David Gapp
Silas D. Childs Professor of Biology
A Whiskey Bottle, Hamilton College, The Pure Food and Drug Act, and Hollywood
A chance finding of an old brown bottle sent me to the web to find out what I could about “Duffy’s Pure Malt Whiskey”, patent date 1879. As I scanned through several articles, “Hamilton College” appeared seemingly out of context. Was the link to this whiskey referring to riotous actions of the Hamilton men at the turn of the century? No. It was reference to Hamilton alum, Samuel Hopkins Adams, Class of 1891, a muckraker journalist who is given credit for stimulating passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. While Adams was prominent in starting the demise of the patent medicine business, he was also a very productive story writer and novelist whose books would be made in to movies. My talk will trace my journey of discovery from the bottle to the literature and films of Samuel Hopkins Adams.