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ABSTRACT
This article explores the cultural history of bourbon in the United States between the 1930s and the 1970s through the lenses of race, politics, and consumerism. Several related trends pushed bourbon’s cultural history in new directions during this time. Like many popular consumer products, Americans endowed bourbon with complex meanings that reflected imagined, contested notions of history and racial identities and hierarchies. As Black and white Americans bought, sold, drank, and talked about bourbon, they also grappled with racial conflict and social change. Distillers crafted new appeals to Black Americans to spur sales. Mass consumerism grew in importance as an arena of activism after the Second World War. Black activists targeted the bourbon industry in their ongoing fight against commercial racism and segregation. Bourbon became a touchstone in the politics of civil rights. Black and white commentators invoked contrasting bourbon symbolism and tropes in their civil rights rhetoric. These trends and dialogues flavored the meanings that Americans consumed as they drank bourbon. All the while, bourbon whiskey became a staple of the upwardly mobile, consumption-driven lifestyles of the middle and professional classes, regardless of their racial identities. To tell these stories, the article relies on bourbon-related advertising, journalism, and commentary in the Black and white presses, corporate market research materials and correspondence, and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) archival records.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to the anonymous readers and my WKU colleagues, especially Andrew Rosa and Tony Harkins, for feedback that greatly improved this article.
Notes
1. LIFE Magazine, April 5, 1948.
2. Park City Daily News (KY), November 11, 1968; Washington Post, June 24, 1969; Ashville Citizen, December 6, 1972; Atlanta Constitution, October 14, 1977; Tampa Tribune, October 21, 1977 and January 13, 1978. On the broader cultural history of the Southern screech, see Warren, The Rebel Yell.
3. New York Amsterdam News, August 24, 1968.
4. Gavin-Jobson Associates, The Liquor Handbook 1965, 22, Hagley Museum and Library Digital Archives (HMLDA), Accessed January 17, 2024. https://digital.hagley.org/f_HD9390_U62_C67_1965.
5. United States Senate Concurrent Resolution 19, May 4, 1964, “BOURBON WHISKEY DESIGNATED AS DISTINCTIVE PRODUCT OF U.S.” On bourbon and American law, see Haara, Bourbon Justice.
6. Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic.
7. On such activism in the retail sector, see Parker, Department Stores and the Black Freedom Movement.
8. Pennock, Advertising Sin and Sickness; Chambers, Madison Avenue and the Color Line; Kern-Foxworth, Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and Rastus.
9. Chambers, Madison Avenue and the Color Line, 60.
10. Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic, chapters 3 and 7; Rosa-Salas, “Making the Mass White,” 27–31.
11. Benjamin W. Corrado Marketing Consultants, Corrado’s Handbook of Liquor Marketing 1954, 20, 26, 162, HMLDA, https://digital.hagley.org/f_HD9390_U62_C67_1954; Gavin-Jobson Associates, The Liquor Handbook 1968 (New York, 1968), 91, 100, 102–103, HMLDA, Accessed January 16, 2024. https://digital.hagley.org/f_HD9390_U62_C67_1968.
12. On race, racism, identity, and “whiteness” marketing paradigms in the American context, see Davila, Latino Spin; Shankar, “Nothing Sells like Whiteness,” 112–119; Rosa-Salas, “Making the Mass White,” 21–38. For a global perspective on the same theme, see Davis, “Selling whiteness?” 134–177; and Davis, “Representation Matters.”
13. LIFE, January 30, 1956, March 19, 1956, and January 28, 1957.
14. LIFE, October 24, 1955.
15. See Davis, Jews and Booze.
16. On nineteenth-century tippling laws and race, see Adams, “Tippling Toward Freedom,” 323–343. On the historical ebb and flow of Kentucky bourbon’s “stigmatization” as vice amid the construction of the spirit’s contemporary “heritage” culture, see Ferrell, “Now You Can Drink That Alcohol” 1–36.
17. Hill, “‘Let Those Negroes Have Their Whiskey,’” 141–42.
18. On tropes of Kentucky in American popular culture, see Harkins, “Colonels, Hillbillies, and Fightin,’” 421–452.
19. LIFE, May 28, 1956. On the canonical myths of American whiskey history and heritage and their correlation to notions of whiskey quality, see Clark, “A Liquid Spirit.”
20. Hale, Making Whiteness.
21. On the meanings of contemporary notions of Southern masculinity and bourbon drinking, see McKeithan, “Every Ounce a Man’s Whiskey?.”
