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Nancy L. Struna
Current research for a book on the social history of taverns and tavern
life, c. 1750-1820
Prospective title: Transforming the Ordinary: A Social History of
Taverns, 1750-1820s
In the middle of the 18th century, taverns lay at the center of
life in the British American mainland colonies. People ate, drank, and
slept there; they read mail and papers and in other ways got the
news; they boarded stages from and voted at taverns; they attended court
hearings and committed crimes. Tavernkeepers themselves were often
respected and influential citizens, and tavernkeeping was viewed as an
important and economically viable occupation, including for
women. As a point of fact, taverns were everywhere, they housed
everything, and everyone could be involved. They were the social and
cultural centers of colonial life.
However, within one hundred years, taverns (at least in the
East) had not only ceased to be as central to life and culture as they had
once been but they had also been pushed to the margins of ordinary
life. They were well on their way to becoming ethnic-based "saloons" and
working-class pubs, and although they served significant functions for
their clients, they no longer existed as the center of anybody's universe.
My research focuses on the first two-thirds of the transformation
that is implied in the preceding paragraphs. I am asking four major
questions:
a. How, why, and to what effect did the economic and social transformation
of taverns and tavern life occur, between c. 1750 and 1820 (by which point
the transformation was clearly underway)? This question situates taverns
and tavern life within the larger context of the transition to capitalism,
and, in effect, envisions the tavern as an institution in which that
transition literally was "made." Did various social groups, esp. women,
African Americans, and lower rank whites, experience and shape this
transformation differently?
b. How did taverns and tavern life figure in the discourse(s) about the
changing national culture? Did various social groups, esp. women, African
Americans, and lower rank whites, experience and shape this transformation
differently?
c. Were there differences in the transformations between the two counties
and within locals in either/both county?
d. What is/are the relationship(s) between discourse and material
experience/reality in ordinary life? Does not the latter operate in some
way beyond being merely context for the former?
In effect, this project includes both economic/social history looking at
patterns of behavior and cultural history drawing on literary and
iconographic sources for discourses. Ultimately, of course, I would like
to connect discourses to behavioral patterns.
The research for this book focuses on two counties in Maryland --
Baltimore and Anne Arundel -- which I have selected in part because each
contains and captures many of the trends and patterns evident in other
counties and other colonies/states and in part because the probate and
court records required for this study are relatively complete. What
happened in Baltimore County and City during this period also happened in
other parts of the industrializing and urbanizing North, while Anne
Arundel County and Annapolis came to resemble the dynamics of the South,
especially the South of the plantation economy.
My initial focus so far as been on the tavernkeepers - who they
were, in terms of class, gender, race; how long they operated; what they
had and offered at their taverns; and the answers to these and other
questions over time and comparatively for the two counties. So far I have
identified more than 3500 licensed tavernkeepers in the two counties
during what is essentially three generations and have done the initial
descriptive quantitative work: who, what, where, when. I am now focusing
on fleshing out detail about tavernkeepers who held licenses for eight or
more years and have collected (but not yet analyzed) inventory data,
administrative accounts, land records, and some newspaper ads,
etc. It is taking me forever to translate pounds to dollars and then
deflate all values.
I have also identified several keepers' account books. I have yet
to find any diaries of tavernkeepers and don't expect much in the way of
description in contemporaries diaries and letters, other than information
that will help me to identify the "fit" of taverns' in people's lives,
what happened, and how keepers were viewed. I will try to piece together
life histories of particular keepers to illustrate larger patterns and
trends.
A major task for this summer is to get through the court records,
which are key to identifying behaviors that occurred in the taverns as
well as to relationships among keepers and between keepers and
clients. Thereafter, the next set of records will be newspapers, which
are extensive for Baltimore City and County especially.
A part of the answer to the first question is known: other
institutions emerged and assumed functions once held in taverns, class
formation underlay the withdrawal of the middle and upper classes,
specialized entertainment and educational opportunities were defined, and
a post-Revolutionary ideology of improvement/uplift worked against the
persistence of colonial taverns and the range of activities they had long
harbored.
What is not known is what happens within taverns and the
tavern context in the course of this transformation. There are only two
substantial academic histories published about taverns (with a third on
the way), and they do not focus either on experiences after the Revolution
or on the economic base of and changes in taverns as mine will. I am
consciously situating the examination of taverns and tavern life within
the larger transition to capitalism that proceeded rapidly after 1750.
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