111

from the pocket knife. Then came the eighteenth amendment, and presto! the corkscrew

has vanished.

The process of elimination stopped here, but the process of moderation continued.

Tailors reduced pocket space to a minimum and the handles of knives were made

smaller to fit. That is why the pearl handled knives being sold In Dallas now have only

two blades. The Dallas hardware man frankly admitted the change is very noticeable.

‖

Woman Manages Corkscrew Plant

On September 13, 1922 the

Reno

Evening Gazette

reported

―

Alton (New

Hampshire) is noted for one industry

that has no near rival in the country. It

is the home of the corkscrew

manufacturing industry. Strange to

say, in this prohibition time it is thriving.

And a woman is the guiding spirit.

Mrs. William E. Clough carries on the business that made her husband's name known

the world over where bottled goods of any sort are handled in quantities.

Mr. Clough died two years ago. For fifty years he had worked out and perfected

machinery for the making of corkscrews in quantities. When he died Mrs. Clough did

not sell out the business and don widow's weeds and shut herself away from the world,

as was the old time idea. She gathered the workmen together and placed the business in

their hands and told them to go to it. A very efficient superintendent of the plant who

had been with her husband thirty years loyally stuck by her, as did the rest of the help,

and the machines are twirling out corkscrews by the hundreds of gross daily.

‖

During the final years of the Prohibition period, there was a change in the view of the corkscrew

in the media.

Prohibition Boosts Corkscrew Market

From the Associated Press February 21, 1931:

―

The corkscrew market has suffered no

depression, their makers agreed at the closing conference of the Western Metal

congression here today.

Before prohibition, delegates were told, 7 tons of low grade steel were used yearly to

manufacture America's corkscrews and bottle cap openers. Today it takes 225 tons of

metal to supply the demand of those who open bottles.

‖