A Sociologist and the Problems of Alcohol Studies: The Life and Legacy of Selden D. Bacon

This article introduces a new comprehensive bibliography of pioneering sociologist of alcohol Selden Bacon and highlights the relevance of his research and administrative career to substance use studies today.

This article relies on the works of Selden Bacon assembled for the bibliography project, supplemented by published and unpublished documents and records from the collection of the former Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies (CAS) Library and private archives provided by the Bacon family.

Trained as a sociologist, Selden Bacon gravitated toward the burgeoning field of alcohol studies early in his career, joining the Section on (later Center of) Alcohol Studies at Yale and publishing his seminal article "Sociology and the Problems of Alcohol" in 1943. His research stressed the need to better define terms like alcoholism and dependence, and to maintain scholarly independence from all sides of the alcohol debate. As CAS director, however, Bacon felt pressure to forge ties with both anti-alcoholism and beverage industry groups to keep the Center solvent and relevant in the face of a hostile Yale administration, culminating in a successful 1962 relocation to Rutgers University.

The career of Selden Bacon is an important window into the history of substance use studies in the mid-20th century, and research on that era appears particularly urgent now: both to preserve historical records before they disperse or disappear and to highlight the post-Prohibition era's relevance for the present moment in both alcohol and cannabis research. The present bibliography is intended to help foster further reappraisal of this important figure and his era.