Contrary to the situation with opiate abuse and addiction in the 19th century, when most drug addicts were middle- and upper-class females, alcoholism was overwhelmingly a male problem in the 1800s. It was also a very prevalent problem. According to author Levinthal, in 1830, the average per capita consumption of alcohol in the United States was five drinks per day, which is about four times the average level of alcohol consumption in the 21st century. Many people at that time took whiskey breaks at 11 A.M. and 4 P.M. every day except Sunday.

Today it is a basic axiom that Prohibition in the 20th century was a failure, yet historians state that there were valid reasons for a strong desire to eliminate the use of alcohol at that time. According to author Catherine Gilbert Murdock in Domesticating Drink: Women, Men, and Alcohol in America 1870-1940, alcohol abuse in the 19th and early 20th centuries was at a massive scale unknown to most Americans in the 21st century.

Says Gilbert Murdock, "Public drunkards were a pathetic, everyday spectacle in villages and cities throughout America. Drink really did kill men and ruin families, and millions of citizens felt that the best way to meet the crisis would be to eliminate alcoholic beverages."

Although many men consumed alcohol, women were actively discouraged from drinking. Gilbert Murdock indicates that one reason was that scientists of the late 19th century believed that even moderate consumption of alcohol would harm each generation that followed, to a successively greater extent, such that their children would be at risk for becoming drinkers and their grandchildren would be at an even greater risk. Clearly, these scientists did not understand that behavior does not affect basic genetic structure or genetic predispositions--at least as far as is known today.

In the latter part of the 19th century, the saloon, a bastion of male drinking, became a popular location for many men. Says Gilbert Murdock, "In a world lacking cheap restaurants, public rest rooms, libraries, meeting halls, even check-cashing facilities, the saloon served as an oasis." Of course, this oasis was not open to females, unless they were barmaids or prostitutes. Gilbert Murdock indicates that the saloon was ubiquitous and in some working-class neighborhoods, there was one saloon for every 400 residents.

References:

1)         Levinthal, Charles F. "The History of Drug Use and Drug Legislation." In Drugs, Society, and Criminal Justice. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2006.

2)         Murdock, Catherine Gilbert. Domesticating Drink: Women, Men, and Alcohol in America, 1870-1940. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.

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