Gin Craze

A period in 18th-century England, roughly 1720-1751, characterized by a dramatic surge in gin consumption among the lower classes, particularly in London. It became a focal point for wide-ranging social anxieties about gender, poverty, and moral decay, and is often framed as an early moral panic about working-class drinking.

Claims that use this term

• The Gin Craze of the eighteenth century became the focal point for a wide range of only marginally-related social anxieties, transforming a problem into a crisis.
• The Gin Craze was a social, economic and political crisis intensified by underlying cultural anxieties concerning both gender and poverty.
• The Gin Craze was a moral panic about working-class women drinking gin.