Whatever Happened to the Old-Time Saloon?

Transcript

Drew H (00:07):
This is Whiskey Lore. If the 21st century age of social media and solopreneurialship has done anything, it stressed the importance of putting forth a consistent, dependable, and inspiring persona. Like it or not, we live in the age of the personal brand. While many individuals today project and carry their brand with ease, history shows that it's not always as easy as it looks. Just look at the graveyard of careers filled with the names of child or teenage actors, from the Partridge families, Danny Bonaducci to David Cassidy, to McCauley Culkin or Shirley Temple, transforming a child brand into an adult one can be rife with peril. But there's also been plenty of those who have made the successful jump into adult acting like Mickey Rooney, Jodi Foster, and Michael J. Fox, while others have transformed themselves from acting into other creative endeavors like Ron Howard, Janet Jackson, and Miley Cyrus.

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Now music has its own list of failed rebrandings, including names like Hanson, Donnie Osmond, of course if you ignore the Las Vegas years, Tiffany and Debbie Gibson. And in the latter case, Debbie thought that maybe changing her name to Deborah might just be the key to giving her a more adult image, but the public didn't buy it. Of course, music has always been kinder to this type of evolution, although artists like Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, and Stevie Wonder all found some rough spots along the way. The products face similar challenges in trying to evolve and keep their brands relevant. Remember clothing brands like Jordash Jeans, Sassoon, Benetton, or Bugle Boy? And when was the last time you considered buying an Oldsmobile, Saturn, Saab or Hummer? And then there are the Lost Airlines. When was the last time you boarded a Pan Am flight or took a ride on the airline run by "people who care." In other words, Transworld Airlines or TWA.

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Or what about the discount airline? Wow. Well, sometimes the loss of brands is due to bad management and other times controversy can bring a brand down. And then there are those executives who become locked into old world thinking like Blockbuster, Maxell cassette tapes, or Sears and Roebuck, and then lose it all because they couldn't see the forest for the trees. And how many brands have survived despite their seemingly stodgy past? For instance, Old Spice, which went all out strange in their advertisements while not really becoming hip, but at least carving out a niche for themselves. Yet for every squirt, josta and tab that has faded from store shelves, somehow Pepsi and Coke have kept their standing at the top of the soda food chain, albeit after having a few clunker ideas of their own like Crystal Pepsi or New Coke. The world of branding is dog eat dog and some have bigger challenges than others.

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One of the greatest rebranding stories of all time comes from the heart of Europe. At the close of World War II, the continent was licking its wounds from the terror and blight instigated by Germany's so-called Third Reich. It was a war that some historians say could have been avoided if the allies hadn't sought to punish the Germans after World War I. Their policies after the war led to mass hyperinflation as the Deutschmark became worthless and people in Germany began to starve. Open to any solution, they fell prey to the rantings of Adolf Hitler who promised them a better life. At the close of World War II, the allies began to show that they hadn't learned any lessons from their earlier deeds. Almost immediately, the allies began dismantling German factories with some being moved out of the country. One of the factories targeted was that of the German car maker Volkswagen.

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Translated from German into English as people's car in the 1930s, Hitler had a dream that every German would have a Volkswagen in their driveway. He was so adamant about his people having one, he put German citizens on a weekly payment plan to make sure that when they were ready to roll off the assembly line, everyone would be driving one. That was definitely an odd looking car for its time. It had some strange features such as a rear loading engine and ladybug looking design. Getting people on board for the people's car wasn't difficult, but getting Hitler to deliver on his promise of a car in every driveway for every German wasn't going to be so easy. Obsessed with war, Hitler decided to use the materials for the car to build tanks and planes for his war munitions. And the few Volkswagens that were produced found their way to other countries.

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And this led the Baltimore evening sun in 1940 to suggest that their car should be rebranded as Andurer Volkswagen, or in other words, other Volkswagen since anybody but the German seemed to be able to acquire one. When the war came to an end, Germany was once again devastated and they were needing their industry back to get on their feet. But instead, the British dismantled the Volkswagen factory and sent its parts off to Britain.

