Alcohol and Drugs History Society

Intoxicants and intoxication in cultural and historical perspective (conference)

Call for papers: "Intoxicants and Intoxication in Cultural and Historical Perspective," 20 July-22 July 2010, at Christ College, Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.  Abstracts and short CV should be sent to Phil Withington (University of Cambridge) and Angela McShane (Victoria and Albert Museum) at <pjw1003@cam.ac.uk> by 30 September 2009.  See the conference website here.  

For an earlier related workshop, see below:

WORKSHOP ONE  Wednesday 10th September 2008, V&A

 

Session 1, Archaeology and Material Culture

 

10.55	Masculinity and the Material Culture of Drinking in Medieval England, Dawn Hadley
11.15	Ritual encounters: punch parties and masculinity in the eighteenth century,Karen Harvey
11.35	Substance Abuse: Design and Drugs in the Post-modern Era, Glenn Adamson
11.55	Break
12.00	Commentaries by Richard Morris and Angela McShane
12.25	General Discussion
13.00	LUNCH

 

Session 2, Historical Anthropology and Sociology

 

14.00	Indians and Drunkenness in Spanish America, Rebecca Earle
14.20	Company and Social Change in Early Modern England, Phil Withington
14.40	Time and Temperance in Kenya, Justin Willis
15.00	Break
15.05	Commentaries by James Kneale and Jason Hughes
15.25	General Discussion
16.15	Handling Session of V&A objects led by Angus Patterson

 

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WORKSHOP TWO  Friday 30th January 2009, V&A  

 

PROGRAMME                                         

9.45 -10.50	Arrive at Reception at V&A Staff Entrance, Exhibition Road Tea, coffee and biscuits, Postgraduate Course Common Room, V&A
10.50	Introductions (Phil Withington and Angela McShane)
Session 1, Literary and Visual Culture
10.55	Intoxication and Literary Culture in Early Modern England, Michelle O’Callaghan (Reading)
11.15	Picturing Drunkenness and Changing States, Valerie Mainz (Leeds)
11.35	On the Origin and Progress of Temperance: Basil Montagu’s ‘Some Enquiries into the Effects of Fermented Liquors’ in Context, James Nicholls (Bath Spa)
11.55	Coffee Break: Course Common Room
12.00	Commentaries by Angela Wright (Sheffield) and Tom Nichols (Aberdeen
12.25	General Discussion
13.00	LUNCH: Course Common Room

Session 2, Political Economy
14.00	Public Houses in the Political Economy of Pre-industrial Europe, Beat Kumin (Warwick)
14.20	TBC, John Chartres (Leeds)
14.40	Contested Narratives of Khat Consumption: the Push for Prohibition? David Anderson (Oxford)
15.00	Tea Break: Course Common Room
15.05	Commentaries by Peter Thompson (Oxford) and Jean Stubbs (London Metropolitan)
15.25	General Discussion
16.15 - 17.00	Handling Session of V&A objects from the East Asian Collections
17.00...	Intoxicants (in practice!): We have been invited for drinks in the 1606 Lounge Bar at the Rembrandt Hotel, opposite the V&A, from 6pm, where we will join the AHRC Early Modern Dress and Textiles Research Network.

 

Latin American theme for Social History of Alcohol and Drugs (Spring 2009)

The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs 23/2 (Spring 2009) focuses on Latin America with articles on Brazil, the Andean countries, and Mexico.  The book reviews cover many parts of the world. Details later.

Drug Use and Addiction in War

Tom Langdale wrote this short article, dated July 9, 2009, for High 5 Men's Magazine.

CFP: history of alcohol in Latin America

Collection on the history of alcohol in Latin America, edited by Aurea Toxqui and Gretchen Pierce.

