 525 stores during prohibition.