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It took a man with a fierce need of his own rebranding to get the allies to see the error of their ways. Former US President Herbert Hoover, whose administration saw the onset of the disastrous great depression 15 years before, began pleading with Europe to stop its policy of dismantling Germany. He knew the people would not be peaceful simply by being punished into submission. He saw the German people needing jobs and they needed to feel human. And the sooner they were welcomed back into the family of nations, the better. With the Britains not that interested in building the little bug-like cars in the UK, the factory was reestablished in the town of Wolfsburg and German citizens were hired to build the cars. In a sign of good faith, the name which had been changed over the previous few months was changed back to Volkswagen. But even with its 36 miles to the gallon low cost and simple operation, selling that car overseas wasn't going to be easy.

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Its unique design and look was an acquired taste. The rear mounted four cylinder 62 horsepower engine couldn't hold a candle to the V8s coming out of Detroit. The foreign car market was still slow to become established after the war. And probably its biggest liability was its reputation as the Hitler mobile. And so it was no surprise that sales started slow in the United States with Americans only buying 157 in the first year. And the brave souls who bought it had to live through all sorts of ridicule for buying Hitler's dream car, but its value couldn't be denied. And within five years, the car was supplying MG and Jaguar as the foreign car of choice. In fact, in 1955, Volkswagen accounted for 46% of foreign car sales in the US. It's a good bet Hitler never saw that coming or the fact that those German vehicles would be driving down another German import, the interstate highway, which President Eisenhower lobbied for after seeing the efficiency of the German auto bond.

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What made the Volkswagen Triumph complete was when the Manhattan advertising agency Doyle Dane and Birnbach were tasked with creating an advertising campaign around the little homely bug. Not wanting to put paint on a perceived pig, they took the approach of making it a vehicle that built trust through quirky honesty. Their first ad was black and white and featured a simple thumbnail shot of the vehicle with tons of white space surrounding it and the words think small over the copy at the bottom of the ad. The copy addressed some of the oddities of the car, like the odd place where the fuel was loaded and the college pranks that were going on, seeing how many people could fit inside the car. But it also mentioned how the people who drove them were even getting comfortable with the extra money in their budget thanks to its low fuel consumption and the lower cost of insurance.

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It was a clever turnaround that got people looking beyond the flaws and more at the advantages. And their next ad featured the word lemon in bold print. And again, it only endeared people to the vehicle. While body styles came and went with every other model of car, the Volkswagen Beetle barely changed over several decades. And ironically, it became one of the favorite cars of the peace loving counterculture. It would take decades before the car took in an overhaul and design. It retained similar features, but it did try to modernize. But eventually even the bug, as it was affectionately called, met its demise thanks to drivers' appetites for SUVs and minivans. Still, the story of the Volkswagen brand is one for the ages. It overcame incredible odds to become one of the world's great success stories. Better yet, it was to Hoover's great credit that the car and its factory stood as an important element in creating a peaceful Europe.

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Now in the world of whiskey, there have been several times when brands or even the spirit itself has fallen out of favor and had to reinvent itself. In the years before Prohibition, brands like Old Rippy, Old Overholt, and Old Crow ruled the saloon. But after Prohibition, only some really clever advertising helped keep Old Crow on top. The other brands slowly started to fade away. Then in the late 1970s and early '80s, brands like Johnny Walker, Old Crow and Dewars fell out of favor and clear spirits and mixed drinks became all the rage. It wasn't until the early 2000s that whiskey started to make its return spurred on by a new branding idea borrowed from the booming brewing industry. The idea of the small startup distiller was branded as craft distilling. Larger brands followed suit by producing modern looking labels and creating fancy new brands like Buffalo Trace and Rare Breed, or adorning their bottles with terms like small batch, single barrel and cast strength.

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And meanwhile, most of the old names ended up slipping to the bottom of the shelf.

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Now, one of the great disappearing acts in the history of whiskey is the loss of the term saloon. In the 19th century, it was hard to walk 30 steps in any town and not see a saloon sign somewhere, but look around today and the name has mostly disappeared with only a few nostalgic bars using the term. So where did it go and why did it leave? Did it just get tired or was there another reason? Well, the man behind its demise may surprise you. It's a man often credited with the return of alcohol after prohibition, but in one long ago forgotten move, he turned the nation against the word and soon the old saloon was in for rebranding.

