Page 36 - April 2024

New Orleans Museum of Art Glass Exhibit on Prohibition

NEW ORLEANS, LA – The New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) Rebellious Spirits tell a story of drinking culture in the American South
opened a new decorative arts exhibition that looks at Prohibition in the starting in the first half of the 18th century.
American South. Rebellious Spirits: Prohibition and Resistance in the The exhibition is organized by Decorative Arts Trust Curatorial
South explores the unique methods in which communities in the Fellow Laura Ochoa Rincon, who is currently completing a two-year
United States, particularly in New Orleans, dealt with the passage of fellowship at the museum. “New Orleans is an American epicenter for
the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. drinking culture, and was even before Prohibition. The unique social,
Susan M. Taylor, The Montine McDaniel Freeman Director of political, racial, and economic backgrounds of New Orleanians and
NOMA, says that “this insightful exhibition brings a 13-year period of people in the American South led to various ingenious methods
New Orleans—and American—history to life, and demonstrates how of skirting the law. Alcohol consumption connected all walks of life
makers responded to their time through art and material culture.” during the era of Prohibition,” said Ochoa Rincon.
After more than fifty years of vigorous debate led by a religious Visitors to the exhibition can expect to see:
temperance movement, the 18th amendment was added to the • Prohibition-era cocktail shakers.
Constitution in 1919, prohibiting the manufacture, sale, and transport • Bottles from the only brewery in New Orleans to survive prohibition,
of alcoholic beverages in the United States. Jackson Brewing Company.
Through objects including cocktail shakers, drinking glasses, liquor • Glasses that demonstrate changes in historical drinking culture,
containers, and medicine bottles, Rebellious Spirits not only explores the such as an 18th century Dutch-engraved Venetian wine goblet.
radical changes the Prohibition period instilled within American • Jugtown Liquor vessels, popular with Louisian moonshiners.
society’s relationship to alcohol, but also the religious, racial, and • Propaganda both for and in defiance of the temperance
economic tensions that stemmed from it. The exhibition looks both at movement, exploring how Prohibition policy further solidified a rift in
how individuals circumvented Prohibition Era restrictions and how the society at the time.
popular temperance movement advocated for • Historical cocktail recipes.
sobriety as a moral and political issue. • Paper prescriptions used by doctors of the
Presented in the museum’s second-floor Elise time period to legally order alcohol for patients.
M. Besthoff Charitable Foundation Gallery, • Multimedia components including an audio
Rebellious Spirits includes over a dozen works sample of Francis Buck’s Temperance Waltz—
drawn from NOMA’s permanent collection used to promote abstinence from alcohol
further contextualized with historical ephemera, consumption—and a stereograph viewer showing
documents, advertisements, and glassware on an image used to promote low-ABV “near beer.”
loan from local institutions, including the Rebellious Spirits: Prohibition and Resistance in
Historic New Orleans Collection and the the South is on view at NOMA now through
Pharmacy Museum. While the Prohibition era January 5, 2025. Visit noma.org/exhibitions/
represents only 1920–33, the objects on view in rebellious-spirits/ for more information.

Discover the Beaauty
of Antique Americann Glass

Always Buying, Check Out Our Website, Call foor Free Appraisals

W
B
n i

S e n r e t s o s e l t t
i g n i z i l a i c e p p
THE 69TH ANNUAL SPRING

Friday, May 3 - 10 am to 5 pm

Saturday, May 4 - 10 am to 4 pm

55 Quality Dealers
of Glass, China, Jewelry, and More!

Great Food and Free Parking

Admission: Friday $5.00
Saturday Only Admission: FREE 1 1-800-806-7722
American Bottle Auctions • 915 28th Street, Sacrameento, CA 95816
Best Show Around for Glass V isit our website at ammericanbottle.com or email us at info@ameericanbottle.com
t
Auc tioninng Antique Bottles for 25 YYear s!
Holiday Promotions: easternnationalantiques.com
Information: 410-538-5558 or 443-617-1760

34 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles