Scared Straight, 1990’s Style: Drug and Alcohol Posters from Uncle Sam September 28, 2014 – Posted in: Content, In the Stacks, posters, Special Collections

Here’s another offering courtesy of the new partnership between the Government Printing Office (GPO) and the Digital Public Library of America. A sampling of Government issued posters from the early 1990’s (and one from 1989) dealing with the dangers of drugs and alcohol. All from the vast archive of government posters that reside at the University of Iowa. Enjoy! Previously on Book Patrol: Keeping track for the National Archives and Records Adminsitration

Collecting Opium July 5, 2013 – Posted in: Exhibits

The drug of choice for most of the world in the 19th century was Opium. The Western powers cultivated it, created demand for it in the East and then went to war to suppress it leaving a trail of carnage and opium addicts in their wake. Maggs Bros. Ltd. of London is currently offering what it believes is “the finest collection on the subject” ever assembled. The Santo Domingo Opium Collection is comprised of over 3,000…

Sisters In Opium: Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Louisa May Alcott January 14, 2010

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, radiant opium addict. “I am writing such poems – allegorical – philosophical – poetical – ethical – synthetically arranged! I am in a fit of writing – could write all day & night – and long to live by myself for three months in a forest of chestnuts & cedars, in an hourly succession of poetical paragraphs & morphine draughts.” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning, to her brother, 1843. “Opium – opium –…

The Inside Story of Jim Vaus and the Unholy Alliance of Politics, Crime, and the LAPD December 30, 2009

In 1953, a paperback book, The Inside Story of Narcotics, was issued by religious publishing house, Zondervan. Released at the height of hysteria about a national epidemic of teen-aged junkies that did not exist, it was written by one Jim Vaus. “Every trade has a technical language. Even Christians have a language of their own. They speak of being ‘saved,’ of a ‘Christian worker,’ or of ‘putting out fleece.’ The person not used to their…

O. Henry’s Morphine Overdose, Pay-Scale, and Advice to Writers October 28, 2009

Recently, while on recon for Book Patrol, I discovered Fog in Santone, a short story by O. Henry (William Sydney Porter, 1862-1910) set in San Antonio Texas and loaded with morphine. In it, O. Henry limns the nexus of tuberculosis, desperate sufferers, and drug addiction amongst the sick and “sporting class” with lighthearted morbidity. In contrast to Fog in Santone, At Arms With Morpheus takes place in turn-of the-century New York City boarding house. From…