Moonshine: Its History and Folklore by KELLNER, Esther (1971) Hardcover

by Esther Kellner

From the first day of a tax on Irish spirits in the early seventeenth century, moonshining became a life-style that found its roots in America. Moonshining survived wars, insurrections, depressions,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0517169665
• ISBN13: 9780517169667
• Release Date: January 1971
• Publisher: Waethvane.
• Length: 235 Pages
• Weight: 0.79 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Fun History of Corked Lightning

Esther Kellner writes an engaging biography of Moonshine and moonshining - the contraband corn whiskey from the backwoods of Kentucky and the history of bootlegging and tax evasion that encouraged its illegal production. Whether the producers were Scotch-Irish immigrants or settled frontiersmen, the lawless production of distilled spirits is tracked as a cat-and-mouse game between citizens who felt entitled to produce what they wanted on their own land, and federal authorities who, through their burgeoning Internal Revenue System, were working to tax these products. Particularly engaging are the bits of trivia Kellner includes to show the (often humorous, but occasionally reckless) extremes of each party: the evasive antics of countless embezzlers and perjurers are described in detail, and are contrasted with the tirades of Carry Nation and other 'dryness' advocates. But, as Kellner describes it, most of Moonshine's history and folklore existed in the back country, - not in the city taverns. And so she follows the figure of William "Big Six" Henderson - a leading revenue agent who levied the rules of law enforcement against the sprawling illegal practice. Accounts of specific 'raiding and running' episodes of Henderson's career both open and close this book. And in the numerous brief anecdotes contained in her story, Kellner focuses largely on the violators' devotion - both to their product and to their nemesis. Her retelling sheds light on a professional relationship between the outlaws who owned their technical moonshining craft and the strategic law enforcement official(s) who would eventually bring them down.