Every Home a Distillery: Alcohol, Gender, and Technology in the Colonial Chesapeake (Early America: History, Context, Culture)

202 Pages·2009·1.85 MB·English

by  Meacham

Every Home a Distillery
early america: history, context, culture
Joyce E. Chaplin and Philip D. Morgan, Series Editors
Every Home a Distillery
Alcohol, Gender, and Technology in the
Colonial Chesapeake
(cid:2)(cid:3)
sarah hand meacham
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
© 2009 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2009
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Meacham, Sarah Hand, 1972–
Every home a distillery: Alcohol, gender, and technology in the colonial
Chesapeake / Sarah Hand Meacham.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8018-9312-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8018-9312-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Brewing—Social aspects—Chesapeake Bay Region (Md. and Va.)—
History. 2. Distilling industries—Social aspects—Chesapeake Bay
Region (Md. and Va.)—History. 3. Housewives—Chesapeake Bay
Region (Md. and Va.)—History. 4. Home economics—Chesapeake Bay
Region (Md. and Va.)—History. 5. Sex role—Chesapeake Bay Region
(Md. and Va.)—History. 6. Social classes—Chesapeake Bay Region
(Md. and Va.)—History. 7. Drinking of alcoholic beverages—
Chesapeake Bay Region (Md. and Va.)—History. 8. Bars (Drinking
establishments)—Chesapeake Bay Region (Md. and Va.)—History.
9.Chesapeake Bay Region (Md. and Va.)—Social life and
customs—17th century. 10. Chesapeake Bay Region
(Md. and Va.)—Social life and customs—
18th century. I. Title.
TP573.U6M43 2009
641.2(cid:2)1097409033—dc22 2008050544
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For Scott and Camden
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Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
1 “It Was Being Too Abstemious That Brought This Sickness upon Me”:
Alcoholic Beverage Consumption in the Early Chesapeake 6
2 “They Will be Adjudged by Their Drinke, What Kind of Housewives
They Are”: Gender, Technology, and Household Cidering in
England and the Chesapeake, 1690 to 1760 24
3 “This Drink Cannot Be Kept During the Summer”: Large Planters, Science,
and Community Networks in the Early Eighteenth Century 40
4 “Anne Howard... Will Take in Gentlemen”: White Middling Women and
the Tavernkeeping Trade in Colonial Virginia 64
5 “Ladys Here All Go to Market to Supply Their Pantry”:
Alcohol for Sale, 1760 to 1776 82
6 “Every Man His Own Distiller”: Technology, the American Revolution,
and the Masculinization of Alcohol Production in the
Late Eighteenth Century 95
7 “He Is Much Addicted to Strong Drinke”: The Problem of Alcohol 120
Conclusion 135
A Few Recipes 139
Notes 143
Essay on Sources 171
Index 181
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Preface
This project began when I was trying to research an early-eighteenth-century tav-
ern known as Susannah Allen’s in colonial Williamsburg. It has long been ru-
mored that Allen’s tavern was a brothel. While I suspected that there were not
enough single women in colonial Virginia to have supported a brothel, I was in-
trigued. Very few records of Allen’s tavern remain, and I was unable to determine
whether her tavern sold sex as well as drinks and lodging. In the course of my re-
search, though, I began to wonder whether Susannah Allen was unusual, or
whether other taverns were run by women. The answers I discovered ultimately
became chapter 4 of this book.
During that initial investigation, I ran across a small notation indicating that
Susannah Allen had purchased some cider for her tavern from a woman. I won-
dered if the note was mistaken—had someone written “Mrs.” for “Mr.”? Was a
planter’s wife handling the plantation’s affairs while her husband was out of town?
This book is my answer to that question.
Every Home a Distillery covers mostly English experiences in the Chesapeake
from 1690 to 1800. The book begins in 1690 because that is the earliest date from
which sufficient records are available. There simply is not enough material to
write a well-researched account of alcoholic beverage production in the earliest
years of English settlement, in part because the Native Americans in the area, the
Powhatan, are not known to have made alcoholic beverages.
The book ends in 1800 because one of its goals is to research the lives of colo-
nial women in the South, and there are already books about early republic and
antebellum women for those who wish to explore later years. As history would
have it, women generally tend to appear only through careful readings of probate
records, wills, court documents, and account books, all written by men. During
this period most Chesapeake women of all races were illiterate, and no diaries or
letters from colonial Chesapeake women are known to remain today. The book
ends in 1800 also because massive German immigration in the 1840s changed