Domesticating Drink By Catherine Murdock Analysis

Alcohol has always been a part of feminine culture, but it took a dramatic shift in the early 20th century. In the book, Domesticating Drink, Catherine Murdock argues that during this period, women transformed how society drank and eradicated the masculine culture that preceded this shift. Murdock draws from a few different sources to prove her argument, such as: etiquette manuals published after the turn of the century and anecdotes from the time period. She provides many interesting and unique perspectives on how drinking culture evolved, but she shows a clear bias towards “wet” culture and also makes very exaggerated claims that turn her argument into something that is nearly impossible to completely prove.
The backbone of Catherine Murdock’s argument comes from two sources:

etiquette books and stories from the early 1900s.

Murdock starts her argument by introducing the home entertainment culture that arose in the pre-prohibition era. At the time a variety of authors were publishing manuals on how to properly entertain guests in one’s home. These books became known as etiquette manuals and today can be looked at to show the specific shift in the prevalence of alcohol in the home. Murdock names books such as Etiquette for all Occasions and A-B-C of Good Form which both reference alcohol being served as part of the correct way to have guests. She also turns to cookbooks such as Dainties for Home Parties: A Cook-Book for Dance-Suppers, Bridge Parties, Receptions, Luncheons, and Other Entertainments that includes alcohol in it’s recipes. In order for a hostess to serve food containing alcohol or just alcoholic drinks, they must have alcohol at hand. Murdock uses this culture shift as the first step in her claim of elimination of masculine culture that surrounded drinking. The fact that alcohol was now available to women in the home lead to more and more women drinking. Over time drinking culture moved from something that almost exclusively happened in taverns and saloons, to a pivotal aspect of

home life which was based around women. Slowly, women consuming alcohol became a normal part of life, taking away from the stigma that only men drank. As prohibition forced drinking to become more of a private act the door was opened for home drinking to rise, along with women’s drinking. Murdock summarizes the transition when she states, “Women drank before prohibition, both at home and publicly. But elimination of alcohol’s associations with brewers, saloon keepers, and abusive male drinking patterns allowed Americans of both sexes to consider the substance alcohol without its most negative trappings.” The transformation that Murdock outlines along with the evidence she contributes, provide a feasible argument on her behalf.
Murdock’s argument falls short in two major ways. The first being that she consistently shows bias towards what would be considered “wet” culture in the early 1900s. She describes prohibitionist groups, such as the Women’s Christians Temperance Union as “radicals” and tells of how they, “asked members to donate jewelry and silverware” to their cause. She also starts her book by telling a story about her great-aunt who was also the vice chair of the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform, which as the name alludes too, was against prohibition. By starting her book with this particular anecdote, she reveals what side of the debate she favors. Her attitude is then repeated throughout the book. Murdock’s second fatal flaw is her overexerted thesis. She claims that, “The replacement of the all-male saloon with the mixed-sex speakeasy and bar, and the integration of drinking rituals such as cocktail parties into the home, indicates more than the domestication of drink. On a fundamental level it speaks of the elimination of a masculine subculture based on exclusivity, inebriety, and violence within the United States.” If Murdock would have changed one specific word in her thesis, her argument would become much stronger. She claims that the domestication of drink eliminated masculine subculture that surrounded alcohol. Not only is this statement impossible, it is also false. The domestication of drinking did create a whole new subculture which include women, but it did not completely eliminate masculine subculture. Almost 100 years after the time period Murdock was referencing there is still a masculine culture around some aspects of drinking. Today, bars are still prevalent and often filled with men on the days of major sporting events. There are also still drinks that are considered for men, so her claim that masculine subculture no longer exists is completely false.
If Murdock would have adjusted her thesis to make it more open, her argument would have sufficed. The fact is she makes a statement that is both incorrect and impossible. She provides many good examples of how feminine drinking subculture evolved, but she is unable to defend her claim that it eliminated masculine drinking subculture. Therefore, Catherine Murdock’s thesis in Domesticating Drink falls short of an impeccable argument.