The Social Significance of the Coffeehouse
The coffeehouse, across many times and places, has served as one of the primary public spaces for members of society to meet, discuss politics, engage in business, pursue the arts, or simply shoot the breeze with familiars or strangers. With such a culturally significant role, the coffeehouse became the backdrop for a great many societal transformations.
The Coffeehouse over Time and Space
Click on the pictures below to get an idea of the layouts, clientele, dress, and decor of representative coffeehouses across the globe, as well as information on social change related to the institutions. Pictures are arranged in chronological order, with the oldest in the top-left and newest in the bottom-right.
Humanity and Sociability
The story of the coffeehouse goes back far beyond the first in Mecca, far beyond when the first cup of coffee was ever brewed. What happens inside coffeehouses, has, in one form or another, been happening since the dawn of humanity—we humans gather, we talk, we share ideas and practices—these are the activities we use to separate ourselves as a species. To be human, arguably, is to be sociable.
This Bacardi commercial may be telling a humorous, simplified story—the supremacy of Neanderthal brains, tools, and hair, could be debated—but it presents the essence of the notion of sociability. The fact that it is advertising alcohol, not coffee, is telling—human sociability has been carried out through a broad scope of venues across our history as a species. For "cavemen" it might have been around a fire. For medieval France, it may have been churches. For the Progressives in 19th century America, perhaps clubs and political organizations. Certainly, for England, taverns have been sociable institutions. With this lens, the coffeehouse represents yet another medium through which people are sociable. In other words, coffeehouses help humans be human.
The Nature of Public Discourse
Dr. Dena Goodman, professor of History and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan, emphasized that we should stay aware of any idealization of these coffeehouse settings. Was there public discourse in the cafés of France? Sure, but in her words, "It's not the same thing as the Agora in Athens...what you have is individuals taking it upon themselves to have ideas, and to express them and debate them in a public, informal setting...people started to believe that they could constitute themselves as a discursive community that has the authority to change things like fixing the roads, or ending the war, or supporting agriculture."
Women and Coffeehouses
Where are the women? The coffeehouses of the Middle-East were—and in many regions still are—explicitly male spaces. However, they were not necessarily women-free, as there are accounts of veiled dancers and servers. In Europe, the question is difficult to answer. Illustrations suggest that women were primarily servers or sometimes proprietors. Why is this? Contemporary culture defined coffee as a masculine drink, with a dark, bold quality, while tea and chocolate were the more feminine products. Female health was a concern—it was thought coffee was poorly suited to female constitution. Moreover, the enclosed, stale air of coffeehouses was thought more detrimental to women, who should be in open-air with teas. However, this is simply cautious speculation. Overall, there are more questions than answers. Dr. Goodman suggested that women may have been there, partaking socially in the coffeehouses, and we just do not know.
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The Mechanization of Man
The Industrial Revolution had significant effects on the cultural place of coffee, for better or worse. Technology expanded, manufacturing reached massive levels, with new conceptions of the worker. No longer did men have deep connections to the end-product, instead they were more like cogs in a machine, one built for efficiency. A central, omnipresent clock ruled the worker’s day in a way it never had. Scales of production made coffee more accessible to the masses than ever. For the factory worker, working long hours on unnatural time rhythms, coffee became foremost a fuel, and a good excuse for a break. No longer was coffee tied exclusively to leisurely sociability or heavy intellectual discussion, but served as gasoline for the human machine.
On the matter, Mark Pendergrast, quoting another historian, writes: "Seated uninterruptedly at their looms, in order to earn the few pennies necessary for their bare survival," writes one historian, "[workers had] no time for the lengthy preparation of a midday or evening meal. And weak coffee was drank as a last stimulant for the weakened stomach which—for a brief time at least—stilled the gnawing pangs of hunger." The drink of the aristocracy had become the necessary drug of the masses, and morning coffee replaced beer soup for breakfast. |