Alcohol Sociology Home Page

Book:

The Rossi Murder and the unwritten law in 1916's Wallace Idaho (2021), available at Amazon.

In 1916, Herman J. Rossi, one of Wallace, Idaho's leading citizens, shot and killed his young wife's lover, Clarence "Gabe" Dahlquist. Three months later, a jury readily acquitted Rossi after a week-long trial. The unwritten law was widely credited for the jury's verdict. This book explores both Rossi's trial and the historical sociology of the unwritten law. Rossi's wife's alcoholism and the temperance movement's remarkable cultural hold in Idaho at this time played key roles in this drama.

Posts at the POINTS Blog and my personal blog:

Probably not secrecy, based on the minutes of a 1942 meeting, at Points, posted 12/8/16
Probably not secrecy, based on the minutes of a 1942 meeting, at my personal blog, posted 12/3/16
Marijuana's and alcohol's differing paths toward domestication, posted 11/28/16
Collier's 1943 Snapshot of the First Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies, posted 6/5/13
On E.M. Jellinek's Trail, posted 4/25/13
The Temperance Question in Idaho's Constitution, posted 2/25/13
Reflecting on Idaho U.S. Senator Mike Crapo's Unfortunate and Humbling DUI, posted 12/28/12
Catching Up With Bruce Holley Johnson, Ph.D., posted 7/5/12
A Footnote to Pauly (1994): Yandell Henderson's Lusitania Letters, posted 5/17/12
Reflections on the NIAAA/NIDA Merger, Part 2, posted 4/13/12
Reflections on the Scheduled NIAAA/NIDA Merger, Part 1, posted 4/12/12
Addiction, History and Historians: Ron Roizen's Response to David Courtwright's Reply, posted 3/22/12
"So Logical to Us": Donna Krulitz Smith's Account of the Complex and Compelling Story of the Prohibition Experience in the Coeur d'Alene Mining District of Northern Idaho, posted 2/24/12
Mrs. Marty Mann and the Medicalization of Alcoholism, posted 12/16/11
Big Questions, Free Will, and Addiction, posted 12/1/11
Dry Pushback Against Mann's Alcoholism Movement and Robert King Merton's Manifest and Latent Functions: A Perplexing Combination, posted 11/17/11
Washington State's Prop. 1183 Passes Easily, posted 11/9/11
Stigma on Alcoholism: A Modest Proposal, posted 11/8/11
Washington State's Prop. 1183: The Iowa Dustup and Trends Thereafter, posted 10/24/11
Washington State's Proposition 1183: Consumer Convenience or Culture and History?, posted 10/6/11
Thoreau's Lament on Cider's Fall, posted 8/16/11
E.M. Jellinek's Departure from Budapest in 1920, Part 2, posted 8/5/11
E.M. Jellinek's Essay on Drinking's Symbolism: Another Look, posted 7/22/11
The Hanging of Jack Slade, A Rowdy Drunk, posted 7/9/11
Keller's Reticence: A Note on the Perils of Insider Historiography, posted 6/28/11
Glimpses of Blythewood, posted 6/21/11
Who Bought Whom? Revisiting "Bowman's Compromise," posted 6/9/11
E.M. Jellinek at Worcester: A Bare Beginning, posted 6/5/11
Glatt and Popper in Helsinki: A Personal Anecdote, posted 5/31/11
What Time Do You Want It To Be? Finessing Science, Part Two. posted 5/28/11
What Time Do You Want It To Be? Finessing Science at the National Council on Alcoholism and at Yale, posted 5/26/11
Cherry-Picking the History of the Alcoholism Movement, posted 5/20/11