Unlike other social scientists "history department historians" have neglected
the recent and comparative history of drink law, behavior, and attitudes.  I am
in my late 50s, have resided in New York State, Indiana, Massachusetts, and
Ohio, and frequently visited the British Isles.  I have been struck by how the
reform of one time is the target of reform a few years later or at another
place: for instance, minimum legal drinking age.  Also drink law is a palimp-
sest of past policy.  New York-born, I was amazed when as a graduate student in
Indiana I discovered pharmacies selling spirits and as a faculty member in Ohio
the phenomenon of the state monopoly store for spirits (a practice now under
attack by the Governor and being phased out).  When I arrived in my little
college town of Oxford, Ohio, it was dry except for the sale of 3.2 beer.
Since that time it acquired a state store and by referendum in two adjacent
precincts that contained most commerical activity it added sale of beer and
wine both in containers and by the drink and eventually on Sunday too.  State
law elimited 3.2 low alcohol beer (which I think 19-year-olds could purchase)
while raising the minimum legal drinking age to 21.  Keg parties came under
attack at fraternity houses, etc.  Yet other campus drink policies changed to
allow alcoholic drinks to be served at faculty receptions in college buildings.
This contrasts with the suppression of student "Paddy Murphy" parties (where
the intent was drunkenness) and restrictions on "Green Beer" day (more-or-less
St. Patrick's day, depending on when Spring break occurred) when student
taverns opened to sell green-colored beer early in the morning at, say, ten
cents a drink, with the price rising every hour.
 
My ramblings take up too much space, so I won't bother to talk about my years
in a northern Indiana steel mill town where Strohs was king and workingclass
bars apparently remained open all night (at least the one on the corner of the
block where I lived in Gary).
 
David Fahey (Miami Univ., Oxford, OH 45056, USA)
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