22. LIFE, March 22, 1954, September 23, 1956, September 12, 1960, March 10, 1961, and other editions.
23. Seagram & Sons Inter-office memo from Linda McQueen, Sales Analysis Department, to Howard Hersch, March 24, 1972; Lewis M. Gediman, The Nowland Organization, letter to Howard R. Hersch, Seagram & Sons, August 18, 1972, Hagley Museum Archives (HMA) 2173-III.-D, Box 110, Item “Marketing Studies – Bourbon Cordial Strategy and Marketing Research, 1972–1974.”
24. LIFE, May 24, 1937.
25. New York Times, March 20, 1946.
26. Courier-Journal (Louisville), January 24, 1960.
27. Park City Daily News, November 24, 1939; Courier-Journal, November 24, 1939.
28. Courier-Journal, October 12, 1952 and July 30, 1959.
29. New York Amsterdam News, January 9, 1965; Sun Reporter, February 8, 1969. By the mid-1970s, the accuracy of this and other annual surveys came into question. See Chris Welles, “The Numbers Magazines Live By,” Columbia Journalism Review 14, no. 3 (September 1, 1975): 22–27.
30. Ernest Dichter International Institute for Motivation Research, report to Wunderman, Ricotta & Kline, Inc, July 1969, 21. HMA 2407-I. Box 99, Item 2254E.
31. The Liquor Handbook 1968, 254, 255, 258.
32. Weems, Desegregating the Dollar, esp. chapters 3 and 4; Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic; Walker, “Black Dollar Power,” 376–403.
33. Walter White, Secretary, NAACP, telegram to Blatz Brewing Company, July 6, 1951, ProQuest History Vault, Papers of the NAACP, Part 15, Series B, Folder 001441-009-0662. https://congressional.proquest.com/histvault?q=001441-009-0662. On the NAACP’s campaign against the show, see Woodley, Art for Equality, 180–88.
34. Peter Weiss, letter to Dr. John Morsel, NAACP, Nov. 11, 1959, ProQuest History Vault, Papers of the NAACP, Part 24, Series C, Folder 001487-023-0497, https://congressional.proquest.com/histvault?q=001487-023-0497.
35. Chicago Defender, November 11, 1963.
36. Sacramento Observer, April 3, 1969.
37. James Baldwin, “Letter From a Region in My Mind,” The New Yorker, November 17, 1962. accessed January 15, 2024. https://www.newyorkercom/magazine/1962/11/17/letter-from-a-region-in-my-mind, On the Baldwin missive and responses to it, see Jones, “James Baldwin on Madison Avenue.”
38. On these campaigns, see Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic, chapters 1 and 2; Pacifico, “‘Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work,’” 66–88; Ware, “The New Negro Alliance,” 3–8; Skotnes, “‘Buy Where You Can Work,’” 735–61.
39. Template letter from Livingston L. Wingate, NAACP, to liquor industry representatives, Oct. 23, 1956; Minutes of NAACP Executive Committee Meetings, November 13 and 21, 1956, ProQuest History Vault, Papers of the NAACP, Part 24, Series A, Folder 001483-025-0023, https://congressional.proquest.com/histvault?q=001483-025-0023.
40. Sun Reporter, June 26, 1971.
41. Oakland Post, August 4, 1976, Charlotte Post, August 12, 1976.
42. On the decades of boycott protests orchestrated by union leaders and by Black, Chicano, and gay activists against Coors Brewing Company’s discriminatory practices, see Brantley, “‘Shouldn’t You Be Boycotting Coors?’.”
43. Chicago Defender, September 4, 1932. On the racial politics of prohibition, see Coker, Liquor in the Land, Chapter 4.
44. Pittsburgh Courier, July 3, 1948.
45. Ben Baker, letter to NAACP, February 1, 1956, NAACP Papers, ProQuest History Vault, Papers of the NAACP, Part 21, Group III, Series B, Folder 001473-007-0254, https://congressional.proquest.com/histvault?q=001473-007-0254.
