Booze, Bets and Sex That Built America
Adam Harper Adolphus Busch
Garrett Taylor Jack Daniel
Kim Woodard Executive Producer
Greg Henry Executive Producer
Isaac Holub Executive Producer
George Kralovansky Executive Producer
Irfan Rahman Executive Producer
Yoshi Stone Executive Producer
Shuli Stone Executive Producer
The Booze, Bets and Sex That Built America is a three part, four and a half hour docu-drama from the History Channel. True to form, the narration is a bit breathless, the story somewhat simplified, and historicity may or may not have been subject to creative editing. But it’s indisputable that while the vices described have been common to all of humanity going back to when we were picking fleas and wondering what that glowy thing in the sky was and if we should worship it, it took American capitalism to transform local dark secrets into major world wide conglomerates worth trillions of dollars.
The series is told in three very distinct parts: the rise of the size and reach of various corporations purveying smokes, sex, drinking and gambling. The puritanical backlash. And the reemergence of the companies following the backlash. Today, for better or for worse (mostly worse) they form a huge chunk of the American and global economies.
Part 1. Secrets & Sins: The rise of Jack Daniels, the first whiskey to be of dependably good quality. Adolphus Busch realizes that thanks to railroads, his beer can be shipped to all corners of the country. Buck Duke figures out how to popularize the cigarette. And Julius Schmid develops condoms that don’t rot in three days and actually work to prevent pregnancy and disease.
Part 2. Empires Lost: The moralistic backlash sets in. Prohibition decimates the breweries and creates a vast underground economy leading to the rise of organized crime. The medical community sounds the alarm that smoking may be bad for you. Sex is always eeeevil, of course, and priests are offering 5-2 that Jesus is against gambling. The numbers racket goes through a winnowing process.
Part 3. Sin Cities: Prohibition ends when the government notices what it did to tax revenue on booze. Big tobacco fights back against damning medical evidence with propaganda and lies (same tactics and even some of the same people Big Oil hired to deny climate change). Looser attitudes toward sex legitimize condoms, and in New York State, the numbers racket becomes the state lottery. The idea spread. Meanwhile, Billy Wilkerson comes up with an idea for gambling; make it glitzy, make it entertaining. Make it totally over the top. But then Bugsy Siegel and the mob stole it.
It makes for an enormously entertaining series, well worth watching. Even if you disapprove of the products (and most people profess to disapprove of at least some of them, with varying degrees of hypocrisy) it still provides a riveting, if somewhat sanitized narrative of how community bad boys became Big Vice.
Now on History Channel, or for sale on Amazon Prime.