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WORK TITLE: The Coming of Southern Prohibition
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http://cnu.edu/people/mlewis/ * http://cnu.edu/academics/departments/sswa/people/michaellewis/ * https://networks.h-net.org/node/11282/reviews/175232/hamer-lewis-coming-southern-prohibition-dispensary-system-and-battle
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2015071607
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2015071607
HEADING: Lewis, Michael, 1965-
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100 1_ |a Lewis, Michael, |d 1965-
670 __ |a The coming of Southern prohibition, 2016: |b ECIP t.p. (Michael Lewis) data view screen (b. 10/13/1965)
PERSONAL
Born October 13, 1965.
EDUCATION:University of Colorado, B.A.; University of Virginia, M.A., Ph.D.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Academic and sociologist. Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA, associate professor of sociology.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Michael Lewis is an academic and sociologist. He completed a bachelor’s degree in history at the University of Colorado before continuing his studies at the University of Virginia. There he earned his Ph.D. in sociology. Lewis eventually became an associate professor of sociology at Virginia’s Christopher Newport University, where he teaches classes on sociological theory, social movements, and the sociology of religion. Lewis’s academic research interests include social movements; law and politics; and alcohol and prohibition.
In 2016 Lewis published The Coming of Southern Prohibition: The Dispensary System and the Battle over Liquor in South Carolina, 1907-1915. In this account, Lewis looks at the local option for individual counties in South Carolina at the start of the twentieth century to decide whether or not they would allow the sale of alcohol. Lewis offers historical context in the form of South Carolina Governor Benjamin Tillman’s plan to create a state monopoly over the production and sale of alcohol, believing that this would increase state revenue and also decrease the numbers of those who consumed alcohol. This attempt to balance the wishes of prohibitionists and anti-prohibitionists pleased neither camp, and Tillman’s South Carolina Dispensary was mired in corruption scandals up until its closure in 1907. At that point, counties were allowed to choose their own policies on prohibition. Lewis focuses his study on North Augusta County and Aiken County to illustrate how this choice played out in various counties.
In talking about the Webb-Kenyon Act in a review in the Journal of Southern History, Ann-Marie Szymanski opined that “Lewis somewhat overstates its importance for the prohibition movement. After all, the constitutionality of the Webb-Kenyon Act was in doubt until 1917, leaving its utility in limbo until then. Otherwise, The Coming of Southern Prohibition is a well-researched, clearly written volume that illustrates the importance of local interests in shaping the development of national social movements.”
Writing on the H-Net Reviews website, Fritz Hamer pointed out that Lewis “relies heavily on newspapers for his analysis, which is appropriate to a point. However, I am troubled that the governor’s papers in South Carolina, especially for Coleman Blease (1911-15) and Richard Manning (1915), were apparently not consulted (they do not appear in the bibliography). More investigation of prohibition and anti-prohibition leaders would have also improved the overall study.” Hamer also contended that the book “would have been enhanced if correspondence of people on both sides of the issue had been included to contrast their personal views with those of the published letters and editorials of the many newspapers used throughout.” Nevertheless, Hamer found that Lewis’s account of how a rural, South Carolinian county such as Aiken allowed the sale of alcohol is “the most complete picture to date.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Journal of Southern History, August 1, 2017, Ann-Marie Szymanski, review of The Coming of Southern Prohibition: The Dispensary System and the Battle over Liquor in South Carolina, 1907-1915, p. 727.
ONLINE
Christopher Newport University Website, http://cnu.edu/ (January 3, 2017), Fritz Hamer, author profile.
H-Net Reviews, https://networks.h-net.org/ (April 1, 2017), review of The Coming of Southern Prohibition.
MICHAEL LEWIS
Associate Professor
Luter Hall 169
(757) 534-7447
mlewis@cnu.edu
Education
Ph D in Sociology, University of Virginia
MA in Sociology, University of Virginia
BA in History, University of Colorado
Teaching
Sociological Theory
Social Movements
Sociology of Religion
Research
Social Movements
Law and Politics
Alcohol and Prohibition
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Print Marked Items
The Coming of Southern Prohibition: The
Dispensary System and the Battle over
Liquor in South Carolina, 1907-1915
Ann-Marie Szymanski
Journal of Southern History.
83.3 (Aug. 2017): p727+.
COPYRIGHT 2017 Southern Historical Association
http://www.uga.edu/~sha
Full Text:
The Coming of Southern Prohibition: The Dispensary System and the Battle over Liquor in South Carolina,
1907-1915. By Michael Lewis. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2016. Pp. xiv, 312. $45.00,
ISBN 978-0-8071-6298-9.)
