Brewing History: How Local Option and Prohibition Altered the Texas Brewing Industry

Author

Shelby Winthrop DeWittFollow

Date of Award

Summer 8-7-2020

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts - History

Department

History

First Advisor

Dr. Perkey Beisel

Second Advisor

Dr. Scott Sosebee

Third Advisor

Dr. Court Carney

Fourth Advisor

Linda Reynolds

Abstract

The prohibition movement began decades before the Civil War but did not gain considerable support in Texas until the late nineteenth century. While local option elections and calls for statewide prohibition in Texas failed, national prohibition efforts culminated in the instatement of the Eighteenth Amendment in January 1919 and the Volstead Act in October 1919. This thesis details the prohibition issue through an analysis of eight larger, better-funded Texas breweries who used evolving social and political conditions to combat prohibition and grow their companies, laying the foundation for the Texas brewing industry. This thesis and subsequent digital exhibit provide a better understand of prohibition and local option, while also explaining how the argument against prohibition was based upon business decisions rather than a desire to drink.

Comments

The accompanying exhibit is linked below:

https://drunkhistorybriefhistoryoftexasbrewing.omeka.net/

Repository Citation

Winthrop DeWitt, Shelby, "Brewing History: How Local Option and Prohibition Altered the Texas Brewing Industry" (2020). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 381.
https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/etds/381

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.