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If you're enjoying today's episode and you'd love to learn more about whiskey history, including in-depth stories about the saloon and temperance movement, check out my new book, The Lost History of Tennessee Whiskey, available at Amazon, your favorite online bookseller, or at whiskey-laura.com/shop. Today, most people probably associate the word saloon with the Old West, but from just before the Civil War until prohibition, American drinkers were flooding into saloons from New York to California and Florida to Minnesota. Its name originated out of a great rebranding. In America's early days, the community meeting place was the local tavern. Here, travelers were invited in for a hot meal, a stable for their horse, and a convenient bed, sometimes shared with other travelers. As towns began to form around them and more people moved from an agrarian society into a manufacturing society, towns began to fill up and taverns along with coffee shops became places for men of substance to meet and discuss the issues of the day.

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In most cases, women were not allowed in taverns so as to protect their virtue, although many taverns had women hostesses or owners or separate rooms for women. Over time, the lower classes too wanted to have a place to drink and so evolved what became known as the tippling house. No doubt the elites looked down on these tippling houses as dens of vice and the government quickly began regulating tippling houses so as to curtail gambling and over-imbibing of alcohol. States like Tennessee, Maine and Massachusetts took the early lead in creating laws surrounding the tippling house. Their solution was to regulate the amount of alcohol that could be served or they would place a high license fee on the establishment hoping to push them out of business. But tippling houses thrived anyway and most owners were making so much money off of their patrons that they simply paid the fine for not having a license and operated openly as what many people referred to as illegal blind tigers.

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But some of these owners were looking to elevate the status of their establishments to the point of respectability. This is when another great rebranding occurred. Still in the ero and all things French were still highly admired in the United States, the tavern and tippling house owners looked to the concept of the French salon as a model that would push the American drinking establishment towards the respectability they desired. The salon was like a gentleman's club where respectable businessmen gathered to debate politics and share in sophisticated libations. The term was Americanized and soon the saloon became the dominant form of drinking house.

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But the saloon never took on the air of respectability its name would imply. Instead, it would devolve even further into a home of heavy drinking, gambling and prostitution. If vice was your thing, the saloon was the place to find it. Nobody could deny the popularity of the saloon amongst the male population. In fact, some went as far as to blame the loss by union soldiers at the first battle of bull run on the soldier's desire to get to the saloons and grog shops. As America pushed west after the Civil War, the saloon became the central focus of a town with a stage coach often using the saloon as its main stop. Many of these old saloons with their swinging doors and dusty dirt floors became hangouts for gunfighters in the criminal element. Yet there were plenty of upscale saloons throughout the old west built with decorative tin roof ceilings, beautiful wood stained flooring, and expensive oak and mahogany bars and glass mirrors shipped in from overseas.

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And in many towns, some of the most respected saloons were owned by black owners, including the Boston Saloon in Virginia City and Cal Johnson Saloon in Knoxville, Tennessee. But again, respectable women were not to be found in these saloons. In UK public houses, women were often given their own quarters known as snugs. But in the US, unless you were serving an owner or a lady of the evening, women weren't to be found on site. Prostitution was a big reason why most women stayed away so as to protect their reputations, which in the Victorian era remained a treasured commodity. For over five decades, the saloon ruled the drinking culture of America, and it also stayed in the crosshairs of the temperance movement. It was blamed for poverty, the breaking up of the family and all manner of crimes. But every time they tried to curtail the building of saloons or worked for outright banning of the saloon, the drinking houses continued to grow in number.

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But what finally made the saloon irredeemable was when large scale brewers like Schlitz, Bush, Miller and Papst began to get involved, looking for ways to sell their brand of beer. They went about funding saloons and outfitting them with all sorts of paraphernalia to promote their brands. It wasn't long before the brewers themselves were building their own saloons and offering free salty lunches to businessmen who would come in and add day drinking to their regimen. And soon if Schlutz built a saloon on a street corner, Miller would build one right across the street to steal their customers away. The landscape of the 19th century city became littered with hundreds of saloons. It all became way too much. And while the Women's Christian Temperance Union was making small bits of headway in the world of liquor legislation, their message was too tied to women's suffrage to get many legislators on board.

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It wouldn't be until Wayne B. Wheeler made a statement through his organization aptly named the Anti-Saloon League before politicians felt comfortable enough to back the ending of the saloon through legislation. Also didn't hurt that America was being dragged into a war against the Germans, and soon temperance leaders were jumping on anti-German rhetoric as an added way to get Americans on their side. The result was the passage of the 18th Amendment and the Bolsted Act. For all intents and purposes, the saloon was officially dead.

