The rise of rum production and consumption fueled a rise in reform that moved from gentle “moral suasion” to outright prohibition. In Distilled in Maine Kate McCarty quotes the Temperance writer Ernest Gordon:
Thirteen distilleries poured a flood of a million gallons yearly out. The population of Maine in 1832 was but 450,000, yet there were 2,000 bars at which intoxicants were openly sold. General stores retailed liquor as freely as calico.
Meanwhile, industrial technology evolved so that working drunk became more dangerous. A new ingredient was added to the societal stew as Irish fleeing famine brought their own drinking tradition into Portland starting around 1820.
Neal Dow spearheaded the reformers’ shift from moral suasion (arguing for the moderate use of ardent spirits) to outright prohibition (an attempted ban on the sale, possession and consumption of alcohol). His first regulatory success came in 1837. He partnered with the Maine Charitable Mechanics’ Association, headquartered in this building then and now, to lobby Portland employers to stop giving rum as part of workers’ wages.
Elites didn’t support any law that would cut them off from wine and liquor, but they backed efforts to stop poor folks from drinking at home and in saloons. In 1838 Maine passed the 15-gallon law, designed to reduce access to alcohol by making that amount the minimum required purchase. Social drinking among the well-off continued unabated, but the practice of working folks filling their jugs from a keg was banned. Police officers, local politicians, and judges had little interest in enforcing the law.
The 15-gallon law was superseded by the 28-gallon law. It included jail time as well as a fine for anyone caught selling alcohol. In Portland every shop in town had a keg on the counter where buyers could help themselves freely to a dipper of rum.
Dow and his allies and acolytes persisted, and in 1951 the state passed The Maine Liquor Law, “an Act for the Suppression of Drinking Houses and Tippling Shops,” while Dow was elected Mayor of Portland. The manufacture and sale of alcohol was illegal in Maine, except for medical and mechanical use.