We are soliciting proposals from both senior and junior scholars for an edited collection on the history of alcohol in Latin America from the pre-Hispanic to the modern era.  We are looking for submissions that relate alcohol production, consumption, distribution, or control to (among other topics) politics, religion, race, class, gender, identity, space and place, and power. The proposal should be 1-2 pages (300-700 words), and should include a list of keywords.  They may be written in English, Spanish, or Portuguese.  Please send the proposal and a short cv to atoxqui@bumail.bradley.edu and gkpierce@ship.edu by September 1, 2009.  Successful applicants will be notified by October 15; papers, which ought to be 20 pages, plus notes, would be due on July 1, 2010.

-- 
Gretchen Pierce, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Latin American and World History
Shippensburg University

'Predrinking' and Drunkenness

Alcohol control policy researchers are debating the relationship between these two topics in Addiction magazine, 104, Jan 2009. A link to the first two pages of commentary (following an article on 'pre-drinking' by S. Wells, K Graham, and J. Purcell) is here. The categorical accuracy/utility of the term 'predrinking' is called into question by R. Room and M. Livingston.

Temperance and drink in Nebraska

Two articles by Patricia C. Gaster in Nebraska History: "A Fallen Victim to 'the Liquor Curse': The Life and Death [1912] of Samuel D. Cox" 89/2 (2008): 84-93; "Good Grammar and Sensational Style" 88/1-2 (2007): 28-41 [re Wm E. "Pussyfoot"Johnson, his temperance Daily Bumble Bee (published against the Omaha Bee), and the fight for prohibition in 1890.

Drink Talking (book)

Drink Talking : 100 Years of Alcohol Advertising. by Penny Dade, (Series: Library of historic advertising) [London]: Middlesex University Press, 2008. 160p. Here's the link to the publisher's webpage for the book.

Alcohol as a health enhancer

The New York Times reports on the unresolved hundreds-of-years-old debate here.

Cultural history of the recovery movement (book)

Trysh Travis, The Language of the Heart: a Cultural History of the Recovery Movement from Alcoholics Anonymous to Oprah Winfrey (University of North Carolina Press, forthcoming 2009).

Product Description
In The Language of the Heart Trysh Travis explores the rich cultural history of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and its offshoots and the larger "recovery movement" that has grown out of them. Moving from AA's beginnings in the mid-1930s as a men's fellowship that met in church basements to the thoroughly commercialized addiction treatment centers of today, Travis chronicles the development of recovery and examines its relationship to the broad American tradition of self-help, highlighting the roles that gender, mysticism, and print culture have played in that development.

Travis draws on hitherto unexamined materials from AA's archives as well as a variety of popular recovery literatures. Her analysis traces AA's embrace of the concept of addiction as disease, the rise of feminist sobriety discourse and the codependence theories of the 1970s and 80s, and Oprah Winfrey's turn-of-the-millennium popularization of metaphysical healing. What unites these varied cultures of recovery, Travis argues, is their desire to offer spiritual solutions to problems of gender and power. 

Treating self-help seekers as individuals whose intellectual and aesthetic traditions are worth excavating, The Language of the Heart is the first book to attend to the evolution and variation found within the recovery movement and to treat recovery with the attention to detail that its complexity requires. 

Weed, booze, cocaine and other old school "medicine" ads

Intriguing assemblage of old illustrated advertisements on the blog "Pill Talk," June 9, 2009, here.

Weed, Booze, Cocaine and Other Old School "Medicine" Ads

Posted by Mark Jun 9th, 14:50

Granted, hindsight is 20/20, but some awfully strange substances have been used for pharmaceutical purposes in the past -- and some might argue, continue to be used today. Here are some vintage advertisements touting items that we might balk at taking today.

Cocaine:

Lloyd Cocaine Toothache Drops
In the US, cocaine was sold over the counter until 1914 and was commonly found in products like toothache drops, dandruff remedies and medicinal tonics.



Metcalf's Coca Wine
Coca wine combined wine with cocaine, producing a compound now known as cocaethylene, which, when ingested, is nearly as powerful a stimulant as cocaine.



Vin Mariani Wine
The marketing efforts for coca wine focused primarily on its medicinal properties, in part because it didn't taste very good and in part because the cocaethylene effects were perceived to "fortify and refresh body and brain" and "restore health and vitality."

