Temperance and Prohibition

Temperance and Prohitbition (Mid-Late
1800’s)
Luke Dwyer
Anthony Sardone
Peter Godfrey
Lauren Hoehn

Temperance & Prohibition Definition…
• Prohibition- The
outlawing of alcohol
• Temperance- An attempt
throughout the
community to reduce the
consumption of alcohol.

Alcoholic Republic…
• United States became a republic that was run by alcohol.
• Alcohol began to play a central role in people’s everyday lives.
At work, lunch, and at other activities.
• Farmers would create a surplus of grain. (Later turned in to
whiskey.)
• Alcohol was safer then water or milk (often tainted), and it
was cheaper than coffee or tea.
• 1790-1830 Per capita consumption increased 3-4 gallons
annually.
• 1830- Per capita consumption was greater than 5 gallons per
year. (3 times the amount today.)

Alcoholic Republic…
• Men drank more than women. Mostly either the rich
or the poor, not the middle class.
• Heaviest drinkers were young men who lived away
from their families.
• 1820- American physicians diagnosed “delirium
tremens” (the trembling and paranoid delusions
brought on by withdrawal from physical addiction to
alcohol.)
• 1820- social reformers, “alcohol is a threat to
individual well-being, peace, public order, and the
republic itself.”

Temperance…
• Community would come together to fight
the excessive alcohol consumption.
• Would print editorials and use medical
evidence that showed how bad the alcohol
binging was.
• Often combined religion and science.
• Used the philosophy of Logos and Pathos.
• Logos appealed to logic.
• Pathos appealed to emotion.
• Ironically, often used propaganda to help
there cause.
• Groups would form to help spread
temperance.

Women’s Crusade of 1873-1874…
• This was a culmination
across the United States
of many years of women
taking direct action
against the saloon and
liquor traffic.
• The crusade sought to
persuade saloon keepers
to destroy their
beverages, close their
doors, and enter some
other line of business.

Temperance Groups…
• The American Issue Publishing House
• The American Temperance Society
• The Anti-Saloon League of America
• The British Women's Temperance Association
• The Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America
• The Committee of Fifty (1893)the Daughters of Temperance
• The Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction
• The Flying Squadron of Americathe Independent Order of Good
Templarsthe Knights of Father Matthew
• The Lincoln-Lee Legionthe Methodist Board of Temperance, Prohibition,
and Public Morals
• the National Temperance Society and Publishing House
• And the list goes on…

Prohibition…
• Prohibition in the United States was a measure designed to reduce
drinking by eliminating the businesses that manufactured, distributed,
and sold alcoholic beverages.
• The 18 th Amendment forbade the manufacturing, distribution, and sale
of alcoholic beverages.
• The Anti-Saloon League (founded in Oberlin, Ohio) formed to support
prohibition.
• Saloon keepers sometimes introduced vices such as gambling and
prostitution to their saloons.
• Consumption grew somewhat in the last years of prohibition, as illegal
supplies of liquor increased.
• Before World War 1, prohibition was widely popular in the United
States.

Prohibition Amendment…
• “Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the
manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within,
the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the
United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for
beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.”
• “Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have
concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
• “Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been
ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of
the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven
years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the
Congress.”

The Brewing Industry and Prohibition…
• The Brewing Industry was the most prosperous
of the beverage alcohol industries.
• The Anti-Saloon League used the widespread
dislike of saloon’s among “respectable”
Americans to fuel the prohibition zeal.
• Saloon keeper sometimes introduced vices such
as gambling and prostitution to their saloons.

The End of Prohibition…
• Franklin D. Roosevelt
proposed an amendment
which would eliminate
prohibition and would once
again legalize alcohol.
• December 5, 1933 The
Twenty-First Amendment
repealed the Eighteenth
Amendment and alcohol was
once again legal.

References...
• Liberty, Equality, Power
• Americas
• http://murdermysteriesgangsterstyle.com/closed-thread-prohibition.jpg
• http://onemansblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/prohibition.jpg
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperance_movement
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States
• http://prohibition.osu.edu/asl/default.cfm
• http://prohibition.osu.edu/content/why_prohibition.cfm
• http://www.mcwilliams.com/books/aint/402.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_St
ates_Constitution