Taverns

[tenfed1861]

Folks,
I am wishing to start research on an impression as a tavern operator.But I do not know where I can find any articles and such for pre-1860s taverns.I am wishing to find out how taverns were run,set-ups of taverns,gambling in taverns,types of alcohols served,ect.If anyone has info on where I can find articles,papers,or books about said info,I would greatly appriciate it.
Thank y'all for any help.

[BobSullivanPress]

Re: Taverns

The American Memory Home pages of the National Archives have several examples of tavern licenses and business bonds. Pick your decade and you're off!

[ElizabethClark]

Re: Taverns

Trot down to your local library, and talk with a reference librarian; she can point you toward a wide variety of books.

Where have you looked so far?

[Hank Trent]

Re: Taverns

Just having come back from spending two days as an 1866 tavern employee in Missouri, and having also been head cook at a Kentucky tavern in the past...

I'd say start here:

http://books.google.com/books?output=html&q=tavern+date%3A1850-1865&btnG=Search+Books

For food and drink recipes, I'd highly suggest to look only in period recipe books. Later books about period cooking are notoriously inaccurate, while there are dozens and dozens of original recipe books online.

For drinks, try here: http://books.google.com/books?id=QDU...tput=html&cd=1

For food, look here:

http://books.google.com/books?cd=1&output=html&q=intitle%3Ahousewife%20date%3A0-1865&as_brr=1

or here:

http://books.google.com/books?cd=1&output=html&as_brr=1&q=intitle%3Acookery+date%3A0-1865

or there any plenty more other sites with cookbooks online, keeping in mind that food and drinks varied somewhat regionally.

For a secondary source that's specific regionally, "Stagecoach Days in the Bluegrass" covers Kentucky taverns and stagecoach travel in the antebellum era. I don't think it's available online, but probably is through interlibrary loan.

If you can find anyone already doing a tavern impression in a period building, I'd suggest volunteering to help if you can (assuming you haven't done so). It'll really give you a sense of what it's like. Are you going to Westville? There's a tavern there--not sure if they'll be serving full meals this year. The events at Boonesfield village in Defiance Missouri have a tavern run by Terry and Nancy Sorchy. This was the most recent one: http://sites.google.com/site/staroft...rtsessionevent

If you're planning to run a period tavern at an upcoming event and need an employee, it's something I have an interest in (can you tell?). :)

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[John-Owen Kline]

Re: Taverns

For the hardware end, check in with Garrison Beall (Vuhginyuh)*. He has a huge collection of tavern/ordinary related artifacts. Ceramics, drinking and measuring glasses, pewter, bottles etc., all based on the archaeological record. Here's the tip of the iceberg; http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/...hp?albumid=122

He has benches, chairs, a buttery, three and four leg demilune card tables, Phyfe pedestal swivel top card tables and three styles of X-frame tavern tables. One x table has shelves and pockets under the top for storing glasses or mugs. Some of these are surprisingly portable.


*He will be away for several weeks. If you contact him he may not respond for a while.

[tenfed1861]

Re: Taverns

Hank,I just have an interests in period hedenism.Period prostitutes,drinking,ect.I actually want to do a period pimp impression (if I can).But I would like work on the impression,and when I graduate college and get set up,maybe portraying an impression as such.

[tenfed1861]

Re: Taverns

Hank,I found an article on JSTOR that you may find interesting.It is titled New York City Tavern Violence and the Creation of a Working-Class Male Identity.Just skimming through it,I found cases that makes modern day street gangs look amaturish.Here is the link:http://www.jstor.org/stable/3124015?seq=1

[John-Owen Kline]

Re: Taverns

I just have an interests in period hedenism.Period prostitutes,drinking,ect.I actually want to do a period pimp impression (if I can).But I would like work on the impression.

Well, that's pretty much the polar opposite of the question I answered.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Taverns

Well, that's pretty much the polar opposite of the question I answered.

Um, yeah. Me too. Even though I was in a knife fight at the Westville tavern a couple years ago.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Justin Runyon]

Re: Taverns

Three must ahve books for researching alcohol culture in our period:

The Alcoholic Republic by W. J Rorabaugh

Imbibe: From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to "Professor" Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar by David Wondrich

Jerry Thomas' Bartenders Guide: How to Mix Drinks; Receipts for Mixing All Kinds of Punch, Eggnog, Juleps, Smashes, Cobblers, Cocktails, Sangarees, Mulls, Toddies, Slings, Sours, Flips.
(get the 1862 reprint, it's available at Amazon.

JER

[Elaine Kessinger]

Re: Taverns

Brains to pick to send your research further... for prostitutes, pimps, and related sex-trade questions try Elizabeth Topping.. especially her book, "What's a Poor Girl To Do?" and for taverns, inns, and related topics try Stephanie Brennan.

[Spinster]

Re: Taverns

In many ways, Cullen is talking about two separate establishments here.

The neighborhood workingmans tavern, or the rural 'stand' are the sorts of places a man can read a paper, have a drink, discuss politics over a good smoke------and send his child running up to for a bucket of beer for his dinner.

The cribs and cradles of the garter trade, especially the more discrete ones, were less public establishments. Both 'What's a Poor Girl to Do?' and 'Stories the Soldiers Would Not Tell' deal with aspects of this.

For more wise arrangements(remembering that this was an era in which the cause of venereal disease was somewhat understood and the 'cures' were horrific) look to the Octoroon/Quadroon concubines/mistresses, and those arranging those exclusive legal contracts, along with the provisions for children of the union.

[Silas]

Re: Taverns

This thread commenced with much promise and potential. Had it commenced with, "I want to start a whore house proprieter impression," this thread would have been closed in short order. Has nothing to do with Victorian, prudish ideas on what is socially right and wrong. It would have been because the whore house impression under a tent fly is pretty lame and is a staple of mainstream events. The only saving grace - to this moderator - has been the responses about how to run a tavern.

Keep the discussion real, period and fact based. It'll stay. Otherwise, take the kewl impression ideas to that other national forum ...

[ElizabethClark]

Re: Taverns

Gotta agree with Mr Tackitt.

So far, the responses have been Really Good, though the secondary question is a bit... iffy... No problem with the topics themselves, but the portrayal issue? I have the same issue as Mr Tackitt on that one.

Tavern-owner/worker is going to be a LOT more applicable to most event settings.

[paulcalloway]

Re: Taverns

Keep it source and research-based and it's fine.

As an example: In my 105th Ohio research, they encountered dens of ill-repute in Kentucky before Perryville. That's before Perryville - on the march from Richmond. Since Perryville was a meeting-engagement, unless research shows otherwise, it would likely be an anachronism to have some sort of brothel there on the field.