Extremely high, as it was in many pre-modern societies, though the alcohol content was generally lower. This is actually a fascinating topic in the social and economic history of the early 19th century. A lot of pre-industrial work culture involved significant parts ...
2/ of the day when you were drunk or at least a bit inebriated. A lot of the politics and social history of this period involved various movements to eliminate or defend that kind of work culture or just culture. Some of it was religious/reform based. Some of it was ...
3/ driven not simply by bosses but by the culture of the capitalist transformation of the era. As one of my professors once put it a lot of early modern male work culture was similar to what we expect or until recently expected of college students ...
4/ a lot of sleeping in, a lot of drinking and particularly intensive bouts of drinking, mixed with intensive periods of hard work. But the kind of working by the clock/you shouldnt be drunk at work culture that we take largely for granted today was largely alien and ...
5/ something people fought - not surprisingly - to avoid.
6/ As a separate but related matter, for most of human history, especially in cities, water was often not safe to drink. So there is a lot of drinking of what we'd call low alcohol content beer simply because the alcohol kills bacteria. So it's related factor.
7/ Though much less a factor, tending to a non-factor, in the period of US history we're talking about.
