"Betwixt brewings": a history of college students and alcohol PDF
Preview "Betwixt brewings": a history of college students and alcohol
University of Iowa Iowa Research Online Theses and Dissertations Summer 2011 "Betwixt brewings": a history of college students and alcohol Michael Stephen Hevel University of Iowa Copyright 2011 Michael Stephen Hevel This dissertation is available at Iowa Research Online: https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/1146 Recommended Citation Hevel, Michael Stephen. ""Betwixt brewings": a history of college students and alcohol." PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) thesis, University of Iowa, 2011. https://doi.org/10.17077/etd.4efyczjq Follow this and additional works at:https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd Part of theEducational Administration and Supervision Commons 0 “BETWIXT BREWINGS”: A HISTORY OF COLLEGE STUDENTS AND ALCOHOL, 1820-1933 by Michael Stephen Hevel An Abstract Of a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Educational Policy and Leadership Studies in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa July 2011 Thesis Supervisor: Associate Professor Christine A. Ogren 1 ABSTRACT This dissertation offers a history of white college students’ relationship with alcohol between 1820 and 1933. These years frame a long crisis regarding alcohol in the United States. A dramatic rise in alcohol consumption began around 1800, the negative consequences of which led growing numbers of Americans, for the first time, to associate social evils with alcohol use. These initial realizations gave rise to the temperance reform movement that ebbed and flowed over the next hundred years, reaching the pinnacle of its success in 1920, when national Prohibition became law. During this long century, college students’ alcohol use often served as microcosm of developments within society. Making contributions to the historiography of higher education, historiography of alcohol, and modern research on college student drinking, this study relies primarily on three types of sources that provide different perspectives on both students’ behaviors and concerns about drinking on campus. Based on a large collection of student diaries, chapters one and two consider college students’ alcohol use in the forty years preceding the U.S. Civil War. Chapter one considers the behavioral patterns and significance of college men’s drinking; chapter two focuses primarily on the influence of the temperance reform movement on college students. Chapter three considers depictions of student drinking in twenty-two “college novels”—works of fiction set predominantly on campuses with students as their protagonists—published between 1869 and 1933. Finally, chapter four draws on the surviving administrative records at four institutions to consider the effects on campus discipline of national Prohibition. Across the nation’s long century of conflict over alcohol, four themes emerge regarding college student drinking. First, drinking behaviors and attitudes toward alcohol on campus have long reflected those in the larger society. College students’ alcohol use has generally mirrored that of adults in the segments of society from which they hailed or those 2 whose ranks they wished to join upon graduation. The second theme is that the negative consequences of college student drinking have been ever-present and widespread. College students’ alcohol use has resulted in personal negative health effects, interfered with their academic success, and coincided with vandalism and violence. Closely related to the negative consequences student drinkers inflicted upon themselves and their communities, college students’ alcohol use has long presented problems to college authorities. These academic leaders primarily addressed alcohol-related misbehavior through the campus discipline process. Although college authorities enjoyed seemingly absolute discretion in terms of campus discipline, they seldom punished student drinkers harshly. Finally, drinking on campus has long been a mark of privilege. During all the years of this study, the heaviest and most regular alcohol use occurred at the institutions that enrolled the most privileged students, primarily eastern men’s colleges. Within both elite and less prestigious institutions, wealthy white men consumed more alcohol than their less economically advantaged peers. By studying college students’ alcohol use in relation to societal developments over a long century, the chapters that follow offer a largely untold story of student life and provide important perspective on our contemporary concerns. Abstract Approved: __________________________________________ Thesis Supervisor _________________________________________ Title and Department _________________________________________ Date “BETWIXT BREWINGS”: A HISTORY OF COLLEGE STUDENTS AND ALCOHOL, 1820-1933 by Michael Stephen Hevel A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Educational Policy and Leadership Studies in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa 1 July 2011 Thesis Supervisor: Associate Professor Christine A. Ogren Copyright by MICHAEL STEPHEN HEVEL 2011 All Rights Reserved 2 Graduate College The University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL _______________________ PH.D. THESIS _______________ This is to certify that the Ph. D. thesis of Michael Stephen Hevel has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Educational Policy and Leadership Studies at the July 2011 graduation. Thesis Committee: __________________________________ Christine A. Ogren, Thesis Supervisor __________________________________ Linda K. Kerber __________________________________ Ernest T. Pascarella __________________________________ Dorothy M. Persson __________________________________ Katrina M. Sanders To Lane and my mom, who both enjoy a cold beer, and to my dad, who would love to join them. 2 ii And for their wanting beer, betwixt brewings, a week or a half together, I am sorry that it was so at any time, and should tremble to have it so, were it in my hands to do again. Mistress Eaton’s testimony before the Massachusetts Bay Colony General Court September 1639 Quoted in Samuel Eliot Morrison’s The Founding of Harvard College 3 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS During her service as First Lady of the United States in the 1990s, Hillary Clinton received criticism from some conservatives when she argued that “it takes a village”—rather than just two parents—to raise a child. How embarrassing for me, then, that the support necessary to write this dissertation seems to have required the resources of a medium-sized city. In the twenty-six years of my life that passed before I arrived at the University of Iowa, I gained friends, colleagues, and mentors who helped prepare me for and sustain me through my doctoral education and the dissertation process. Since a fateful day in March 1993, Theresa (Drumm) Biggs has been a great best friend. Our lives took different, but always connected, paths after high school. I am grateful for her continued friendship and, now, her haircuts. At the University of Kansas, Danny Kaiser, Robert Page, Kenneth Stoner, Diana Robertson, and especially Randy Timm exposed me to the possibility of a career in higher education. Faculty members at Bowling Green State University, especially Maureen Wilson, Mike Coomes, Carney Strange, and Ellen Broido mentored and, to a large extent, put up with a particularly young and overly confident master’s student. I also met three comrades at BGSU, Chad Argotsinger, Nicole Craven, and Kurt Foriska, who made my two years in Ohio incredibly fun and continue to bring me good cheer in the years after our graduation. Chad also played host, chauffer, and tour guide during my dissertation research visits to the American Antiquarian Society and Smith College. 4 As my time in Ohio came to a close, I accepted a job at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon that took me far away from my midwestern homeland. Vonnie Martin welcomed me to Oregon and, in many ways, served as a surrogate mother during my three years there. Hans Bernard, Ryan Hamacheck, Bernie Liang, and Michael Ross made my professional transition to Willamette smooth while also becoming close friends. Komo Bains, Daniel Borgen, Kody Leonard, Robert Smith, and Doug Windedahl ensured I had an active social life while I lived in Oregon, not to mention when I visit the Pacific iv
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