Why subscribe?
How did ordinary Americans live in the 1920s, when the biggest issue of the day was Prohibition? What about during the Great Depression and World War II? I am a history writer who specializes in that era, covered in my books Baptists and Bootleggers: A Prohibition Expedition Through the South…with Cocktail Recipes and its companion volume, Methodists and Moonshiners. I have also written books about FDR and his inner circle, and about a woman whose 20th century-spanning life brought her into the inner workings of the OSS — America’s first spy agency. I also co-author a mystery series set during the early years of the Roosevelt administration. One thing about a daily dose of history is you realize things have always been uncertain, divisive, unsettling, and …strange! Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and website, which includes the archive.
We’ll bring it to your in-box!
Beginning Jan. 1, 2024, I will publish a post a day based on the 1935 diary of a history professor in Reading, Pennsylvania. Free subscribers get a taste of the diary, while paid subscribers get a more expansive version, including the historical context. In other words, what was going on in the world that day? The Great Depression was on, the New Deal was being challenged in the courts, and dictators were running Germany, Italy, and Russia. It makes the news of today look positively relaxing. Readers also will receive an occasional drink recipe (with history lesson attached) and history book reviews. Occasional opinion pieces on the economy by Dr. Bruce Yandle and Dr. Adam C. Smith are a bonus.
Why become a paid subscriber?
Here are some reasons:
You get the full diary every day, rather than just a teaser. And at the end of the year, I will reveal what happened to the author, who had avery interesting life.
You have full access to the archive going back to when Bootleggers got started in 2021. That covers three separate diaries plus all the other frills. For free readers, posts are inaccessible after two weeks.
You can comment on the post and ask questions about it. Free readers can’t.
The good news is a subscription is cheap — just $5 a month, or 16 cents a day! But when you subscribe for a year, you are rewarded with a signed copy of one of my books. That cuts the true price of your subscription in half.
Join us!
Whether your interest is American social history, the 1920s to 1940s, Prohibition-era cocktails (no vodka allowed!), FDR, quirky cemeteries or anything along those lines (or slightly outside them), you’ll find something to make you think or even chuckle a little. The lively opinion pieces on the economy may change your mind about the “dismal science.” After all, an economist is actually an accountant with a personality. Or so an accountant friend of mine avers.
Who are we?
Bootleggers is the project of Kathryn Smith, a journalist and history writer;
with occasional contributions from her economist father, Bruce Yandle;
and economist son, Adam C. Smith.
Bruce is the originator of the Bootleggers and Baptists theory of government regulation. All three of us have authored books with “Baptists” and “bootleggers” in the title. They are the brainy ones; I just have a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Georgia, which was chosen as the No. 1 party school in the nation the year I matriculated.
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