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But was it? Throughout the South, the saloon owners skirted the law and ran illegal blind tigers despite the law. In New York City, speakeasies developed right under the authorities' noses and they thrived throughout national prohibition. But when the public's opinion began to shift with the onset of the Great Depression, it likely seemed a given that the saloon would return, and that soon became a rallying cry for prohibitionists trying to hold on to the 18th amendment. So why didn't the saloon come back after prohibition? Well, of course, in a way it did, but the word itself had been so maligned that just like the old tippling house, the idea of slapping the name saloon on your business would just create fodder for prohibitionists who were keeping up their attacks years after the 21st amendment repealed prohibition. They always warned that allowing people to drink was a slippery slope back to the days of the old saloon.

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And while stigma did play a role in the divorcing of drinking establishments from the word saloon, it turned out to be an unexpected source that shamed most establishments out of the practice. Long associated with his stance that America needed a drink in the midst of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for the longest time has been seen as the champion of American drinkers. But when it came to the saloon, FDR was a firm opponent. He let his feelings be known immediately after Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment. On December 5th, 1933, imbibers cheered as FDR passed on the good news that acting Secretary of State William Phillips had certified that 36 states had approved the reveal of the Prohibition Amendment. While it was seen as a moment of celebration by the president, in all actuality, it was a proclamation that was required as a provision of the National Recovery Act to allow the taxing of alcohol.

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It's a proclamation that many historians focus on when telling the story of prohibition and Roosevelt's part in its repeal. But what they often miss is the second proclamation that he made on that day, and that proclamation wasn't required by law. In his message, he asked that Americans make sure to only buy alcohol from tax-paying licensed dealers and to avoid "the notoriously evil illicit liquor traffic," i.e. The bootlegger. But he also asked that the states not allow the return of the saloon in any shape or form. It was his belief that the citizens of the nation needed to be educated in the ways of temperance, that they needed to avoid the problems that the saloon had created in pre-Prohibition days. From that day forward, the word saloon was all but stricken from the drinking culture. The only ones who seemed bent on keeping it alive were religious groups and temperance workers.

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In its place came little rebranding with the word barroom or simply bar. Now before prohibition, most people used barroom to denote a meeting place within a respectable establishment like a hotel or restaurant. This looser definition allowed it to be reframed to fit these new style drinking establishments that would now not only be serving men, but also would be serving the ladies who had been introduced to the drinking culture by the fashionable speakeasy. But Roosevelt's proclamation wasn't made in a vacuum. Many others realized that there was no way something called the saloon could ever return without the outcry of prohibitionists growing louder. In Milwaukee, a year before repeal, a group of architects were already hard at work on a new concept for drinking establishments. United Press journalists reported, "The new American barroom will resemble neither the old time saloon nor its successor the speakeasy, but will include all that is modern in architecture, lighting, decoration, and refrigeration.

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The heavy oak and mahogany of days of old will be taboo along with the backroom saloon. The modern barroom will have lots of light, period rooms, aluminum trimmings and flowers. The family club catering to men and women will take the place of the saloon," said Thomas L. Rose, member of the firm of architects, which designed the famous old Schlitz Palm Garden in Milwaukee.

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And while it's true that the Corner Bar eventually took on some of the characteristics of the old saloon, a bit of rebranding such as Sinatra, Coca-Cola, and the craft distilleries experienced went a long way to keeping those prohibition wolves at bay. I'm Drew Hanish and this is Whiskey Lore. Whiskeylore is a production of Travel Fuels Life LLC, production stories and research by Drew Hanish. If you enjoyed today's episode, help Whiskeylore grow by telling a friend about the show and make sure you subscribe because we got brand new episodes of Whiskeylore Stories coming every month. Remember to grab your copy of the new book, The Lost History of Tennessee Whiskey for more Whiskeylore stories. You can find it at Amazon and at your favorite online bookseller or head to whiskey-lore.com/audio to find where you can get a copy of the audiobook. And to stay up with everything Whiskey Lore, all you have to do is join your friends and me at whiskey-lore.com/patreon.

(26:28):
Once again, thanks for growing your whiskey knowledge along with me. And until next time, cheers and slangiva. For show notes, resources, and transcripts for this episode, head to whiskey-lore.com/episodes.