Forwarded from Patricia Barton

The 5th International Conference on the History of Drugs and Alcohol: 
The Pathways to Prohibition,

26-28th June 2009, CSHHH, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland

When John Shanks acquired the Barrhead pottery company to establish 
his "sanitary engineering workshop" in the late nineteenth century, 
the decision was more than a simple business one.  The man who was to 
become the President of the Barrhead Evangelist Association chose the 
town, which bordered Glasgow, as it had the reputation of having the 
highest number of pubs per head of population. Workers had to sign 
the temperance pledge to ensure employment.  Shanks was following in 
the footsteps of temperance campaigner Sir William Collins, Glasgow 
book publisher and Lord Provost who earned the nickname "Water 
Willie".  In Britain, however, the impact of such campaigners 
remained local, and only those who adopted the global/colonial 
platform against intoxicants met with success.  Such limited 
influence paved the ground for the British anti-intoxicant policy of 
the twentieth century which rejected prohibition for the medical 
solution, ultimately another localised response to local problems.

The conference is seeking papers on the broad subject of the 
'pathways to prohibition', the underlying motives governing policy 
and reactions to policymaking across the globe.  Proposed papers or 
panels can be on any topic in the history of drugs and alcohol, but 
some issues to be considered include the ways in which the cultures 
of consumption evolved to meet the challenge of prohibition; the 
impact upon previously good citizens, including distillers and 
brewers, whose activities were now criminalised; the changing images 
of consumption under prohibition policies; the construction of 
consumption which underlay decisions to instigate prohibition or 
reject it; the effectiveness of the merging of local initiatives with 
national and international politics of prohibition.

Abstracts of proposed papers (no more than 500 words long) or of 
proposed panels should be sent by email, fax or post by November 15th 2008 to

Dr Patricia Barton
CSHHH
Dept of History
University of Strathclyde
16 Richmond Street
Glasgow
G1 1XQ
Scotland
E: <mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask]
Tel: 44 (0)141 548 2932/ Fax: 44 (0)141 552 8509


Dan Malleck, PhD
Assistant Professor, Community Health Sciences
Brock University
500 Glenridge Ave
St. Catharines, Ontario
L2S 3A1
905 688-5550 ext 5108

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