Author:
Pegram, Thomas R., 1955-
Imprint:Chicago : Ivan R. Dee, c1998.
Descriptionxv, 207 p. ; 22 cm.
Note:Drinking and temperance in the age of reform : The culture of drinking. Early temperance reform. The Second Great Awakening. The American Temperance Society -- From teetotalism to the Maine laws : Teetotalism. The Washingtonians. Immigration. No-license and the Second Party system. Neal Dow and the Maine Law -- A movement of outsiders : Civil War, party politics, and the decline of prohibition. The Prohibition party. Women, drinking, and saloons. The Women's Crusade -- Prohibition in the Gilded Age : The WCTU. Frances Willard. WCTU politics. Ethnocultural politics and prohibition in the 1880s.Alcohol and the saloon in the Progressive Era : The progressive case against alcohol. The age of beer. Brewers, saloons, and the tied-house system. Saloons and urban politics. Social functions of saloons. Ethnic clubs -- The Anti-Saloon League and the revival of Prohibition : The dispensary system. Growth of the Anti-Saloon League. The Ohio League. The church in action against the saloon. Southern prohibition. National agitation. The Webb-Kenyon Act -- War and the politics of national prohibition : International influences. The campaign for constitutional prohibition. World War I and wartime prohibition. The 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act. Wayne Wheeler. Enforcement woes. Accomplishments and shortcomings of national prohibition.The shock of repeal : Middle-class estrangement. The Ku Klux Klan. Organized crime and violence. Youth culture and women. Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform. Association Against the Prohibition Amendment. Al Smith and John J. Raskob. Herbert Hoover, the Great Depression, and the Wickersham Commission. 1932 election. The 21st Amendment.
Bibliography Note:Includes bibliographical references (p. [190]-201) and index.
Note:Jack S. Blocker's American Temperance Movements (CH, Jul'89) is centered around social reform. Pegram's book, while covering much the same ground, focuses on "new approaches to political action and shifting expectations of government" entailed in temperance reform over the 19th and early 20th centuries. The author is well aware of the relevant historiography; his "Note on Sources" is an exemplary introductory guide. His book reflects the current directions of the literature: the antebellum rise in alcohol consumption and the shifting economic, social, and religious context out of which temperance reform emerged; the general avoidance of reform by party leaders before and after the Civil War; the rising role of middle-class women, particularly after the war in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU); the effective nonpartisan lobbying of the professionalized Anti-Saloon League (ASL); and the ironic failure of the Prohibitionists to secure their legislative success. Coverage of the generally disorganized political opposition to temperance reform is significant and welcome. Finally, the book is smoothly written. -- Choice review
Note:Recommended in Best Books for Academic Libraries