46. Arizona Tribune, June 10, 1960.
47. Los Angeles Sentinel, July 8, 1948.
48. Chicago Defender, July 19, 1969.
49. Sun Reporter, May 9, 1970.
50. Chicago Defender, January 3, 1953.
51. Chicago Defender, February 7, 1953.
52. Ibrahim, “The Negro marketing dilemma,” 545–563.
53. Ibid, 557–558; Rosa-Salas, “Making the Mass White,” 30–31.
54. Chambers, Madison Avenue and the Color Line, Chapter 3.
55. Pat Kennedy’s Executive Newsletter, No. 1740, July 20, 1973. HMA 2126-2.-VII.-D.-6., Box 782, “Consumer Surveys – African-Americans. Miscellaneous Studies, 1964–1981.”
56. Park City Daily News, March 13, 1964, and May 18, 1966.
57. Chicago Defender, June 30, 1964 and March 23, 1966.
58. West, “‘Getting on the Negro History Bandwagon,’” 424, 426, 448.
59. Los Angeles Times, April 21, 1968.
60. Chambers, Madison Avenue and the Color Line, Chapter 2.
61. Chicago Defender, May 10, 1969; New York Amsterdam News, August 14, 1971.
62. Afro-American (Baltimore), December 17, 1966; Chicago Defender, December 31, 1966.
63. On “soul marketing,” see Weems, Desegregating the Dollar, 75–79.
64. New York Amsterdam News, February 14, 1970.
65. New York Amsterdam News, September 12, 1970.
66. New Journal and Guide, July 31, 1971; Chicago Defender, July 28, 1971; New York Amsterdam News, October 9, 1971.
67. Atlanta Daily World, July 21, 1971.
68. Atlanta Daily World, December 14, 1972.
69. Baton Rouge News Leader, July 30, 1972.
70. Davis, “Realizing marketplace opportunity,” 484–85.
71. Ibid, 486–87. On Seagram’s and Hiram Walker’s shifts to market to Black consumers as respectable, successful professionals across its product categories at this time, see Pereira-Alvares, “Mickeys, Minis, and Pints,” Chapter 3.
72. Rosa-Salas, “Making the Mass White,” 30–32; Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic, 323–329.
73. Chicago Defender, August 15, 1966.
74. New York Amsterdam News, September 12, 1964. Some of this feature’s content was provided by the Bourbon Institute, a marketing consortium, and sourced from Gerald Carson’s recent book The Social History of Bourbon (1963). The newspaper mixed the Bourbon Institute-sourced stories with original material from its staff.
75. Boyenton, “Enter the Ladies,” 445–453; Corzine, “Right at home,” 858–60.
76. New York Amsterdam News, September 12, 1964.
77. Roberts, Joe Louis.
78. Michigan Chronicle, February 14, 1953.
79. New York Amsterdam News, July 5, 1952; Chicago Defender, July 12, 1952.
80. Drake and Cayton, Black Metropolis, esp. Chapter 16; Reed, The Rise of Chicago’s Black Metropolis, Chapter 3.
81. For an overview of the evolution of Black Americans’ drinking habits and views of alcohol consumption in historical context, see Christmon, “Historical Overview of Alcohol,” 318–330.
82. Pittsburgh Courier, May 31, 1952.
83. Pittsburgh Courier, July 5, 1952.
84. Cleveland Call and Post and Afro-American, August 23, 1952.
85. Atlanta Daily World, May 28, 1953.
86. JET, May 28, 1970.
87. Bay State Banner, November 2, 1967.
88. Newsweek, November 6, 1967; Ebony, November 1967.
89. For a general history that addresses bourbon’s recent resurgence, Fred Minnick, Bourbon.
90. Washington Post, March 26, 2021.
91. Ferrell, “‘Now You Can Drink that Alcohol;’” Clark, “A Liquid Spirit”
92. Krauss, Blood and Whiskey; New York Times, June 25, 2016.
93. Weems, Desegregating the Dollar, 108–113; Ibrahim, “The Negro Marketing Dilemma,” 558–559.
94. Inc.5000 List 2022, August 23, 2022, Accessed Oct 7, 2022 https://www.inc.com/inc5000/2022?cid=sf01001.; Food & Wine, March 15, 2022; Accessed February 16, 2024 https://www.foodandwine.com/drinks/drinks-innovators-of-the-year-fawn-weaver-and-victoria-eady-butler.
95. Courier-Journal, February 21, 2022.
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Eric Reed
Eric Reed is Professor of History at Western Kentucky University. His first major research project examined the cultural and commercial history of the Tour de France bicycle race. It led to the publication of a series of articles and a research monograph, The Tour de France: A Cultural and Commercial History (University of Chicago, 2015). His latest research project explores the history of bourbon whiskey in a global context.