Dudes, Decadence, and Degeneracy: Criminalisation of Absinthe in the United States

Abstract

ABSTRACT Aside from the experiment of Prohibition, absinthe constitutes a rare example of an intoxicant which has been prohibited and then decriminalised at the federal level in the United States. Narrative fiction, newspapers, and medical literature from the decades before its ban serve to locate absinthe's reputation as a dangerous hallucinogen in popular stereotypes of absinthe-drinkers. The association of absinthe with dandyism and the alleged threat of racial and cultural degeneracy is a useful window onto late-nineteenth-century discourses of sex and race in the United States, and reflects a broader process by which stereotypes influence policy outcomes.