BELLWORK
1.
2.
3.
4.
List three reasons why people supported prohibition.
What is a bootlegger?
What is a speakeasy?
How was the suffragist movement linked to the
temperance movement?
5. THINKER: Why do you think prohibition was widely
ignored? How might this impact the traditional
American “culture?”
Prohibition in the
Americas
Frances Willard
• “I call upon you who are here
today… to match the
drinker’s love of liquor with
our love of him!”
• “The rum power will be as
much doomed as was the
slave power when you gave
the ballot to the slaves.”
• “We believe that as God led
us into this work by way of
the saloons, he will lead us
out by way of the ballot!”
Willard’s Memorials:
Willard statue on display in the National
Statuary Hall of the Capitol Building
Frances Willard House: Illinois
Women’s
Christian
Temperance
Union (WCTU)
Carrie Nation
• One of the biggest supporters
of the prohibition movement
• Promoted her viewpoint
through vandalism
• On many occasions, she would
enter a place that served
alcohol and attack the bar with
a hatchet
• Described herself as “a bulldog
running along at the feet of
Jesus, barking at what he
doesn't like”
Prohibition’s Effectiveness
• The new
amendment was
widely ignored.
• It created a bigger
contrast between
rural and urban
areas.
Organized Crime
•
Bootlegger: supplier of illegal alcohol (rum
runner)
•
•
They would produce their own alcohol or
smuggle it into the U.S. through Canada and
the Caribbean.
Speakeasy: bars that operated illegally.
•
Most required membership or connections
•
High profits from alcohol smuggling led to the
emergence of organized crime
•
Gangsters: bribed police and other government
officials to ignore their illegal operations and
forced local businesses to pay a fee for
“protection.”
Consumption
“Some speakeasies are disguised behind florists’ shops, or behind
undertakers’ coffins. I know one, right in Broadway, which is
entered through an imitation telephone-box; it has excellent beer.”
-Paul Morand, 1929
• Al Capone’s favorite drink!
• Made in Templeton, Iowa during
prohibition
• Main source of income for farmers/citizens
• Extremely popular in Chicago, Omaha, and
Kansas City
• Capone would send groups of men into
Templeton cemetery to retrieve the supply
of alcohol and return it to Chicago
• Hid the supply in the tombstone of my
great great grandpa, Franz Roth (married to
Amelia Bruggeman)
• Templeton was a small town of 200, and
over 100 were Bruggeman's!
Templeton Rye
Homicide Rates
Al Capone
•
•
Al Capone, nicknamed
“Scarface,” was the most
famous gangster of Chicago’s
organized crime network.
Capone bought the
cooperation of police, city
officials, politicians, and
judges.
• He was finally arrested
and imprisoned in 1931
for income-tax evasion.
“All I ever did was
supply a demand that
was pretty popular”
- Al Capone
“When prohibition was introduced, I
hoped that it would be widely
supported by public opinion and the
day would soon come when the evil
effects of alcohol would be recognized.
I have slowly and reluctantly come to
believe that this has not been the
result. Instead, drinking has generally
increased; the speakeasy has replaced
the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers
has appeared; many of our best
citizens have openly ignored
Prohibition; respect for the law has
been greatly lessened; and crime has
increased to a level never seen
before.”
John Rockefeller;
1932
The 21 Club
• http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=E420Ou0JI1o
• Start at 1:07
BELLWORK
Republican President
Domestic Policy
Foreign Policy
Harding
Coolidge
Hoover
THINKER: What aspect of Harding’s presidency was MOST scandalous? How
would it be different if a modern president had similar scandals?
Prohibition in Canada
Prohibition….I’m
hosed! We have
to give up all our
whiskey, eh?
I know! Such a
kerfuffle! I cant
believe I’m losing
all my mickie!
Timeline of Prohibition
• The first half of the 20th
century saw periods of
prohibition of alcoholic
beverages in several
countries:
• 1907 to 1948 - various
provinces in Canada
• 1914 to 1925 - Russia (USSR)
• 1915 to 1922 - Iceland (beer
was still prohibited until 1989)
• 1916 to 1927 - Norway
• 1919 - Hungary
• 1919 to 1932 - Finland
• 1920 to 1933 – U.S.
A police raid confiscating illegal alcohol,
in Elk Lake, Canada (1925)
Prohibition in Canada
• 1850’s – economic
depression…..alcohol industry
flourishes
• 1 bar for every 150 people in
Toronto
• 1 bar for every 70 people in
Montreal
• Highest profits came from
Caribbean rum and locally
brewed whiskey
• By the 1870’s, jailhouses
throughout Canada are filled
with people charged with
intemperance (act of excessive
drinking)
Prohibition in Canada
• Effects of alcohol become focus of three temperance groups:
• Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Canada
• United Farm Women of Alberta
• Dominion Alliance for the Total Suppression of the Liquor Traffic
• Believed that poverty, crime, disease and domestic abuse would
stop if alcohol was made illegal.
