Alcohol and Drinking History in America: A Chronology

The Guilded Age

1890s. The first vineyard in Nebraska was 12 acres planted by Peter Pitz near Plattsmouth. ¹

1890.

• The U.S. Supreme Court held that “beer sent into the State of Iowa in sealed kegs cannot be seized without violating the Constitution.”²
• The Wilson Original Packages Act “provided that all intoxicating beverages shipped interstate would be subject to the laws of the destination state upon arrival.”³
• The Prohibition Party elected its first member of the U.S. House of Representatives. ⁴

1891.

• By 1891, Napa Valley had 18,000 acres of vineyards. However, Phylloxera (a disease that attacks the roots of European grape varieties) later reduced that to only about 3,000 acres.
• The Wine and Spirits Association was formed to counter the work of the Anti-Saloon League, Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and other temperance groups.⁵

1892.

• The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) had a membership of about 150,000 women across the nation.⁶
• The Pabst Brewing company became the first in the U.S. to brew over one million barrels in one year.⁴⁴

1893.

• The Ohio Anti-Saloon League was founded and two years later became the Anti-Saloon League of America.⁷
• A group scholars formed the prestigious Committee of Fifty for the Investigation of the Liquor Problem. A subcommittee, headed by faculty from Harvard and Clark University, found the WCTU's program of temperance instruction seriously defective. The investigators concluded that "under the name of ‘Scientific Temperance Instruction' there has been grafted upon the public school system of nearly all our States an educational scheme relating to alcohol which is neither scientific, nor temperate, nor instructive." ⁸
• The American Temperance University was established in 1893 in Harriman Tennessee, which was a town planned and developed as a completely dry municipality. Although it enjoyed a promising start, it closed in 1908.⁹ No information exists on the nature of the science curriculum taught.
• Edward Fairchild made Concord and Delaware wine commercially near Oklahoma City in Oklahoma between 1893 and 1907, when the state became a dry and destroyed his enterprise.¹⁰

1894. Seven of the largest wine companies formed the California Wine Association and came to produce about 80% of the state’s production.¹¹

1895.

• The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union began a very damaging three year national boycott in the U.S. against root beer because it falsely assumed that the beverage was alcoholic. It abandoned the boycott in 1898 after an independent lab analysis reported that a bottle of root beer contained about the same amount of alcohol as half a loaf of bread.¹²
• Wine fraud has always been a serious problem. In 1895, the American consul in Le Havre reported to his superiors in Washington that a great deal of what was being shipped as french wine had little or no connection with French grapes.¹³

1896. William Ashley "Billy" Sunday began his preaching career and became one of the major promoters of temperance. Following Repeal, “his sermons became more extreme and reactionary, promoting a specific type of Americanism that excluded those who were not native-born fundamentalist Christians.” Billy Sunday died a wealthy man in 1935.¹⁴

1897. At the request of distillers, Congress passed the Bottled in Bond Act of 1897, enabling them to assure customers of the authenticity and quality standards of their products. to be labeled “bottled in bond,” a bourbon must be at least 100 proof (50 percent alcohol), produced by only one distiller in one season, and be aged at least four years in a warehouse closely supervised by the U.S. Treasury Department.¹⁵

1898. The first brewery opened in Hawaii.¹⁶

1899. The Anti-Saloon League opened legislative offices in Washington, DC.¹⁷

1900.

• Famous WCTU member Carry A. Nation (who copyrighted her name) began destroying saloons with a hatchet until her death in 1911.¹⁸
• The Miller Brewing Company became the second in the U.S. to produce at least one million barrels in one year, the first being Pabst in 1892.¹⁹

1901-1902. During the 1901-1902 school year, 22 million school children were exposed to mandatory Scientific Temperance Instruction (anti-alcohol education), according to the WCTU.²⁰

1901.

• “The lager brewed by Adolphus Busch had overtaken Pabst in 1901 to become the nations best-selling beer.”²¹
• Congress passed the Anti-Canteen Law, which prohibited “the sale or dealing in beer, wine or any intoxicating liquors by any person in any post exchange or canteen or on army transport or upon any premises used for military purposes by the United States.”²²
• Ernest H. Cherrington joined the Anti-Saloon League and became one of its most powerful leaders; edited The Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, a comprehensive six-volume work that was distributed to schools throughout the country; was active in establishing the World League Against Alcoholism; and headed the Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Morals of the Methodist Church until shortly before his death in 1950. He was one of the few prohibition leaders whose reputation was not harmed by public revelations of racial or religious bigotry, sexual infidelity, financial improprieties, political scandals, or other moral/ethical problems.²³
• The Intercollegiate Prohibition Association was established and within two years was reportedly the third largest collegiate organization in the country. After Prohibition was repealed its name was changed to Intercollegiate Association for the Study of Alcohol.²⁴

1902. The barrel tax on beer was reduced following the Spanish-American war.²⁵

1903.

• The first fully automatic bottle-making machine was built. A later version produced over 50,000 bottles per day.²⁶
• The Lincoln-Lee Legion was established to promote the signing of abstinence pledges by children. Originally the Lincoln League, it was renamed the Lincoln-Lee League to obtain more signatures from children in southern states. It operated under the auspices of the Anti-Saloon League.²⁷
• Purley Baker became head of the national Anti-Saloon League. An important part of his strategy was to demonize brewers, virtually all of whom were German-Americans. For example, he asserted that Germans "eat like gluttons and drink like swine."²⁸

1906. The Scientific Temperance Federation was created upon the death of Mary Hunt, head of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union's Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction in Schools and Colleges. It was necessitated by legal arrangements that Mary Hunt had made to conceal the income from her "voluntary" work approving which texts were used across the U.S. clouded ownership of her estate. It published temperance materials until at least 1968.²⁹

1907. Georgia and Oklahoma became the first states in the U.S. to adopt statewide prohibition in the twentieth century.³⁰

1908.

• Mississippi and North Carolina adopted statewide prohibition.³¹
• The Anti-Saloon League established its Industrial Relations Department under the direction of S. S. Kresge, the retail store tycoon. The League also obtained the money necessary to build a very large printing plant for the League's expanded public information campaign.³²
• The American Temperance University, which had opened in 1893 in Harriman, Tennessee, closed.³³

1909.

• Tennessee adopted statewide prohibition.³⁵
• The Anti-Saloon League reported that over 41 million Americans were living in dry states or other dry areas. That was over 45 percent of the entire population of the U.S.³⁶
• By 1909, two-thirds of Chicago precincts had voted to go dry.³⁷
• The American Issue Publishing Company was established as the holding company of the Anti-Saloon League of America. It operated 24 hours a day printing materials promoting prohibition.³⁸

1910.

• The Holy Bible Repudiates “Prohibition” was published. Its subtitle was “Compilation of all Verses Containing the Words “Wine” or “Strong Drink,” Proving that the Scriptures Commend and Command the Temperate Use of Alcoholic Beverages.” ³⁹
• The Temperance Educational Quarterly began publication. It printed abstinence pledges for students to sign, presented quotations on the evils of alcohol, published articles about the horrible consequences of drinking any alcohol, and printed detailed temperance lesson plans for teaches.⁴⁰

1911. Alabama’s state-wide prohibition law was replaced by a law creating local option by county.⁴¹

1912.

• West Virginia adopted statewide prohibition.⁴²
• The Methodist Church “established the Board of Temperance [later named the Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Morals] which worked closely with the Anti-Saloon League in an anti-liquor crusade aimed ultimately at national legal prohibition.” Following Repeal, the church continued to support prohibition at the state and local levels.⁴³