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Tackling The Taboo: A Cross-Generational Study Of The Adams-Smith Family And Their Moral Struggle With Alcoholism, Erin Van Gilder

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

This thesis examines how the American perception of drunkenness changed in accordance with transformations in the tenants of virtue in the 18th and 19th centuries. As the definition and influence of virtue became more interpretive and circumstantial, so did attitudes towards habitual drunkenness. Before the American Revolution, the overconsumption of alcohol was condemned, as it was a clear deviation from classic conceptions of civic and religious virtue. After the Revolution, an individualized interpretation of virtue became popular and alcohol consumption rose dramatically. In the early 19^th century, increasing self-interest meant less condemnation directed at the habitual drunkard. At the …