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Archaeological methods can contribute to the understanding of current human issues, including the use and abuse of alcohol in American society. Popular stereotypes concerning drinking have influenced scholarly descriptions and interpretations. There is, for instance, widespread and questionable acceptance by researchers that ethnic identification often correlates strongly with rates of alcohol consumption. Through refuse analysis, this study suggests that no such correlation exists, at least as far as household alcohol use is concerned. Instead, it is found that the degree of social heterogeneity within households, causing stress among individuals, is positively associated with consumption rates. Ethnicity might be related more closely to expressed attitudes about drinking, though results are inconclusive. The archaeological investigation of late 19th century drinking habits is possible, and might contribute to historical studies in a way similar to how this study contributes to sociological and psychological approaches.

In the 1850s, many of Indiana's native-born Protestant population perceived the traditions and customs of German immigrants, specifically those concerning drinking alcoholic beverages and beer, as a threat to their "American way of life." They believed that the Germans' public drinking habits and behavior were the source of social problems causing instability and disorder prevalent in many of their communities. Although these problems were caused by Indiana's rapid industrialization and urbanization, older-stock Hoosiers blamed them on the readily identifiable immigrants. During the 1850s, temperance advocates in Indiana sought to force the German immigrants to conform to native-born Anglo-American culture to solve these problems of societal order and control. The temperance movement in Indiana was a fight to impose American cultural values on immigrants. Though temperance was a powerful social and political force in Indiana in the 1850s, it could not alter the tight-knit German Catholic community of Dubois County.The numerical strength of the German community and their strong opposition to assimilation hindered the temperance movement in Dubois County. The prominent role of the local Catholic Church and the Germans' common ethnic and cultural identity were two main factors in keeping temperance out of the county. Other significant factors were the permanent nature of the Germanimmigrants' settlement, the rural isolation of the county, the domination of the local Democratic party, and the prominence of beer in the German-Americans' culture.This study is historically important for several reasons. First, the reaction of this specific community to the antebellum temperance campaign provides a more complete understanding of how German immigrants in Indiana and the Midwest dealt with the problems of assimilation. Second, by focusing on a rural area, the German reaction to the issues of assimilation and temperance can be identified and examined independent of the urban problems of industrialization, overcrowding, and unemployment. Finally, it also constitutes the only known interpretation of the Indiana temperance movement from the perspective of those it most affected: the immigrants themselves. / Department of History

This research study will clarify with facts and evidence that drinking alcoholic beverages is a social problem in American society. It will also focus on indepth interviews using the laddering technique on a small sample of eight respondents.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The objective of this research is to examine the development of the California alcohol outlets over time and the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and densities of the alcohol outlets. Two types of advanced analyses were done after the usual preliminary description of data. Firstly, fixed and random effects linear regression were used for the county panel data across time (1945-2010) with a dummy variable added to capture the change in law regarding limitations on alcohol outlets density. Secondly, a Bayesian spatio-temporal Poisson regression of the census tract panel data was conducted to capture recent availability of population characteristics affecting outlet density. The spatial Conditional Autoregressive model was embedded in the Poisson regression to detect spatial dependency of unexplained variance of alcohol outlet density. The results show that the alcohol outlets density reduced under the limitation law over time. However, it was no more effective in reducing the growth of alcohol outlets after the limitation was modified to be more restrictive. Poorer, higher vacancy rate and lower percentage of Black neighborhoods tend to have higher alcohol outlet density (numbers of alcohol outlets to population ratio) for both on-sale general and off-sale general. Other characteristics like percentage of Hispanics, percentage of Asians, percentage of younger population and median income of adjacency neighbors were associated with densities of on-sale general and off sale general alcohol outlets. Some regions like the San Francisco Bay area and the Greater Los Angeles area have more alcohol outlets than the predictions of neighborhood characteristics included in the model.