Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage, transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic beverages. The word is also used to refer to a period of time during which such bans are enforced.
The Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution established the prohibition of alcohol in the United States. The amendment was proposed by Congress on December 18, 1917, and ratified by the requisite number of states on January 16, 1919. The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment on December 5, 1933, making it the only constitutional amendment in American history to be repealed.
The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emphasize alcohol's negative effects on people's health, personalities and family lives. Typically the movement promotes alcohol education and it also demands the passage of new laws against the sale of alcohol, either regulations on the availability of alcohol, or the complete prohibition of it.
The Anti-Saloon League, now known as the American Council on Addiction and Alcohol Problems, is an organization of the temperance movement in the United States.
Ernest Hurst Cherrington was a leading temperance journalist. He became active in the Anti-Saloon League and was appointed editor of the organization's publishing house, the American Issue Publishing Company. He edited and contributed to the writing of The Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, a comprehensive six-volume work. In addition, he was active in establishing the World League Against Alcoholism.
Howard Hyde Russell was an American lawyer and clergyman, the founder of the Anti-Saloon League.
The American Issue Publishing Company, incorporated in 1909, was the holding company of the Anti-Saloon League of America. Its printing presses operated 24 hours a day and it employed 200 people in the small town of Westerville, Ohio, where the company had its headquarters. Within the first three years of its existence the publishing house was producing about 250,000,000 book pages per month, and the quantity increased yearly. This dwarfed the output of the National Temperance Society and Publishing House, which took over half a century to print one billion pages.
The American Temperance Society (ATS), also known as the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance, was a society established on February 13, 1826, in Boston, Massachusetts. Within five years there were 2,220 local chapters in the U.S. with 170,000 members who had taken a pledge to abstain from drinking distilled beverages, though not including wine and beer; it permitted the medicinal use of alcohol as well. Within ten years, there were over 8,000 local groups and more than 1,250,000 members who had taken the pledge.
William Eugene "Pussyfoot" Johnson was an American Prohibition advocate and law enforcement officer. In pursuit of his campaign to outlaw intoxicating beverages, he went undercover, posing as an habitué of saloons and collecting information against their owners.
Wayne Bidwell Wheeler was an American attorney and longtime leader of the Anti-Saloon League. The leading advocate of the prohibitionist movement in the late 1800s and early 1900s, he played a major role in the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlawed the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages.
The Prohibition era was the period from 1920 to 1933 when the United States prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures, and Prohibition was formally introduced nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on January 16, 1919. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933.
In the United States, the temperance movement, which sought to curb the consumption of alcohol, had a large influence on American politics and American society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, culminating in the prohibition of alcohol, through the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, from 1920 to 1933. Today, there are organizations that continue to promote the cause of temperance.
Suessa Baldridge Blaine was an American writer of temperance pageants. She was connected with the Federated Woman's Clubs and organizations.
Deborah Knox Livingston was a Scottish-born American lecturer associated with temperance and suffrage movements. She spent much of her life in service to the National and World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), as well as the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), Federation of Women's Clubs, League of Women Voters, and World League Against Alcoholism (WLAA). In Maine, she served as the chair of the state's Suffrage Campaign Committee, while in Rhode Island, she was President of the state's WCTU. In addition to the textbook, Studies in Government (1921), Livingston was the author of several treatises and articles.
Georgia May Jobson (1860–1924) was an American temperance reformer. She served as President of the Richmond-Henrico County Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) (1903–1910), before becoming the first President of the Woman's Prohibition League of America (1910–1924).
Wilhelmine Lohmann was a German teacher, social worker, and temperance leader who served as president of several organizations. She also wrote articles for Die Lehrerin: Organ des Allgemeinen Deutschen Lehrerinnenvereins.
Ann Watt Milne was a Scotch temperance leader who served as president of the British Women's Temperance Association (BWTA).
The Gandier ordinance was the local alcohol-prohibition ordinance in the city of Los Angeles, California, United States, passed in November 1917 and effective April 1918. The Gandier ordinance pre-dated the statewide Wright Act of 1922 and national prohibition in the United States. Under the Gandier ordinance it was illegal to sell beverages with higher than 0.5% alcohol, but "pharmacists might fill prescriptions for alcoholic liquors in a quantity not to exceed one-half pint upon a single prescrip-tion. There was no limitation in the ordinance with reference to the frequency with which prescriptions might be issued." Liquor remained legal until 1919 in "wet" enclaves like Venice, then an independent city, and Vernon, an "industrial suburb" of downtown Los Angeles and also an independent municipality. L.A.'s city-wide prohibition law was repealed by referendum in May 1933. The Gandier ordinance was named for Daniel McGillivray Gandier, a leader of the California Anti-Saloon League.
Marguerite de Laveleye (1859–1942) was a Belgian temperance lecturer who served as President of the Belgium Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).
Ligue de femmes Suisses contre l'alcoolisme was a women's temperance organization of Switzerland. Founded at Geneva on November 3, 1899, the headquarters were located at Rue Etienne-Dumont, 22, Geneva. A Central Committee, composed of 24 members, had charge of the affairs of the Ligue. The organization did not impose total abstinence on its members. It was broadly open to all women committed to the fight against the abuse of drink and to the resolute fight against absinthe and all distillation products. The Ligue was in constant contact with cantonal and municipal authorities. It was able to exert some influence, particularly on anti-alcohol education in schools.