In this cogently argued book, Michael Lewis makes a substantial contribution to the study of the American
prohibition movement. He successfully incorporates the story of South Carolina's dispensary system (a
scheme of state-run liquor stores) into the broader narrative about the development of prohibition in the
South and elsewhere during the Progressive era. During the long history of the antiliquor movement in the
United States, most temperance advocates had generally focused on a limited set of policy options:
regulation through licensing, laws authorizing localities to ban or permit liquor retailing (local option), and
state bans on the sale or manufacturing of liquor. At first glance, then. South Carolina's adoption of a state
dispensary system seems to be an anomalous development, one that reflected a set of unique circumstances
only present in South Carolina. However, as Lewis's book makes clear, the development of dispensaries
reflected the pragmatism of southern antiliquor activists, who in addressing the liquor problem were much
more willing to experiment with different policies than were their northern counterparts.
Although South Carolina had the most extensive experience with dispensaries before national prohibition,
dozens of southern communities operated publicly owned liquor stores during the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. In fact, as Lewis points out, the Athens, Georgia, dispensary preceded South Carolina
governor Benjamin R. Tillman's proposal to replace barrooms with state-run liquor stores in his state. The
South Carolina legislature enacted this measure in 1893 and even agreed to establish a state constabulary
system to police illicit private liquor sales. Thus, despite the South's deeply ingrained tradition of localism,
Tillman (temporarily) succeeded in constructing a highly centralized antiliquor regime in South Carolina
policed by state officials.
However, this state-controlled dispensary system was not to last. Indeed, as South Carolinians became more
familiar with the flaws and corruption of the dispensary system, antidispensary forces secured support for a
1904 local option law, the Brice Act, which empowered counties to vote out their dispensaries through
referenda. A few years later, in 1907, the state legislature adopted the Carey-Cothran bill that abolished the
state dispensary and authorized the establishment of dispensaries in every county that chose to remain wet.
Of course, citizens of the Palmetto State soon discovered that prohibition through local option was not a
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panacea either. One of the strengths of The Coming of Southern Prohibition: The Dispensary System and
the Battle over Liquor in South Carolina, 1907-1915 is that it depicts antiliquor advocates as rational actors
who weighed the costs and benefits of prohibitory policies rather than as individuals driven by religious
fanaticism or status anxiety. Through Lewis's case study of North Augusta, South Carolina, and nearby
Augusta, Georgia, he demonstrates that temperate citizens often favored other Progressive reforms, such as
improved roads and better schools, and frequently considered both the feasibility of prohibition and the
costs of antiliquor legislation, such as the loss of public revenue from dispensaries and liquor licenses, when
making decisions about what was best for their communities.
Ultimately. Lewis contends that dispensary systems and other modest prohibitory measures lost ground to
prohibition after Congress adopted the Webb-Kenyon Act in 1913. Through this act the federal government
endorsed the states' rights to control the delivery, distribution, and consumption of alcoholic beverages
within their boundaries. While dry activists certainly welcomed this measure, Lewis somewhat overstates
its importance for the prohibition movement. After all, the constitutionality of the Webb-Kenyon Act was in
doubt until 1917, leaving its utility in limbo until then. Otherwise, The Coming of Southern Prohibition is a
we 11-researched, clearly written volume that illustrates the importance of local interests in shaping the
development of national social movements.
Ann-Marie Szymanski
University of Oklahoma
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Szymanski, Ann-Marie. "The Coming of Southern Prohibition: The Dispensary System and the Battle over
Liquor in South Carolina, 1907-1915." Journal of Southern History, vol. 83, no. 3, 2017, p. 727+.
General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A501078171/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=cce65505. Accessed 21 Dec. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A501078171
Hamer on Lewis, 'The Coming of Southern Prohibition: The Dispensary System and the Battle over Liquor in South Carolina, 1907-1915'
Author:
Michael Lewis
Reviewer:
Fritz Hamer
Michael Lewis. The Coming of Southern Prohibition: The Dispensary System and the Battle over Liquor in South Carolina, 1907-1915. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2016. 312 pp. $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8071-6298-9.
Reviewed by Fritz Hamer (South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum)
Published on H-SC (April, 2017)
Commissioned by David W. Dangerfield
South Carolina's Slow Evolution to "an impractical ... ideal"
In 1893, “Ben Tillman’s Baby,” the South Carolina Dispensary, went into operation. Governor Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina instituted this state monopoly as a compromise between prohibitionists and anti-prohibitionists. Believing that making the state completely dry was unrealistic, the South Carolina chief executive overruled many on both sides who disliked the dispensary idea before it even began. By restricting sales to state-operated liquor shops, Tillman thought it would reduce liquor consumption while providing much-needed tax revenue for the state. However, the dispensary was plagued by corruption throughout its decade and a half before legislators abolished it in 1907. For the next eight year, South Carolina allowed local option for each county to decide on permitting liquor sales or not. With this as the background, Michael Lewis’s study centers on the ebb and flow of local option with particular attention paid to North Augusta and Aiken County.
