Cheers and Jeers: Alcohol in America [rebroadcast]

BackStory

History, Education

4.5 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2015

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A new year has dawned, and we’re willing to bet that Americans across the nation are fighting off hangovers after ringing it in with a drink—or three. On this episode of BackStory, we’re raising our glasses to the long history of alcohol in America. The Guys will consider how and why the consumption and production of alcohol have ebbed and flowed throughout the centuries. We’ll learn how rum became the drink of choice among revolutionary troops, explore why Native Americans were rejecting alcohol two centuries before the rest of the country, and follow the long march toward Prohibition.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is backstory. I'm Peter Onor.
0:05.0	The decisive vote of the 36th state against prohibition is Happy News for the grain raises of the United States and for many other...
0:12.0	In December of 1933, the nation abandoned the great social experiment called prohibition.
0:18.0	In hindsight, it seems like a colossal failure, but back then, that wasn't so clear.
0:24.0	Al Capone's out there, crime is out there, murder is out there.
0:28.0	At the same time, you've got a lot of Americans, a majority probably, taking great pride in what the federal government is trying to do and seeing it as noble.
0:36.0	But how did the government come to outlaw booze in the first place?
0:40.0	This was a nation vounded by people who drank hard cider for breakfast.
0:44.0	Even the continental army was drunk much of the time.
0:48.0	In fact, Washington was incredibly concerned that soldiers were not getting enough to drink.
0:54.0	The history of alcohol in America today on backstory.
1:00.0	Major funding for backstory is provided by an anonymous donor, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.
1:12.0	From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, this is backstory.
1:17.0	With the American History Guys.
1:21.0	Welcome to the show. I'm Brian Bellow, and I'm here with Ed Ayers.
1:25.0	Hi, Brian. And Peter Onif's with us.
1:28.0	See you there, Brian.
1:29.0	Smashed, blitzed, blasted, sourced.
1:33.0	Slashed, blustered, buzzed.
1:35.0	Snockered, is it one? Fustigated.
1:37.0	Spizzlikated.
1:38.0	Lickered up. Crocked.
	...

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