{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.024976657329598508, 'fraction_numerical': 0.008169934640522876, 'mean_word_length': 5.414670658682635, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Colonial Revivals: The Nineteenth-Century Lives of Early American Books

and bad behavior. Though civic leaders attempted to curtail these “disorderly houses” by doling out licenses based on a person’s perceived social clout (101), illicit taverns proliferated in early America. Often, these illegal locales were frequented by the very elite gentlemen who claimed to despise them. In further subversion of the gentlemanly order, widowed women could receive a tavern license to earn an income, as an alternative to public assistance. Married women sometimes operated taverns on behalf of their husbands. Chapters 5 and 6 situate taverns in the context of the American Revolution and the nation’s subsequent democratic reality. Beginning with the Stamp Act crisis and reaching a pitch during the war, taverns became staging grounds for mob activity and protest. Whereas elite Patriots in coastal cities used taverns to organize disparate groups against the Stamp Act, poor and middling colonists in rural areas used taverns to mobilize Committees of Correspondence and radicalize local militia groups. The rhetoric of revolution chipped away at the notion that elite leaders were best equipped to direct the country’s future. In rural taverns, this rhetoric turned into tumultuous, often violent, action. Scribner makes an important contribution to our understanding of how political and social ideologies of the colonial and early national period actually played out for both elite and common tavern-goers. Notions of civility, politeness, and proper behavior were not simply beliefs that the wealthy claimed to profess, but standards they attempted to live by—and to compel their inferiors to live by as well. As Scribner illustrates, elites’ efforts to “transplant their visions from the page to the pavement” were complex and, often, contradictory, and they had unanticipated outcomes when met with the realities of the Revolutionary War (22). Scribner builds primarily on three prior studies of early American taverns: David Conroy’s In Public Houses (University of North Carolina Press 1995), Sharon Salinger’s Taverns and Drinking in Early America (Johns Hopkins University Press 2002), and Peter Thompson’s Rum Punch and Revolution (University of Pennsylvania Press 1999). He weaves his narrative across different cities and towns while drawing on a range of evidence, including newspapers, family papers and manuscripts, letters, and travel narratives. Despite Scribner’s commendable analysis of the social history of taverns, I would have liked to see him explore the intricacies of tavern construction and design beyond one example from Williamsburg, Virginia, and to broaden his geographic scope beyond the thirteen mainland colonies. How did tavern architecture differ from North to South, in the rural hinterlands, or throughout the greater Caribbean? How did these architectural differences shape social interactions between patrons? As he explains, tavern architecture translated the ideology of civility into built form; the very floors, walls, and interior decorations could reveal a code of gentility and deference. Great rooms allowed for social groups to mix, whereas a closed door could shelter elite clubs in their own private chamber. Even slaves and servants had distinct rooms within a tavern’s walls, often set above or behind the elite public spaces. A consideration of such works as Rhys Isaac’s The Transformation of Virginia (University of North Carolina Press 1982), Louis Nelson’s Architecture and Empire in Jamaica (Yale University Press 2016), Bernard Hermann’s Townhouse (University of North Carolina Press 2005), or Andrew Sandoval-Strausz’s Hotel: An American History (Yale University Press 2007) would have substantiated his analysis of the vernacular differences and spatial hierarchies embedded within a tavern’s walls. Overall, Scriber brings to life the raucous and lively context of early American taverns. In his telling, these drinking houses and the activities taking place within them were anything but dry. Inn Civility would be a welcome addition to college courses on the social history of the American Revolution. Readers interested in the built environment of revolutionary cities will also find much to admire in this engaging book.