Alcohol and Drugs History Society

Southern evangelicals and alcohol, 1865-1915 (article)

Michael Lewis, "Keeping Sin from Sacred Spaces: Southern Evangelicals and the Socio-Legal Control of Alcohol, 1865-1915," Southern Cultures 15/2 (Summer 2009): 40-60.

John Stamp and Christian temperance (article)

D. Colin Dews, "The Rev. John Stamp: Primitive Methodist Secessionist and the Christian Temperance Brethren," Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society 57/5 (May 2010): 178-190.  Dews is secretary of the Yorkshire branch of the Wesley Historical Society.

Intoxicating wine and the eucharist in Victorian Methodism (book)

Jennifer Lynn Woodruff Tait, The Poisoned Chalice: Eucharistic Grape Juice and Common-Sense Realism in Victorian Methodism (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, forthcoming 2011). Based on her 2005 Duke University dissertation.  The author is adjunct professor for distance education at the programs of Asbury Theological Seminary, Huntingdon University, Southwestern College, and United Theological Seminary.

Priests, publicans and the Irish in mid-19th century Liverpool (article)

John Belche,, "Priests, Publicans and the Irish Poor: Ethnic Enterprise and Migrant Networks in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Liverpool,"Immigrants & Minorities 23/2 (2005): 207-231.

Ancient Greek and Roman Explanations for Drunkenness (Article)

Courtesy of Steve Thompson, Avondale College, Cooranbong NSW Australia

How did ancient Greeks and Romans explain drunkenness? Recent close scrutiny of relevant Greek and Roman literature has turned up three explanations for drunkenness brought about by wine consumption. 

The first was that it was cased by something in the drinker's nature. The second was that there was something present in wine. These two explanations could be considered precursors to contemporary scientific explanations of drunkenness as a physiological response to a chemical cause. 

The third and most widely-expressed explanation for drunkenness among Greeks and Romans however was spiritual--the drinker "took in" the god, or spirit of wine, which then assumed control of the drinker's life for a time. This view was expressed by a wide range of highbrow as well as lowbrow Greek and Roman authors, and crops up in every phase of Greek and Roman literature. 

For details see Steve Thompson, "Daimon Drink: Ancient Greek and Roman Explanations for Drunkenness," Christian Spirituality and Science 8/1 (2010): 7-24. Full text available at the following link: http://research.avondale.edu.au/css/vol8/iss1/2

Catholic total abstinence movement in Minnesota (old articles)

The Roman Catholic total abstinence movement in the United States has been little studied, so it may be worthwhile to draw attention to two articles published in 1908-1909 that can be read at Google Books.  The articles were written by James Michael Reardon (1873-1963), a Canadian-born priest who wrote prolifically about the diocese of St. Paul.  The articles are "The Beginning of the Catholic Total Abstinence Movement in Minnesota," Acta et Dicta vol. 1, no. 1 (July 1908); and "The Catholic Total Abstinence Movement in Minnesota: Period of Growth, 1869-1876," Acta et Dicta vol. 2, no. 1 (July 1909).

Father Mathew, temperance, and the Irish in lowcountry South Carolina (article)

Paul Townsend, "Mathewite Temperance in Atlantic Perspective," The Irish in the Atlantic World, ed. David T. Gleeson [The Carolina Lowcountry and the Atlantic World] (University of South Carolina Press, 2010).

Quakers, chocolate, and temperance in the UK

The recent takeover of Cadbury by the American firm Kraft occasions a look at the role of temperance-minded Quakers in the British chocolate and sweets industries.  In the 19th century it began with the drink cocoa.  The major Quaker firms were Cadbury (Birmingham), Fry (Bristol), and Rowntree and Terry (both York).  For more, see here.

American Jews, the WCTU, and the temperance movement (article)

Marni Davis, "'No Whisky Amazons in the Tents of Israel': American Jews and the Gilded Age Temperance Movement," American Jewish History 94/3 (September 2008).  Davis is writing a book (tentatively entitled Jews and Booze, to be published by New York University Press) on the involvement (real and imagined) of Jews in the liquor business in the decades leading up to National Prohibition.

"Christian perfection," human agency, and temperance among evangelicals (article)

Jessica Warner, "Temperance, Alcohol, and the American Evangelical: A Reassessment," Addiction 104/7 (July 2009): 1075-1084.  Temperance was prevalent in denominations that emphasized the doctrine of "Christian perfection," less so in those that de-emphasized human agency.