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In the united States officially began on January 16, 1920, when the 18th Amendment took effect. Prior to this date, many alcohol dealers held clearance sales on their Inventory, selling It at very low prices. Many people mourned the end of an make alcohol (Phillips). According to historian Charles Phillips, “A rich habitu?? of the Park Avenue Club in New York City hosted a fancy formal at which the black-clad attendees tasted black caviar and toasted the coming of a society that banned drinking with champagne served in specially crafted black glasses. Americans of the movement to ban alcohol actually began much earlier. The drive for prohibition was ooted in a long debate over alcohol extending back to the nineteenth century, and was successful because of the efforts of the Anti-Saloon League and the women’s temperance movement. Historian Charles Phillips stated that “since the late 18th century, Americans occasionally banded together to try to persuade, cajole of force other Americans to stop drinking. ” According to the Anti-Saloon League, at the end of the 19th century there was one saloon for about every 150 Americans.
The availability of alcohol for men and women was easy. It is estimated that Americans in the early 9th century drank three times as much as their descendants do today. Alcohol consumption, however, began to increase again after the mid-19th century with the coming of German, Irish and other immigrant, who’s drinking habits were European and who tended to congregate in saloons. The impact of alcoholism came not only to the drinker but also to the families. The men would drink there weekly pay away with nothing to give their families at home. Alcoholism impacted the workplace in a tremendous why.
Men were drinking on the Job which put them at risk for injury or even worse, death. Since the workers were drunk on the Job and at home their families had no way to escape the deadly grasp of alcoholism. The final push for prohibition was rooted in the entry of World War 1 . The help of the Anti-Saloon League pushed wartime prohibition in another effort to establish National prohibition. The wartime prohibition act “passed after the war had ended, it should have signaled to the wets and drys the speed with which ratification might be realized” (Lamme 7). Without the U. S. ntry into the war it’s unlikely that prohibition would have been passed. The war opened new ways for prohibition to be passed. The majority of the men that were in the war were drinkers. The Anti-Saloon League pushed the Volstead act to its limit. The war helped with giving men a reason to quit drinking. German brewers were scared that people would destroy their plants because of the propaganda that was being passed around. The war and its final push for national prohibition helped bring the Volstead act to full swing. The Scientific Temperance foundation was one of the Anti-Saloon Leagues biggest partner organizations.
The partnership of the STF and the ASL began in June 1913, with the League holding a majority on the STFs board. The Boston based STF was founded in 1906. The Boston STF was formed upon the death of Mary Hannah Hanchett Hunt of the Women’s Christian Temperance Unions department of scientific temperance Instruction. Hunt had focused on bring temperance education into the classroom. Historian Margot Lamme stated that ” at the turn of the century one out of every two children at that time was a probable percipient of her temperance lessons. (10) Cora Frances Stoddard, who was Hunt’s secretary, described the STFs role as building on Hunt’s research via the WCTU while continuing to gather more research studies oncerning the effects of alcohol on individuals in society. The STF went beyond textbooks, though, and employed more popular communication tools of the time, announced to the public. From the Leagues prospective, stated by Lamme the STF”s research-based approach was highly credible among temperance workers.
From the STFs prospective, the league could offer a much-needed infusion of funds, necessitated by the STF’s lack of well-organized of sizeable constituency and by a shift in public education’s focus from temperance to social hygiene. The Anti-Saloon League and the Scientific Temperance Foundation helped the prohibition act in big ways. Michael Lerner a historian stated that ” Anti-Saloon League, was an organization once known to every American, to spearhead the effort, that ushered in the eighteenth amendment and Volstead act. ” The amendment and the Volstead act gave the push that Prohibition needed.
The hold on Prohibition in America with all of the corruption and the failed efforts to secure the affect that Prohibition had, it did not last. In last effort that no one saw coming,” the arrival of the Great Depression elped seal the deal on getting rid of the eighteenth amendment. ” (Okrent 12) The rest of the effort was a failed Prohibition experiment that lasted thirteen years, ten months, and nineteen days. The after affects from Prohibition gave way to new things; the nation’ vast thirst raised a new phenomenon- Organized crime.
Franklin Roosevelt said during his 1932 campaign, “the federal treasury would be enriching by hundreds of millions of dollars. “, Stated by Daniel Okrent historian with the Smithsonian. With the repeal, in December 1933, citizens nationwide raised up a legal glass for the first time in over 13 years. On December fifth, 1933, Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment and Prohibition to an inglorious end. That was a little more than six years after the death of the man who had brought it to life.
Before the Civil War, temperance movements had some effect reducing the amount of liquor Americans drank, which from colonial times had been prodigious. The next wave of reform, the one that ultimately brought Prohibition to the United States, was a very different movement. Reformers no longer emphasized temperance and voluntary abstinence, but prohibition through legislation. By the 1870’s, the emperance movement had also became associated with women’s reform. The Women’s Christian Temperance pledged to “do everything” to root out the use of alcohol in the United State (Lerner).
By 1890 more than half the counties in America had WCTU organization and a prohibition party had been formed (Phillips). Thousands of women in hundreds of communities organized and invaded saloons and demanded bartenders to a pledge to not sell alcohol anymore. Local women were inspired by a speech coming from Dr. Diocletian Lewis, they invaded saloons and shops that sold alcoholic drinks and persuaded owners to quit trafficking in the rink (Phillips). Most middle class women quit drinking during this time. Drunks who physically abused their mates became the standard targets in temperance tracts.
Men controlled not Just their property their wives and children, the men could literally drink the whole family into destitution. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union also “galvanized women’s support for prohibition, and opened the door to political activity for millions of women” (Lerner). In the temperance movement of the late 19th century had also to do with the bad economical and ideological evelopments. The WCTU argued that alcohol was the one responsible for a decline of moral and prohibition was the way to stop it.
Alcohol consumption fell to a third of put the brakes on the appearance of a new phenomenon: the drunk driver. “(Pain) The drive for prohibition was rooted in a long debate over alcohol extending back to the nineteenth century, and was successful because of the efforts of the Anti- Saloon League and the women’s temperance movement. The drive for prohibition ended after 13 years. The result was a failing experiment that punished Americans. Ultimately Americans rejected the idea of prohibition and also downgraded the government.
The impacts drove many people to quit drinking and to stop accosting with alcohol. The impact of the organized crime kept prohibition from taking full affect. The corruption in the United States has not come to a stop even with prohibition not in affect.