Customer Reviews

Rum Punch & Revolution: Taverngoing & Public Life in Eighteenth Century Philadelphia (Early American Studies)

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Rum Punch & Revolution: Taverngoing & Public Life in Eighteenth Century Philadelphia. Author: Peter Thompson. 265 pages. 1998.

When visiting the gift shops of several local historic sites you often see titles related to taverns or drinking in colonial society. Having eaten and imbibed in several period taverns I finally felt ready to read up on the role of taverns and drinking in this period of American history.

This book is not written for the casual reader it is deeply rooted in the academic writing style. In other words about a third of the text is used to reference the text as in, "as we will see in the third chapter", or "... as was covered in the previous chapter". Frankly this style of telling me what I am going to read now and later as well as what I just read and trying to link everything at all times is like reading Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It is too bad that this writing style was allowed to infect and dominate the social history movement.

The message in the book itself is an interesting one. The author makes a case for the uniqueness of tavern culture in Philadelphia as opposed to other nascent American cities along the Atlantic Seaboard of the Colonial and into the Federal Era. The author makes a case for the evolution of the role and meaning of the tavern in Philadelphia society. The book approaches the issue in a general history of taverns across the seaboard and in England. The author then describes their planting in Philadelphia and their early development. This stage lasts until their fundamental societal change after the Revolution and into the prosperity of the Federal era. The author approaches the study through the legal boundaries and definitions of taverns and their operations, the role and history of the tavern keepers and finally the patrons themselves.

In a previous review of the book; Inns, tales, and taverns of Chester County, I noted that; "...the classification of various taverns and how you could tell who the patrons were by the names. The classifications for taverns from the in terms of social ranking from highest to the lowest were stage stand, wagon stand, drove stand, and the tap-house. The stage stand served coach travelers, business men, and the wealthy. A wagon stand served wagoneers and teamsters hauling supplies from rural areas to port cities for sale or export. Drove stands were used by immigrants, local workers, and by those herding livestock to markets. The poorest of the population patronized tap-houses as a meeting place. You could go down but not up. Prices and quality varied by class as well. "

In Philadelphia this was not the case until during the Federal Period after the revolution. There existed in the city a mingling of classes shoulder to shoulder around the tap. There were though two general types of taverns. The first was the multi-service tavern and the other was the ale or dram shop which only sell spirits or ale. These classifications were driven by the type of license the tavern keeper possessed. Licensees were renewed frequently and there was a preference given to the poor and to women. Though the primary determinant seemed to have been the character of the individual who applied for the license. The fathers of Philadelphia felt that high moral character of the tavern keeper was the greatest determinant that the tavern would not be a den of iniquity.

These taverns were further regulated by a series of fixed price maximums. There were maximums for various types of beverage, food, lodging, and stabling. This made alcohol affordable and reigned in profits forcing tavern keepers to broaden the appeal of their tavern across the social spectrum in order to be profitable.

The requirement for broad social appeal forced a mixing of the classes, their interests, their voices, and their notions of behavior. The practices of toasting and dancing took on serious implications about inner beliefs. Inner character was often weighed by ones behavior in the public tavern. This, in an age of heavy alcohol consumption. It was very common for workers to drink three quarts of ale or cider a day, and it was considered a cost of doing business for employers to provide and or allow for this. There were enough taverns both licensed and on the sly to provide a ration of one tavern for about every 50 citizens a ration much higher than Europe or anywhere else along the seaboard. The ration would remain mostly stable until the Federal Period when tavern numbers decreased and population increased.

Once the revolution was won and the Federal Age settles in with its prosperity and population explosion the age of price controls began to come to an end. This brought on the type of segregated drinking establishments referenced in Inns, tales, and taverns of Chester County. Society was stratifying and emphasizing its differences once the common struggle was done.

The book is well researched and provided a lot of fodder to chew on and ruminate about in terms of social mores, societal structure and the impact of the revolution in society. My only complaint was in its presentation.

As a pure piece of social history, this is a lovely piece of work. Those of us who enjoy the perspective of daily life have to be thrilled. Thompson takes us into the actual social life of tavern-goers in one of America's most tavern-friendly cities. That his inquiry is set in the 18th century and that it concerns the founding of American democracy is a splendid bonus. That it is a scourge to Prohibitionists is a minor blessing.

But what makes this book so delightful is that in the election season of 2008, it offers a look at a conscious attempt to manipulate public opinion by a Keithian minority among Philadelphia's Quakers. Both the main and the rump groups have become largely irrelevant today, but the Rovian air about the way the controversy was conducted: whispered innuendos in taverns, suggestions without accusations about the moral character of opponents. Long before Walter Lippmann, public opinion was being consciously manipulated.

"Philadelphians" Thompson writes "interpreted provincial policy by reference to the small politics of everyday life." Philadelphians still do that, and I suspect that they are not alone.

Lynn Hoffman, author of The New Short Course in Wine