Chew on This: 200 people, 500 tweets, countless conversations

On Oct. 18, Indiana Humanities, along with WFYI, the Indiana Historical Society, the Athenaeum Foundation and the Spirit & Place Festival, organized our 3rd Chew On This. This time, the theme was centered on the topic of Prohibition (view pictures).

We used the power of food (and in this case a good drink) as a convener of people and catalyst for conversation. More than 200 people came to 13 of Indianapolis’ best loved watering holes to discuss this fascinating moment in American history and its countless connections to current issues.

In addition to our in-person audience, we created additional conversations for people on Twitter and Facebook who couldn’t join us. In a few hours we had more than 500 “tweets” with a combined audience of more than 50,000 followers.

Some of our favorites include:

• @wfyi: Forget Occupy Wall Street…we’re Occupying Bars on Mass Ave! Would that have been a winning strategy back then? #chewonthis
• @rachelrubes:  “Let’s make toothpaste illegal, kids will be up on the rooftops brushing their teeth.” #ChewOnThis
• @indyhub: Texting while driving = modern day prohibition? #chewonthis
• @girlspintout: How intrusive do you want the government to be in your life? Do your rules usurp the law? #chewonthis
• @EvanStrange: Conversation at #ChewonThis was AMAZING. General sentiment: “I would do this every night.”
• @lindsgrace: Wishing I would have gone to #chewonthis, sounds fascinating

(For the full night of tweets, click here)

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