Who Put The Happy In Happy Hour?

Everyone can agree that happy hour has become synonymous with a good time. The saying “You can’t stay unhappy during happy hour” wasn’t started for nothing. It’s a time that we now celebrate as a time to either get the night started with a pre-dinner happy hour or a post-dinner night cap with late-night happy hour. However, we know that everything evolves, especially holidays and origin stories. I’m here to straighten out myths and show you the meaning behind the phrase Happy Hour!

You can thank the U.S. Navy for the origin of Happy Hour. It dates back to 1914, with written evidence found on the U.S.S. Arkansas, but myth says it goes back farther. Its believed that a group of homemakers coordinated an event called “Happy Hour Social”. These homemakers sometimes called them “Smokers” and they differed, but not drastically, from what we celebrate today. The Happy Hour Social involved boxing matches and picture shows, but alcohol was included. That is, until 1914 when the Navy issued an order, General Order 99, which states, “the use or introduction for drinking purposes of alcoholic liquors on board any naval vessel, or within any navy yard or station, is strictly prohibited.”

HAPPY HOUR WAS AN ALLOTTED PERIOD OF TIME ON A NAVAL SHIP WHERE SAILORS ENGAGED IN VARIOUS FORMS OF ENTERTAINMENT TO RELIEVE THE STRUGGLES AND MONOTONY OF THE SEAFARING LIFE.

We can thank the U.S. Navy for the origin, but the transition from boxing and watching movies to a power hour of slamming strong cocktails and drinks quickly before dinner comes along during the Prohibition Era. Many people drank in secret when the Volstead Act was passed and thus had to do most of their drinking in a speakeasy. They wanted to get a buzz on before dinner with the family or boss, as we all do, but they had to do it in a quick amount of time. We can already see the evolution of Happy Hour from its origin.

We can thank the post-war Americans who adopted the term happy hour as a way of returning to a level of normalcy after the war and after they had come off a long, hard day work. In 1951, Author Art Ryan wrote “If you think people have lost their price consciousness, you ought to see the stampede at a Valley tavern during its ‘Happy Hour’ from 5 to 6 p.m.’” Further down the line happy hour began to mean lower prices and specials during the allotted time. The concept was simple; the increase in people and demand offset the dramatically low price of happy hour.

We would see the rise of happy hour until the 1980’s when Massachusetts banned happy hour. Following suit, 11 other states also banned happy hour and many other states attempted to regulate it. Currently 23 states have fully banned Happy Hour in a sense that they don’t allow “the selling of alcoholic beverages during a fixed period of time for a fixed price”, but there are some loopholes states use to get around this ridiculous law.