Why all the fuss over a barroom? Dubbed the “poor man’s club” by the Anti-Saloon League at the turn of the twentieth century, many bar regulars asserted that the “[saloons] hold on the community does not wholly proceed from its satisfying the thirst for drink. It also satisfies the thirst for drink.” The term “club” had in fact been associated with drink culture since the early seventeenth century. Clubs among English-speaking people were quite literally heavy sticks with a knob at one end, and the phrase “to club” meant simply to beat (i.e. “The man clubbed his enemy to the ground”). However, the verb also came to mean “to combine” or “to join” into a mass. This sense of coming together made its way into taverns in early America. By the eighteenth century, a “club” meant a meeting or assembly for social gathering. The term signifies a method of communal drinking at the
Why all the fuss over a barroom? Dubbed the “poor man’s club” by the Anti-Saloon League at the turn of the twentieth century, many bar regulars asserted that the “[saloons] hold on the community does not wholly proceed from its satisfying the thirst for drink. It also satisfies the thirst for drink.” The term “club” had in fact been associated with drink culture since the early seventeenth century. Clubs among English-speaking people were quite literally heavy sticks with a knob at one end, and the phrase “to club” meant simply to beat (i.e. “The man clubbed his enemy to the ground”). However, the verb also came to mean “to combine” or “to join” into a mass. This sense of coming together made its way into taverns in early America. By the eighteenth century, a “club” meant a meeting or assembly for social gathering. The term signifies a method of communal drinking at the