Another variable in prevalence of student drinking would be the various (and
changing) attitudes of colleges and university toward the issue.  Much of
this is driven by laws -- and lawsuits -- but certainly an institution's
policies regarding student drinking will have some impact on consumption.
In the 1970s my undergraduate alma mater made what appeared to be at the
time a concerted effort to encourage on-campus drinking, presumably to
discourage off-campus drunk driving.  Beer flowed freely, frequently free,
from freshman orientation on, generally underwritten by the university.
Things are very different today, with a higher drinking age and changing
attitudes.  I was on the campus a couple of years ago doing research, and
happened to be there the afternoon of fraternity and sorority rush.
Hundreds of undergraduates were outside, visiting and listening to music,
and drinking sodas and bottled water.  On my way back to the parking lot
from the library I passed the student center, where a campus police officer
was standing guard in front of the restrooms, barring entry.  I heard a
student ask him why he couldn't enter, and the officer replied brusquely,
"Alcohol incident."

The times, they are a'changing.

James Ivy

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Fahey" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 11:39 AM
Subject: Re: history of drinking at college -- rusty memory


> A few comments.  Although there is a fair amount of material for
historical
> studies of college drinking, historians and historically minded social
> scientists don't do them. This is odd since so many scholars are
> campus-based.  Also we should consider changes in drinking laws (and
> institutional policies), even as we recognize that formal rules don't tell
> us all that we want to know about behavior.  For instance, when I went to
> college in New York State in the 1950s, 18-year-olds could buy alcohol
> legally.  At a college-sponsored party for the staff of the campus
> newspaper on which I worked there was an open bar.  It was there, at age
> 18, that I had my first drink of hard liquor.  And my second.  And my
third
> ....  It is the only time in my life that I got sick as the result of
> drinking alcohol (and, probably unfortunately, didn't suffer a
> hangover).  I hadn't known the practical difference between a Manhattan
> (yes, that was a student drink in 1955) and a Coke.  Another topic,
faculty
> drinking.  When I arrived at my present job in the late 1960s, cocktail
> parties that served hard liquor were common.  Not now.  Today I know very
> few people who drink Scotch or bourbon (or my father's favorite, rye
> whiskey).  It is like the disappearance of tobacco smoke.  Finally, my
> university has a reputation, deserved or not, for undergraduate
> boozing.  Beer is the preferred drink, whether at keg parties, or with six
> packs, or at the uptown bars.  With March just around the corner, I should
> refer to the local tradition of Green Beer Day, when student-oriented
> taverns open (very) early to serve green-dyed beer.
>
>
> At 08:26 AM 2/13/2004 -0800, you wrote:
> >Dick,
> >
> >Yes, I did a little participant observation of watering holes in my salad
> >years.  Also, my folks built a house in Portola Valley in the late 1950s
> >and I used to drive by Rosotti's now and then.  But I suspect that there
> >was a big cultural divide between the college culture of the 1930s and
> >1940s, which may explain some of the foreignness you may see in the
> >passages I posted from the 1936 FORTUNE article.  The 1930s, I suspect,
saw
> >the undergrad population winnowed by the Great Depression, so that the
> >elitist tradition of PRE-post-WWII mass higher education became further
> >distilled down to an even more privileged few.  The 1940s -- or at least
> >the post-WWII '40s -- on the other hand, saw the burgeoning effect of the
> >GI Bill and the breakdown of a long tradition of class privilege.  One of
> >the most interesting articles in my FORTUNE file, BTW, is titled "The
> >Servant Problem" (March, 1938).  Good help, the article laments, was
> >getting almost impossible to find.  Like many FORTUNE articles, this one
is
> >laced with statistics drawn from a subscriber social survey of the
domestic
> >service topic.  Tantalizing assertions are sprinkled throughout,
including,
> >e.g., "...<more than half> of the persons who have no servants today had
at
> >least one in 1929" (p. 114, col. 1).  (FORTUNE is a treasure trove for
> >social history in part because of its commitment to survey studies, even
> >when the sampling approach was not all it might have been.)  Also, I
think
> >the college life article I quoted from had its focus on eastern campuses,
> >which may have differed from Cal and Stanfurd.  Anyhow, I'd say let's cut
> >the article a little more slack, Dick!
> >
> >Ron
> >
> >----------
> >From: Dick B <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: Re: history of drinking at college -- rusty memory
> >Date: Thursday, February 12, 2004 4:46 PM
> >
> >Yes, Ron. It is delightful but not factual. I can speak from my pre-Army
> >fraternity experience at Berzerkely in 1943, my post army experience at
the
> >same watering hole 1946-1948, and my law experience at Stanford where my
> >law
> >review gang (and that included Sandra Day and Bill Rehnquist) were
working
> >too hard to fit the pattern. However, the legendary Rosotti's and other
> >Stanford drinking holes more than sufficed for Stanford. In other words,
> >the
> >academic arena writes good poetry and bad history. By the way, I think
you
> >must have stumbled on some of the drinking spots, the fraternities, and
the
> >campus excitement of the 1940's. I don't imagine you are that old, but I
do
> >believe anyone around Berkeley knows the legends and the facts - both.
Dick
> >B.
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Alcohol and Temperance History Group
> >[mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> >On Behalf Of Ron Roizen
> >Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 1:12 PM
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: Re: history of drinking at college -- rusty memory
> >
> >Beth -- Are you still there?
> >
> >My file of alcohol-related FORTUNE articles turned up, and I'm afraid my
> >memory was less than trustworthy.
> >
> >The article I was vaguely remembering, "Youth in College," appeared in
the
> >June, 1936 (v. 13, starts at p. 99) issue of FORTUNE.  It provides an
> >engaging mini-ethnography of contemporary undergrad life, but offers,
> >unfortunately, not very much on drinking practices per se.
> >
> >Still, what is offered is delightful.
> >
> >Regarding male students:
> >
> >p. 101:  "<Liquor and sex> used to be part of the great triumvirate of
> >campus topics that included religion.  Today economics is to the fore as
> >bull-session pabulum, with religion playing a minor role.  Liquor as a
> >conventional topic is passe.  Less flamboyant drinking is the present day
> >rule; there is no prohibition law to defy, hence one can drink in peace.
> >As for sex, it is, of course, still with us.  But the campus takes it
more
> >casually that it did ten years ago.  Sex is no longer news.  And the fact
> >that it is no longer news is news."
> >
> >p. 102, col. 1:  "At six o'clock an infinitesimal number of
undergraduates
> >may serve cocktails (gin and lemon juice) in their rooms.  But the
typical
> >student will go from his sports straight to dinner."
> >
> >p. 102, col. 2:  "Between ten-thirty and twelve-thirty the campus
subsides
> >into sleep.  A few independent drunks, who care little for the Friday or
> >Saturday night tradition, come roaring in at three, but the average
> >undergraduate doesn't get tight until classes and study are over for the
> >week.  Weekends are not so frequent as they used to be, the obvious
reason
> >being that money has not been plentiful.  But one does not have to go far
> >away from college to drink.  The stages of college inebriation are ranked
> >as follows:  high, tight, looping, stinking, plastered, out.  Some would
> >put tight after looping.  But regardless of the grading of intermediate
> >philological degrees of drunkenness, most of the drinking undergraduates
> >think high is the desirable state of glow for a weekday night and even
for
> >the ordinary weekend.  At spring house parties and at the football games
> >the student can proceed to the tight and looping (or looping and tight)
> >stages without causing any particular commotion."
> >
> >There's more, on females, but nothing specifically on drinking -- unless
I
> >missed it.
> >
> >Ron