Month: March 2014

Online References for the Study of Temperance and Prohibition

prohibition in delaware
This Three Gun Wilson temperance title includes lots of material about Delaware. Published online as an ebook by the Hathi Trust it was found through a search with the Digital Public Library of America.

As a visiting scholar and member of the speakers’ bureau at the Delaware Humanities Forum, I lecture on several subjects examining the past in the First State.  The one on temperance and prohibition has received lots of attention lately, as organizations invite me to outline historical attempts to regulate the consumption of alcohol.  This subject often sparks a lively, engaging conversation about the “noble experiment.”

“Pass the Rum:  The Rise and Fall of Prohibition” explores the centuries-long attempt to regulate the consumption of alcohol from a Delaware perspective.  It’s a colorful period and we share the stories of rumrunners, moonshiners, bathtub gin, intriguing personalities, complicated First State Politics, organized crime, outgunned lawmen, and the temperance ladies.

Three Gun (Harold D.) Wilson was one of those intriguing personalities.  A Federal Prohibition Agent, he was sent here to try to keep the spigot turned off after local teetotalers demanded stronger enforcement. Hoping he would “be able to take the word bootlegger out of Delaware’s dictionary,” one Dover newspaper wished him well as he arrived.

But his efforts “rocked the first state” once he started swooping down on rum joints and raiding speakeasies while smashing stills and chasing rumrunners. After a 15-month stay in Wilmington, the orders came to move on to Nebraska.

While participating in a thought-provoking discussion at a downstate organization recently, some of the audience had an interest in investigating temperance and prohibition more deeply, so I promised to share some virtual resources.

The Medical Heritage Library has epublished the title on Beer on the Internet Archive.
The Medical Heritage Library has epublished the title on Beer on the Internet Archive.

The Medical Heritage Library, a digitally curated collaborative among some of the world’s leading medical libraries, provides free and open access to quality historical resources in medicine.  Several early works on alcoholism and temperance are found in this virtual collection of rare books, pamphlets, and journals, which are representative of centuries of increasing knowledge.

Google terms such as prohibition, temperance, alcohol, drunkenness and others.  You will find plenty of texts from earlier times to help you with your examination, including titles as such “The Cold-Waterman or a pocket companion for temperance” by Doctor Springwater (1832).  “Beer, its history and its economic value as National Beverage” by F. W. Salem (1880) is another one.

Three Gun (Harold D.) Wilson also published materials.  One was “Dry Laws and Wet Politicians,” published in 1922.  Another title with a strong Delaware perspective was “Dry Law Facts Not Fiction, 1890 – comparative facts – 1931 sensational dry fact, Delaware fact finder.  It was published by the Press of Kells in Newark, DE. In 1931.

Don’t forget the Wilmington Sunday newspaper, the Sunday Star.  The Google newspaper archive has made it available.

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The Medical Heritage Library makes rare medical texts available.

Observing the Memorial Arts and History in Old Cemeteries

Often when I visit an unfamiliar community for work or vacation, I will pause during my stay to visit the local cemetery.  These old burial grounds are representative of the collective history of a place, and they provide fascinating insight into era and geographically specific cultural norms, artistic values, ethnic influences, and community history.

A walk through these quiet places can be valuable for research or  enjoyable strolling as one observes these surviving relics from an earlier generations.  Depending on the pace of change in a town, the memorials are often some of the last tangible links to the past.

In New England, a region with plenty of fascinating graveyards, the central Vermont region has some particularly notable places.  In Montpelier the spacious park-like setting of Green Mount Cemetery with its many shade trees and ornamental shrubs, has many memorials to catch one’s gaze.    Nearby in Barre, the “granite capital of the world,” is the Hope Cemetery.  It has to be one of the most remarkable for there are many finely sculptured memorials, a testimony to the areas skilled stone cutters and artisans.

Here are a few photos I snapped while we vacationed in the area a few years ago.

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The park setting of Green Mount Cemetery in Montpelier.
In Barre's Hope Cemetery -- Eli Corti. Elia Corti. He was a gifted Italian carver. This life size memorial was carefully carved by his brother William Corti and his brother-in-law John Comi. At the age of thirty-four years he was shot in the Socialist building, following an argument between the socialists and anarchists.
In Barre’s Hope Cemetery the lie size memorial for Eli Corti. He was a gifted Italian carver. At the age of thirty-four years he was shot in the Socialist building, following an argument between the socialists and anarchists.
In Hope Cemetery, Barre, VT. The memorial says Donati. The symbolism is interesting here. The man is smoking a cigarette and in the fashion of something like a pipe dream a woman's hear is positioned in the smoke.
In Hope Cemetery, Barre, VT. The memorial says Donati. The symbolism is interesting here. The man is smoking a cigarette and in the fashion of something like a pipe dream a woman’s head appears in the smoke.
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In Montpelier’s Green Mount Cemetery. — a monument for Raymond H. Quero, 1929 – 1995. It reads: “Ray the cop: in service to others: Montpelier City Patrolman, diary crème operator, 1st Vermont State House, Security Officer, 1972 – 1995:

 

 

Eastern Shore of Virginia Newspapers Online

Special collections institutions continue to digitize newspaper collections rapidly, making them openly available to researchers. These valuable resources aid genealogists, local historians, and public scholars in digging into the past. On those old pages are many print columns about the local community and the people.

While doing fieldwork on Lower Delmarva, I recently needed access to Eastern Shore of Virginia newspapers.  Specifically, I wanted the Peninsula Enterprise, an Accomac, Northampton County, VA weekly.  My first step, a Google query took, me to the Library of Virginia, which has created word searchable, e-copies of this serial, spanning the years 1881 to 1910.

The site has plenty of additional titles, as “this collection contains 48,934 issues comprising over 300,000 pages.  In addition to the online resource, the Library of Virginia offers an array of sources for researching newspapers from its broad collection of over 3,000 titles.”

“The Virginian Newspaper Project, established in 1993, has worked to locate, describe, inventory, preserve and provide public access to United States imprints housed thorough out the commonwealth,” according to the website.

Click here to go to the Virginia newspaper page.   Click here for other digital resources available from the Library.

“The Library is one of the oldest agencies of Virginia government, founded in 1823 to preserve and provide access to the state’s incomparable printed and manuscript holdings.”

peinsula enterprise, eastern shore of Virginia newspaper.
The Peninsula Enterprise, Accomac, Northampton County, VA, a Virginia newspaper published on the Eastern Shore