PROHIBITION

SALOME CAP

BACKGROUND• Progressivism-aimed to return control of the government

to the people, restore economic opportunities, correct injustices in American life

• Came from the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WTCU)

• Founded in 1873

• Banishing of alcoholic beverages

• The prohibitionists feared that the combination of foreign cultures, alcohol and machine politics would weaken American culture and democracy

• WTCU concentrated on closing saloons

BACKGROUND• 18th amendment on January 1920, prohibited the sale,

manufacture, and transportation of alcoholic beverages

• Reformers considered liquor a cause of corruption

• Led to crime, wife and child abuse, accidents on the job, and other social issues

• Considered drinking a sin

• Sometimes already a law in certain states, protestants are against alcohol consumption

• Saloons closed their doors, drunkards were arrested

• Drys and wets- the two sides

SCHOLARLY ARTICLE• The Good and Bad of the Beer Flood

• Article written about the first week after the end of prohibition

• Increase in government revenue, decrease in drunkenness

• brewers rush their plants in the breweries to prepare for the possible alcohol shortage

• $ 4 Million was received by the government (barrel taxes, and licenses)

• A lot of new jobs also, return in commerce

• “Taking it all in all, it is a long time since the United States have been as happy” News-Tribune

PRIMARY SOURCEPatterson, New Jersey, Sept., 2nd, 1901

Dear Mrs. Nation: Will you come to this city before going home? The conditions here are worse than in any place in the whole country. One thousand saloons run day and night, every day in the year. Come for God's sake. You can do so much good, and if you smashed fifty or sixty of the hell holes here you would be called an angel. Do Come! and save the young of both sexes. Yours,

A heart-broken mother

• This was written when the idea of prohibition was needed

• It shows the need of controlling the flow of alcohol

• Value: it is a letter from a commoner

• Limitations: it is from a “heart-broken mother”, may overreact to try to get help

• Purpose: to show that a type of prohibition was needed

• Origin: Patterson, New Jersey, Sept., 2nd, 1901

ARTIFACTThis is a quilt made and signed by the Michigan Women's Christian Temperance Union 155.

Are there any rests of prohibition in the world now?

BIBLIOGRAPHY• http://www.hal.state.mi.us/mhc/museum/explore/

museums/hismus/1900-75/twenties/prohibition.html

• The American History Book

• http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/what_happened_when_prohibition_ended_pdf

• "Infobase Learning - Login." Infobase Learning - Login. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 May 2013