Taverns and Drinking in Early America
Sharon V. Salinger's Taverns and Drinking in Early America supplies the first study of public houses and drinking throughout the mainland British colonies. At a time when drinking water supposedly endangered one's health, colonists of every rank, age, race, and gender drank often and in quantity, and so taverns became arenas for political debate, business transactions, and small-town gossip sessions. Salinger explores the similarities and differences in the roles of drinking and tavern...
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"Offers a fresh perspective on one of the colonial period's most important social institutions and the drinking behavior that was central to it... Salinger's work is compelling throughout... A significant and satisfying book." — American Historical Review Carole Shammas Without question,Salinger has gone beyond the existing research in this comprehensive look at the role drinking and the tavern played in the lives of colonial Americans. She provides new insights into the ubiquity of public houses,the rules governing the drinker and their enforcement, and the many functions taverns served for their principal clientele, free white adult men.
1Dutch and English origins : for the "receiving and refreshment of travaillers and strangers"82Inside the tavern : "knots of men rightly sorted"483Preventing drunkenness and keeping good order in the seventeenth century : "a hard of planters on the ground/O'er-whelmed with punch, dead drunk we found"834Eighteenth-century legislation and prosecution : "lest a flood of rum do overwhelm all good order among us"1215Licensing criteria and law in the eighteenth century : "sobriety, honesty and discretion in the ... masters of such houses"1516Too many taverns? : "little better than nurseries of vice and debauchery"1827The tavern degenerate : "rendezvous of the very dreggs of the people"210
\ William and Mary QuarterlyThe most comprehensive survey to date of this curiously underinvestigated aspect of early American social life... [Contains] a wealth of illustrative and amusing anecdotes... Well researched and informative.\ — Simon Middleton\ \ \ \ \ \ Pennsylvania Magazine of History and BiographySalinger gives us the best description yet available of the nature of tavern life and the efforts of colonial governments to manage it.\ — Elaine Frantz Parsons\ \ \ \ South Carolina Historical MagazineSalinger's book offers the broadest study yet of the role of taverns in colonial life, and readers will find a good deal of useful information presented in clear and accessible prose.\ — Matthew Mulcahy\ \ \ \ \ \ Journal of Southern HistoryThis important book offers the first recent attempt at a comparative synthesis combined with a general interpretation of tavern life.\ — Richard P. Gildrie\ \ \ \ \ \ American Historical ReviewOffers a fresh perspective on one of the colonial period's most important social institutions and the drinking behavior that was central to it... Salinger's work is compelling throughout... A significant and satisfying book.\ — Mark Edward Lender\ \ \ \ \ \ Journal of American HistoryA richly detailed study that helps us understand popular and genteel culture in early America, the place of drink in everyday life, and the relationship between law and perceptions of disorderly behavior.\ — Paul G. E. Clemens\ \ \ \ \ \ North Carolina Historical ReviewA thorough overview of this often overlooked institution in early America.\ — George Brown\ \ \ \ \ \ Virginia Magazine of History and BiographyTaverns and Drinking in Early America pulls together the results of many other works focused more narrowly on particular colonies or regions and provides a much greater synthesis than we have ever enjoyed before... A well-written, very entertaining overview of an important subject.\ — Daniel B. Thorp\ \ \ \ \ \ Carole ShammasWithout question,Salinger has gone beyond the existing research in this comprehensive look at the role drinking and the tavern played in the lives of colonial Americans. She provides new insights into the ubiquity of public houses,the rules governing the drinker and their enforcement, and the many functions taverns served for their principal clientele, free white adult men.\ \
