Document generated on 09/29/2021 9:02 p.m. Urban History Review Revue d'histoire urbaine Battling "the bane of our cities": Class, territory, and the prohibition debate in Toronto, 1877 M. P. Sendbuehler Volume 22, Number 1, October 1993 Article abstract In the nineteenth century, the tavern was an important institution in urban URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1016720ar working-class life. Because of the social ills associated with alcohol abuse and DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1016720ar public drinking, there were frequent attempts to lessen the tavern's importance or to eliminate it entirely. This paper examines several See table of contents tavern-related issues that emerged in Toronto in the 1870s and 1880s. The Crooks Act, passed in 1876, employed powerful measures to deal with political and temperance questions simultaneously. The intersection of class, politics, Publisher(s) temperance, and urban life led to a territorial solution to the liquor question. These issues were dealt with by the people of Toronto in 1877, when they Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine declined to prohibit public drinking in the city via the Dunkin Act, a local option prohibition statute of the Province of Canada. ISSN 0703-0428 (print) 1918-5138 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article Sendbuehler, M. P. (1993). Battling "the bane of our cities": Class, territory, and the prohibition debate in Toronto, 1877. Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine, 22(1), 30–48. https://doi.org/10.7202/1016720ar All Rights Reserved © Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine, 1993 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ Battling "the bane of our cities": Class, territory, and the prohibition debate in Toronto, 1877 M.P. Sendbuehler Abstract Taverns were an important aspect of the The Tavern in the City: Objections, In the nineteenth century, the tavern nineteenth-century urban working-class accommodations, and regulations, was an important institution in experience, yet there are few systematic 1870s-1890s urban working-class life. Because of examinations of tavern life, and fewer still the social ills associated with that assess its significance in the culture During the 1870s and 1880s, liquor con• alcohol abuse and public drinking, of the city as a whole.1 This paper will trol in Ontario moved from being non• there were frequent attempts to make a case for closer scrutiny of tavern existent to being a set of restrictions lessen the tavern's importance or to life and its regulation, as part of a call for prescribing acceptable times and places eliminate it entirely. This paper a more inclusive approach to the study for buying and consuming beer and examines several tavern-related of workers and cities. It will survey the spirits. These restrictions developed issues that emerged in Toronto in class and gender issues of temperance, gradually, arising at least in part from the 1870s and 1880s. The Crooks Act, discuss major changes in the regulation social and political conflicts in the passed in 1876, employed powerful of Ontario's taverns in the 1870s and province's cities, particularly Toronto. measures to deal with political and 1880s, and examine events that pre• Three themes recur here: the Province's temperance questions simul• ceded what I call a territorial solution to taneously. The intersection of class, desire to promote moderation and politics, temperance, and urban life the liquor question. abstinence, particularly among male led to a territorial solution to the workers; the largely successful effort to liquor question. These issues were By the end of the 1880s, Ontario's laws wrest political influence from license inspec• dealt with by the people of Toronto included mechanisms that effectively tors and tavern keepers; the accom• in 1877, when they declined to eradicated taverns within many residen• modation of urbanités who wished to prohibit public drinking in the city tial areas, but created a relatively large make or preserve "dry" neighbourhoods via the Dunkin Act, a local option number of them in commercial areas. and the impracticality of enacting local- prohibition statute of the Province Residential areas that retained licensed2 option prohibition in relatively large urban of Canada. establishments were usually inhabited by areas. members of the working class. I call this feature of liquor law a "territorial solution" Temperance and the Urban Working because territorial division and areal dif• Class ferentiation were used to achieve a com• promise on a contentious and divisive As early as 1876, the claim was made issue. This regulatory regime, which per• that Toronto's taverns were no longer sisted until prohibition in Ontario (1916- hotels, but "drinking dens" and boarding 1927) and was revived afterward, can be houses in disguise. In such places, "sim• traced to class divisions, working-class ple and straitened young men" paid less drinking patterns and ways of life, and for their rooms than they would at ordi• the increasing segregation of classes nary boarding houses, but were drawn within Canadian cities.3 In 1877, the citi• into buying liquor, and so paid more in zens of Toronto spent most of the sum• the long run. "Will anyone tell us that the mer debating, via a referendum crowds of taverns on Yonge and Queen campaign, the merits of closing all of the streets, or, still more, in all the out-of-the- city's taverns at once. The fact that territo• way places in the city, are for the accom• rial considerations were muted in the modation of travellers?"4 The notion that campaign show that the failed attempt to the tavern's exclusive function was to combat the liquor trade on a city-wide accommodate travellers stood in opposi• basis forced the later adoption of territo• tion to important realities. By the time the rial options. Globe had made this complaint, the urban tavern was primarily a place of lei• sure for the city's residents. In most establishments licensed for public drink• ing, working-class men were the bulk of the clientele; the Globe's lament suggests 30 Urban History Review /Revue d'histoire urbaine Vol XXII, No. 1 (October, 1993) Battling "the bane of our cities": Résumé that for some of these men, the tavern performed service functions above and Au 19ieme siècle, la taverne était une was not only a social centre, but a home. beyond serving the "travelling public."6 institution importante de la classe Moreover, the tavern helped to define In some eyes, alcohol's relationship to ouvrière urbaine II y a eu, du aux working-class masculinity and thus other economic relations made tavern life maux sociaux associés à l'abus de became a significant, but problematic, heinous and thus grounds for prohibition. Vacool et à sa consommation institution in urban working-class life. Ironically, these aspects of tavern life publique, des essais fréquents forced labour leaders, if not others, to d'amoindrir ou éliminer cette The tavern's economic aspects led both retreat from pressing for prohibition. importance. Cette monographe to an assault from the middle class, and While capitalist social relations made examine d'abord plusieurs débats, to divisions within the working class. some people migrants and under• axées sur la taverne, qui ont Ultimately, labour leaders, the workers employed casual workers, one could not émergés à Toronto aux décennies most inclined to temperance activism, fully oppose the institutions in which they 1870 et 1880. Ensuite, Vauteur came to tolerate, if not to accept, the were housed and fed, or the alcohol that examine en bref les implications du tavern's significance in the lives of fellow- financed the only indoor common mouvement anti-alcool vis-à-vis la 7 classe et le genre, ainsi que les workers. The tavern was a labour spaces available to them. conséquences du'Crooks Acf de exchange and a home for unattached 1876, un tentatif à résoudre men whose work was sporadic or sea• The use of taverns by urban workers who simultanément les questions de sonal. The economy of the day included were not transient, underemployed, or politque urbaine et du contrôle de la a significant contingent of transient work• without other lodging was also problem• taverne. Vauteur développe ers. For migrant labourers who jammed atic. The emerging working-class consen• l'argument que l'intersection de urban taverns and boarding houses dur• sus on the liquor question held that while classe, de politque, de prohibition, ing the winter doldrums, licensed taverns heavy drinking and tavern life may have et de la vie urbaine s'est résolue avec were a necessity. Without a liquor been integral parts of older plebeian cul• une solution territoriale— la license, a tavern could not provide a tures, such traditions had no place in a concentration des établissements large indoor common space, and no effective "culture of solidarity and resis• licenciés aux zones commerciaux. such space was available elsewhere. In tance" 8 Even if workers were organized, Finalement, cette monographe offre 1876 two Ottawa aldermen wrote to Pro• radical, or disposed toward challenging une discussion des actions et des vincial Secretary Adam Crooks that more capitalism, respectability could be diffi• interprétatyions des Torontois à licenses than those allowed under a cult to attain if a few bad examples propos de ces issus en 1877, lors newly-imposed statutory limit were encouraged stereotyping.