Book Review: Grappling with Demon Rum: The Cultural Struggle over Liquor in Early Oklahoma By James E. Klein

Authors

Davis D. Joyce, East Central University

Date of this Version

Fall 2009

Citation

Published in Great Plains Research 19.2 (Fall 2009): 246-47.

Comments

Copyright 2009 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Used by permission.

Abstract

When asked to review this book for Great Plains Research, the first thought to cross my mind was of Jimmie Lewis Franklin’s Born Sober: Prohibition in Oklahoma, 1907-1959, for Franklin set a high standard on the subject of prohibition in Oklahoma with that 1971 work. Indeed, Franklin, now retired from Vanderbilt University, provided one of the endorsements for the dust jacket of James E. Klein’s work, calling it “An engaging study of the intense battle over liquor in the early years of the Sooner state. In a careful and sophisticated analysis Klein shows that tensions over prohibition arose from class and cultural distinctions between workers and a middle class that saw prohibition as a symbol of respectability and a means of ensuring social order.”