(This story was originally written and recorded for Retrocast #32, released on March 12, 2025.)
On March 24, 1937, the Ohio House of Representatives, by a vote of 85 to 12, passed a bill that forbade women from working as bartenders in the state. Having already been passed by the Ohio State Senate, the bill was certain to be signed into law by Governor Martin L. Davey. However, an amendment that aimed to prevent waitresses from serving drinks was tabled.
The main reason for this was that women were both driving down wages and taking away good-paying jobs from experienced male bartenders.
According to Fred Rasser, a representative for the Bartenders’ Alliance, one of the sponsors of the bill, the typical weekly salary for a female bartender was between $12 and $14, while male bartenders earned a minimum of $25 per week. (Approximately $540/week today.) And by letting women into the workforce, bartender wages were being driven down.
While women were still allowed to own an establishment that dispensed alcoholic beverages, they were required to hire a man to tend bar. Should a woman be caught tending bar, the penalty was set at $50 (nearly $1,100 today) for the first offense. A second violation could result in a jail sentence.
While such a law would not be tolerated today, they were fairly common back then. By 1960, twenty-six states banned women from tending bar, as did a significant number of smaller localities.
One attempt to challenge these laws took place in Dearborn, Michigan in the 1940s. After Valentine Goesaert’s husband died, she and her daughter Margaret wished to run their family tavern. But state law forbid a woman from doing so unless she was the “Wife or daughter of the male owner.” Well, in this case, the male owner was deceased. Interestingly, the Michigan law only applied to cities with populations of 50,000 or more.
So, along with twenty-four other women, Goesaert sought to have the state law overturned, arguing that it robbed women of their livelihood. The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1948, in a 6 to 3 ruling, the court ruled against Goesaert. In justifying their decision, the court said that the US Constitution didn’t require state legislatures to reflect changing social values. In addition, they pointed out that ownership of a drinking establishment by a husband or father protected women from the social and moral risks that they faced while tending bar. Basically, it’s the same old sexist argument that women are the weaker sex and strong men are needed to protect them.
Of course, times change. After the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed, women began to challenge the laws that forbid them from tending bar.
By 1970, 21.2% of bartenders were female, it rose to 44% in 1980, and to 52% in 1990. It is estimated that 60% of all bartenders in the United States today are female.
