Holder, Glenn P. “Prohibition on the College Campus.” The Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill), September 22, 1929. Accessed November 3, 2018. https://universityofnorthcarolinaatchapelhill.newspapers.com/image/67924934/?terms=Prohibition.

Prohibition on the College Campus

Prohibition on College Campuses is an article published in The Daily Tar Heel, UNC’s premier student newspaper. It was published on September 22nd, 1929. The article discusses the impracticalities of prohibition on college campuses, stating that if one is to walk past the fraternities, they will still notice a strong presence of alcohol. The author believes that no law will change the usage of alcohol on UNC’s campuses, only a fundamental shift in how students view alcohol could do so. The author believes that all Americans view Prohibition as a disaster, but the process of removing a constitutional amendment is so difficult, and Americans are a stubborn people unwilling to admit their mistakes, and so they wouldn’t see Prohibition overturned for a long time. The author specifically describes how the people drink a “vile” drink called “Orange County Cawn”, which is presumably a home distilled liquor.

This document is valuable to a historian studying food and drink in Chapel Hill because it gives insight into what UNC students think about Prohibition, potentially one of the largest disruptors in the alcohol foodways in American history. The article suggests that college students view Prohibition as an entirely bad thing, arguing that it does nothing to stop the usage of alcohol but rather encourages more dangerous usage. While no further information is provided, the term “Orange County Cawn” suggests that others in Chapel Hill and Orange County also resent Prohibition and have developed local solutions to a lack of access to alcohol.

If we combine both the information stated plainly in the article and the implications that can be drawn from “Orange County Cawn”, it can be determined that pre-Prohibition, alcohol was a valuable piece of the Chapel Hill food story for students and residents alike. This fact did not change during Prohibition, but rather it was forced to shift due to closing foodways. Residents of the area were forced to produce their own liquor to supplement a key component of their food story that politics at a national level had taken away.

 

Made by Bob Payne