In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Southeastern Geographer Vol. 27, No. 2, November 1987, pp. 101-114 REMNANTS OF PROHIBITION IN THE UNITED STATES Gerald L. Ingalls AMERICANS, ALCOHOL AND PROHIBITION. Throughout history alcohol has been the proverbial double edged sword. On the one hand are those who found alcohol to be a gratifying food-drink and to whom it was a normal amenity of life. On the other hand were those to whom the problems associated with the consumption of alcohol naturally suggested a need to protect humans from themselves and from alcohol. (1) The United States, with its varied history of alcohol production and consumption, is quite reflective of this duality. At one end of the scale is the legendary American frontier settler with a formidable capacity for alcohol consumption accompanied by the formidable problems which can accompany such excessive use. At the other end is the self-imposed legal abstinence of the Prohibition Era. Americans have seemingly vascillated between extremes on the proper means of dealing with alcohol . (2) In the first decades of the 19th century production and consumption of distilled beverages expanded rapidly in the United States leading some people to suggest that problems with alcoholism posed a threat to social well-being. Certainly levels of per capita consumption of alcohol were markedly higher during this time than at any other period in U.S. history. As Smith suggests, "the contemporary rate of drinking pales when compared to that of colonial and early 19th century America." (3) J. N. Cross suggests that excessive consumption led to the first of three major temperance movements during the 19th and 20th centuries. (4) The first movement came in the 1840s and lasted approximately a decade ; a second, somewhat less successful, wave of temperance activity followed Reconstruction. However, by far the most influential period of temperance activity ever witnessed in the United States began in the late 19th century and culminated in 1919 with passage ofthe Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution which prohibited the sale of all alcoholic beverages in the United States. The first two temperance movements —those ofthe 19th century—had largely focused on the control of Dr. Ingalls is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223. 102Southeastern Geographer excessive drinking by an appeal to moral principles. However, during the latter decades of the 19th century, the sentiments of those opposed to alcoholic beverages changed from urging temperate use to promoting and eventually legislating abstinence as the most effective means of dealing with alcohol abuse. The result was a constitutional amendment which mandated Prohibition in 1919. The Eighteenth Amendment was in force for 15 years before it was repealed by the Twenty-First which ended Prohibition. After its repeal in 1933, the choice of whether to permit or prohibit the sale of distilled spirits, wine or beer became a matter for voters within each of the states. From 1933 to 1986, 10 states eventually mandated statewide sale and consumption of alcohol giving local jurisdictions no option to exclude it. However, in 40 states it became the prerogative of local jurisdictions to establish policy on the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages. (5) From 1933 onward, when the control of the sale and consumption of alcohol was no longer mandated nation-wide and local jurisdictions began to determine alcohol control policy, the spatial pattern of administrative control and/or prohibition of the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages became complex and quite fluid. As Smith and Hanham suggest even if prohibitionists could not "remove alcohol from the landscape ," at least not all of it, they could, and, as this paper demonstrates, still do in some areas, limit the sale and use of alcoholic beverages; indeed , in a few areas of the United States, prohibitionists still excludes its legal sale altogether. (6) PURPOSE OF THE STUDY. Attempts to control the sale and consumption of alcohol did not end with the repeal of Prohibition. The residue of the early 20th century temperance effort remains on the American landscape in the form of a complex web of legislated zones of exclusion which are the focus of this paper. The primary objectives of this research are to: 1) describe the...

pdf