Lewis provides the most complete picture to date of how a rural county like Aiken, unlike most in South Carolina, chose to allow liquor sales. Although religious leaders publicly condemned the liquor trade, businesses and local politicians convinced enough of the electorate to support liquor sales for eight years following the end of the state dispensary. The tax revenue generated from sales not only provided increased funding for its poor schools and inadequate road systems but also reduced residential taxes. This seemed to outweigh the moral argument that liquor consumption debased the families of many whose husbands and sons drank to excess. But this revenue argument failed in most rural counties in South Carolina. Lewis’s explanation is that tax revenues were not significant enough to persuade voters outside Aiken.
While North Augusta and its liquor shops are important to the study, its neighbor across the Savannah River, Augusta, Georgia, is crucial to the story as well. When Georgia voted to go dry in 1907, Augusta, a major commercial and industrial center saw its hundreds of saloons go out of business when the law went into effect in early 1908. Consequently Augusta residents became a new source of revenue for liquor sales in North Augusta. And that is how the Aiken town profited from liquor sales over the next few years. But Augusta and many other Georgia towns found a loophole in the state law. The Georgia bill did not preclude private “social clubs” from providing liquor to paid members, usually from upper- and middle-class clientele. Rather than shut these down, local governments levied annual fees on these clubs, recouping lost revenue when public sales ended. But while it provided a private source of liquor to some Georgians, the working-class population found club membership fees too high so they traveled across the river to buy their liquor in North Augusta.
Lewis also shows how the few wet counties in South Carolina profited elsewhere from the dry counties they bordered. Likewise wet counties in other southern states took advantage of profiting from dry counties they were next to. As Lewis concludes his study, he paints a broader picture of the prohibition versus liquor revenue camps in the rest of the southern states. Indeed until 1913-14, the need for revenue often overcame those who argued for strict prohibition. Even though states such as North Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee voted to prohibit liquor sales between 1908 and 1909, it became apparent that illegal shops made it impossible to stop the liquor trade. Thus states took practical approaches as Georgia had to take advantage of liquor sales, legislating license fees on private “social clubs.” State laws against liquor sales were often ignored, especially in urban centers. Local law enforcement did not support the state laws, and consequently without state law enforcement the illegal liquor trade could only be blunted by taxing the “social clubs.” In one example to illustrate this contradiction Lewis examines the illegal activity evident in Tennessee. However, neither its legislature nor its supreme court did anything in its 1911 session to curtail illegal sales.
But the landscape for prohibition enforcement began to change in 1913 when Congress passed the Webb-Kenyan Act. This act made liquor sales across state lines illegal and, according to Lewis, encouraged the prohibition forces to redouble their efforts to institute strict prohibition. Temperance groups in South Carolina were also aided by the ironic fact that even as more counties in the state had gone wet in 1913, the tax revenue collected from liquor sales declined for many wet counties, including Aiken. When prohibition forces managed to have a state-wide referendum in 1915, the dry forces significantly defeated the wet forces of the state. Similar measures occurred across the other southern states, closing social clubs and interstate commerce of liquor. Lewis illustrates nicely how this change occurred over eight years but leaves me questioning the deeper motives behind this rather sudden change in the electorate’s attitude toward liquor sales. A deeper investigation of class differences over liquor consumption is in order. And what effort was made by the leaders of the dry forces to suppress votes from working-class people in mill towns of the upstate and midlands of South Carolina? Or did the dry forces convince many to support prohibition? There may not be answers to these questions but they need further exploration.
In conclusion, this study offers a detailed examination of a puzzling aspect of prohibition. The author relies heavily on newspapers for his analysis, which is appropriate to a point. However, I am troubled that the governor’s papers in South Carolina, especially for Coleman Blease (1911-15) and Richard Manning (1915), were apparently not consulted (they do not appear in the bibliography). More investigation of prohibition and anti-prohibition leaders would have also improved the overall study. Although footnote 18 (p. 277) states that few papers of the South Carolina Anti-Saloon League have survived, I wonder if further investigation into the archives at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, or Furman University in Greenville might have produced some valuable additional sources. Finally the study would have been enhanced if correspondence of people on both sides of the issue had been included to contrast their personal views with those of the published letters and editorials of the many newspapers used throughout.
Printable Version: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=48587
Citation: Fritz Hamer. Review of Lewis, Michael, The Coming of Southern Prohibition: The Dispensary System and the Battle over Liquor in South Carolina, 1907-1915. H-SC, H-Net Reviews. April, 2017.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=48587
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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