Jane Walker will take over her brother Johnny’s whiskey label this month — in honor of Women’s History Month, we’re told — a temporary rebranding that’s fueling comic riffs by Stephen Colbert and other cynical types. It might seem innocuous enough — an unsubtle attempt to lure skittish female drinkers to whiskey — but there’s a back story to this relationship that’s worth noting.
The liquor industry was once the most powerful opponent of granting women their civil rights. Jane Walker, in a sense, would have been an anti-suffragist. And over decades, the industry provided much of the “dark money” used to fight woman suffrage in Congress and in the states.
Temperance was a “woman’s issue” in the 19th and early 20th centuries, as women and children suffered physical and emotional abuse from inebriated men, often their own husbands and fathers. Families also suffered the financial toll of salaries squandered on booze, with not much left for bread. Early feminists took up the temperance cause, not just for moral reasons (though that was a rationale for some) but also as a public health issue and as a way to protect women from domestic violence and sexual harassment on the street.
Before she was an organizer for woman suffrage, Susan B. Anthony was an organizer for the Daughters of Temperance. Frances Willard and her Women’s Christian Temperance Union advocated votes for women, and there was a natural alliance between the movements: Empower women with the vote so they can protect themselves by placing legal restrictions on liquor.
The liquor industry tried to protect itself, too, by working strenuously to keep the ballot out of women’s hands.
The industry strengthened its clout by funding the campaigns of members of Congress, who turned around and obliged the industry by keeping both the prohibition amendment and woman suffrage amendment stranded in committee; the suffrage amendment was buried in Congress for 42 years. Think of Congress, the N.R.A. and gun control.
The industry held sway in statehouses and city halls, too, especially where brewing was big business. Whenever woman suffrage legislation appeared on the docket or a suffrage referendum was on a state ballot (and only men could vote to decide whether women should have the same right) the alliance of brewers, bottlers, distributors, saloonkeepers, hotels and liquor stores (even druggists) was marshaled to insure defeat. It wasn’t unusual for saloons to display anti-suffrage posters and keep a pile of leaflets on the bar; the promise of a free beer in exchange for a no vote on a suffrage referendum was common practice.
More nefarious means were also employed: vote alterations, ballot box dumping, physical intimidation. When a 1912 suffrage referendum was defeated in Michigan, the governor angrily denounced the role played by the liquor industry: “The question seems to be largely one as to whether the liquor interests own and control and run Michigan,” he lamented.
By the second decade of the 20th century, public opinion was swinging against the liquor industry, and restrictions on the manufacture and sale of liquor were set in place in counties and states, while the prohibition amendment picked up steam in Congress. That women had already been granted the vote in several states helped propel the momentum: These women were voting for “dry” candidates at all levels of government and demanding they impose legislative restrictions on liquor sales.
(Today’s politicians might want to heed this historical lesson, as newly energized millennials, outraged by the refusal of legislatures and Congress to act on any meaningful gun control, reach voting age.)
By 1919 the liquor industry was on the ropes: Prohibition was the law of the land with the 18th Amendment, and the 19th — woman suffrage — was nearing ratification. The industry’s only hope was to limit the damage by supporting the election of more “wet” candidates in statehouses and Congress, who could blunt the regulations of the Volstead Act, passed to enforce Prohibition. They poured money into “wet” campaigns while also trying to thwart ratification of the 19th Amendment in the states.
The last stand was made in August 1920 in Tennessee, where the industry sponsored a “Jack Daniels Suite” in a hotel near the statehouse, dispensing free liquor, day and night, while trying to persuade inebriated lawmakers to kill the amendment. It almost worked. But by barely two votes, Tennessee did ratify the 19th Amendment, the necessary 36th state to do so — and that fall the new female voters made sure Prohibition was strictly enforced.
Prohibition was not the solution women had hoped for; like the modern war on drugs, its enforcement spawned a new type of violence. The liquor industry rebounded after Prohibition’s repeal in 1933, seemingly suffering few long-term consequences for its long stand against women.
And now we have Jane Walker Whiskey, the latest effort of the industry to expand its consumer base. Beginning with wine and continuing into pink-themed cocktails, pastel-hued sweet concoctions with a punch and high-octane bottled fizzy drinks, over the decades the industry has displayed its marketing creativity. Women are warming to the harder spirits, too, with bourbon sales zooming.
The success of this industry marketing effort comes at a price. Studies show that women now consume as much alcohol as men, and it’s a problem; binge drinking and alcoholism among women is on the rise. Falling prey to sexual assault while under the influence is a growing concern.
A century ago women fought the liquor industry as a menace to public health, accusing the booze business of putting the welfare of women and families in danger by selling so much alcohol to their menfolk. Today a new public health crisis looms, but it’s women themselves being willingly seduced to drink more.
Diageo, the maker of Johnny Walker, is betting that a temporary gender reassignment on its label will help cultivate female drinkers, who tend to be “intimidated” by scotch, according to the distiller. But the company professes loftier goals.
“Important conversations about gender continue to be at the forefront of culture and we strongly believe there is no better time than now to introduce our Jane Walker icon and contribute to pioneering organizations that share our mission,” said Stephanie Jacoby, vice president of Johnnie Walker. “We are proud to toast the many achievements of women and everyone on the journey towards progress in gender equality.”
“With every step, we all move forward,” the new Jane Walker campaign boasts. The appropriation of a feminist theme for selling whiskey to women is nothing if not ironic, for when the stakes were higher, the industry chose sales over equal rights; now it may be choosing sales over women’s health.
The kicker: “In recognition of the women in history who fought for progress,” Diageo will donate $1 of every bottle of Jane Walker sold this month to “organizations championing women’s causes,” including She Should Run, which encourages women to run for office, and the Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Statue Fund and its Monumental Women campaign, to place statues of the suffragists who fought the liquor industry in Central Park.