Heroin:

Bayer Heroin
From 1898 through to 1910, heroin was marketed as a cough suppressant by trusted companies like Bayer -- alongside the company's other new product, Aspirin.



Smith Glyco-Heroin
A mixture of heroin and glycerin. "No other preparation has had its therapeutic value more thoroughly defined or better established."

Opium:

Pantopon Roche Injectable Opium
"Try Pantopon in place of morphine for dependable, optimum relief of pain."

Morphine:

Ayer's Cherry Pectoral
Depending on which list of contents you reference, this cure for colds, coughs and "all diseases of the throat and lungs" contained either morphine or heroin.



Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup
Contained 65 mg of morphine per fluid ounce. "For children teething."

Quaaludes:

Quaalude-300
Brand name for the now-illegal sedative methaqualone. "Now the physician has one less tired, sleepy and apprehensive patient to contend with."

Cigarettes:

Dr. Batty's Asthma Cigarettes
Cigarettes with unknown contents claimed to provide temporary relief of everything from asthma to colds, canker sores and bad breath. "Not recommended for children under 6."

Alcohol:

Anheuser-Bush's Malt-Nutrine
Starting in the late 1800s, many breweries produced "food tonics," malt beverages containing around 2% alcohol that were promoted as "food in liquid form," aiding in digestion, increasing appetite and aiding in sleep. "A boon to nursing mothers."



Pabst Extract
A malt tonic from Pabst. "The best tonic prepares the way for happy, healthy motherhood."

Chloroform:

Kimball White Pine and Tar Cough Syrup
Until 1976, chloroform was used in consumer products like cough syrup, toothpastes, ointments and other pharmaceuticals.

Marijuana:

Cosadein
This cough remedy contained, among other things, codeine, chloroform and cannabis.

Soda:

Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola was invented in the late 1800s as a "coca wine" (see above) mix of wine and cocaine, but the alcohol and cocaine were later replaced with syrup and coca leaves, respectively. Nevertheless, typical coca wine claims of increased vitality remained for many years.



"A valuable brain tonic, and a cure for all nervous affections -- sick head-ache, neuralgia, hysteria, melancholy."

Amphetamines:

Biphetamine
A combination of two amphetamines; known popularly as "black beauties." Marketed for its weight loss benefits.



Norodin
Brand name for methamphetamine. "The selective cerebral action of Norodin is useful in dispelling the shadows of mild mental depression."



Dexedrine
Brand name for dextroamphetamine. "Many of your patients -- particularly housewives -- are crushed under a load of dull, routine duties that leave them in a state of mental and emotional fatigue...Dexedrine will give them a feeling of energy and well-being, renewing their interest in life and living."

Barbiturates:

McNeil Butisol Sodium 
Brand name for butabarbital. "Mabel is unstable...it's 'that time' in her life. To see her through the menopause, there's gentle 'daytime sedation' in Butisol Sodium."



Nembutal Suppositories
Brand name for pentobarbital. "When little patients balk at scary, disquieting examinations...When they need prompt sedation (and the oral route isn't feasible)...try Nembutal sodium suppositories...There is little tendency toward morning-after hangover."



Lakeside Pentobarbital and Phenobarbital
"When crisis demands quick-acting hypnotics."

Unknown-Content Quackery:

Dr. Miles' Nervine
"Since I have been taking Nervine, nothing bothers me."



Wolcott's Instant Pain Annihilator
"A speedy & permanent cure for headache, toothache, neuralgia, catarrh and weak nerves."



Dalley's Magical Pain Extractor
"Molly Pitcher, the heroine of Monmouth, avenging her husband's death."



Dr. Ham's Aromatic Invigorator
A "cure for Dyspepsia, Low Spirits, Nervousness, Heartburn, Colic Pains, Wind in the Stomach or Pains in the Bowels, Headache, Drowsiness, Kidney and Liver Complaints, Melancholy, Delirium Tremens, and Intemperance."