Drunkenness in the Salt Lake Herald: 1880-1900

This site's research is based upon reporting from The Salt Lake Herald, which was a newspaper based out of Salt Lake City, Utah, printed from 1870 to 1909. It was published by, per a Chronicling America entry, "William C. Dunbar and Edward L. Sloan, elders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS)". [¹] This paper, primarily, catered towards middle and upperclass individuals in the form of daily, weekly, and annual subscription fees--something which in terms of affordability/availability to lower-class people based on costs simply was not the case. In 1880, its page count for the daily edition was at 4 pages--and by 1900, this jumped to doubly this at 8 pages per edition. Larger headings, more detailed stories with a focus on objectivity, and increasing number of illustrations are some of the notable changes that are found in the structure of the newspaper--terms of 'shifts' across the 1880s-1900. It should be noted that the crimes this regards were found utilizing Chronicling America's database, stored in the Library of Congress--with roughly forty entries related to drunkenness and the criminalization of alcohol at the core of these finding.

The crime which this site will focus upon is drunkenness charges in Utah society, as reported by the Herald--one which primarily involves a deep rooted class divide and focus on this crime as one which is morally judged. In terms of analyzing criminalization of alcohol/temperance as a movement within the U.S--this is an important subject of study, additionally, in terms of how this was enforced in terms of the temperance movement which would eventually transition into 'full blown' prohibition in many frontier/border-states such as that of Utah. Primarily, since this is a  deeply religious state and newspaper, terms of 'affiliations'--similarly the paper's reports tend to have overtones of this in terms of reporting biases and 'perceptions' of people arrested for drunkenness. There is a civil-order that vagrancy and drunkenness, as charges, are seen as disruptive towards--making individuals belligerent, 'wasteaways' in their domestic circles, or even abusive to themselves and others. This is the moralist argument at the front and center to the temperance movement, and explanatory towards the era of 1880-1900 cases which this site shall attempt to portray and analyze data regarding across a 20 year period shall, and ideally explain the relevancy of this to this in viewing how this applies to the intensity of modern policing in the case of U.S history--repeated themes of this as it applies to 'moral view' of drug abuse, and its 'offenders'.

Sources Cited

Chronicling America. “About The Salt Lake Herald. [Volume] 1870-1909, Salt Lake City [Utah] .” Library of Congress. Accessed May 3, 2021. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85058130/#tab=tab_search.