• Religious groups (Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians,
Protestants) campaigned heavily
• Gradually, provincial governments implemented “dry” laws
which limited production, sale, distribution, import
Dominion Alliance’s Memorandum; 1876
"The Council of the Alliance has agreed to the following principles as a basis to
which they most respectfully but earnestly call your attention:
• That it is neither right nor politic for the Government to afford legal
protection and sanction to any traffic or system that tends to increase crime,
to waste the resources of the Dominion, to corrupt the social habits, and to
destroy the health and lives of the people
• Intoxicating liquors are destructive to the order and welfare of society, and
ought therefore to be prohibited.
• That the history and results of all legislation in regard to the liquor traffic
abundantly prove, that it is impossible satisfactorily to limit or regulate a
system so essentially mischievous in its tendencies.
• That no consideration of private gain or public revenue can justify the
upholding of a traffic so thoroughly wrong in principle, so suicidal in policy,
and disastrous in its results, as the traffic in intoxicating liquors.
"Deeply convinced of the value of the aid of Christian Ministers and Churches,
as such, we solicit your co-operation in the efforts now being made to
concentrate the moral and religious energies of the Dominion against the
liquor traffic.
Canadian Temperance Act; 1878
• Allowed provinces to vote on prohibition (not federal)
• National poll - 51.3% voted for prohibition & 48.7% against
• Prohibition had a majority in all provinces except Quebec,
81.2% voted against it.
• Despite this national electoral majority, Prime Minister Wilfrid
Laurier’s government chose not to introduce a federal bill on
prohibition, mindful of the strong opposition in Quebec.
• During WWI, the prohibition argument said it would benefit the
war effort since it would prevent waste and potential
inefficiency. It would also make Canada a better place for the
soldiers to return to.
• Following the election of 1917 the federal government
introduced national prohibition by Order-in-Council on April 1,
1918. Due to an idea for wartime domestic reform, prohibition
became part of the War Measures Act in 1918.
Day before Prohibition is
implemented in Canada
Prohibition in Canada
Province/Territory
Provincial Prohibition Enacted
Repealed
British Columbia
1917
1921
Alberta
1916
1924
Saskatchewan
1917
1925
Manitoba
1916
1921
Ontario
1916
1924
Quebec
1919
1919
New Brunswick
1917
1927
Nova Scotia
1921
1929
PEI
1901
1948
Yukon
1918
1920
Newfoundland (not part of Canada until 1949)
1917
1924
Failure
of
Prohibition
in
Canada
• Canadian government had numerous exceptions to prohibition:
• Wineries were exempt from closure
• Various breweries and distilleries remained open for the export
market
• Doctors could prescribe alcohol to the ill; heavily abused
• Aboriginal wines are also exempt
• Alcohol can still be sold through the government for industrial,
scientific, mechanical, artistic and medical uses
• Appearance of speakeasies
• Increase in “Canadian Rum Running”
• Even though there were failures, overall, it was more successful than
prohibition in the U.S.
• Most provinces repealed prohibition in the early 1920’s
Canadian Rum Runners
• Rum ships from the Caribbean brought alcohol to the
US, but it was cheap = low-profit
• Instead, rum runners begin to smuggle Canadian
whiskey, French champagne, & English gin
• Most brought to northern U.S. cities like Chicago, Boston &
NYC
• The U.S. Coast Guard spends its time policing the
Canada-U.S. border and routinely sinks boats carrying
booze from Canada.
• The average rum running ship carried $200,000 of
booze!
Rum runner Kirk and Sweeney with contraband
stacked on deck
William McCoy
• McCoy was the most famous rum runner during
prohibition (1901-1920)
• Started his business based on the illegal
smuggle of rum from the Bahamas to Florida
• Could afford his own ships and weapons;
business expansion!
• As profit increased, he expanded his business to
supply Canadian whiskey and other fine liquors
to Eastern ports from Maine to Florida
• Some rum runners relabeled products or added
water to increase their profits….. McCoy did
not! Birth of the phrase “The Real McCoy!”
• Initiated machine gun fire with U.S. Coast Guard
Ships
• Started the concept of “Rum Row”
U.S. Coast Guard Ship Seneca; sunk
McCoy’s last rum running ship in 1923
CLOSURE
• Compare/contrast prohibition in the
United States vs. Canada