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Prohibition: a Sociological View1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

S. J. Mennell
S. J. Mennell
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
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Extract

Prohibition was a fascinating episode in American history which has attracted the attention of a number of writers. This paper does not seek to present any new historical evidence. Perhaps, in history as well as in photography, over-enlargement can lead to loss of definition, so the object is to assess what evidence is appropriate in answering various questions about Prohibition.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , December 1969 , pp. 159 - 175
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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References

page 159 note 2 Among historians, Sinclair, AndrewProhibition: Era of Excess (London: Faber and Faber, 1962)Google Scholar is a particularly brilliant presentation of massive evidence. See also Asbury, H., The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1950)Google Scholar; Merz, C., The Dry Decade (New York: Doubleday Doran, 1931)Google Scholar; Timberlake, J. H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement 1900–20 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P., 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There have been a number of useful studies of individual States: Clark, N. H., The Dry Years: Prohibition and Social Change in Washington (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1965)Google Scholar; Ostrander, G. M., The Prohibition Movement in California 1848–1933 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957)Google Scholar; Sellers, J. B., The Prohibition Movement in Alabama 1702–1943 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1943)Google Scholar; Whitener, D. J., Prohibition in North Carolina, 1715–1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1945)Google Scholar. One sociologist has made a major study of the American temperance movement: see Gusfield, J. R., Symbolic Crusade (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1963)Google Scholar; ‘Social Structure and Moral Reform: A Study of the Women's Christian Temperance Union’, American Journal of Sociology 61 (3) (1955), 221–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Status Conflicts and Changing Ideologies of the American Temperance Movement’ (in Pittman, D. and Snyder, C. (eds.), Society, Culture and Drinking Patterns, New York: Wiley, 1962)Google Scholar. Nelson, M., ‘Prohibition: A Case Study of Societal Misguidance’, American Behavioural Scientist, 12(2) (1968), 37–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar, cites some of the same literature. This article reached me too late to be fully discussed here. Its chief aim is to fit the Prohibition drive of 1913–17 into the categories of Etzioni's ‘theory of societal guidance’, which I do not find especially illuminating. Nelson's concern is particularly with the organizational aspects of the movement, and is thus complementary to mine.

page 160 note 1 Hofstadter, R., The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. (New York: Knopf, 1956), p. 287Google Scholar.

page 160 note 2 Or by conventions in three-quarters of the States—the procedure adopted for the 21st Amendment.

page 160 note 3 Krout, J. A., The Origins of Prohibition (New York: Knopf, 1925)Google Scholar, traces the temperance movement from early colonial times to the first important prohibition legislation, the Maine law of 1851. E. H. Cherrington, a leader of the Anti-Saloon League, takes the story to the 18th Amendment in his The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Press, 1920)Google Scholar. See briefly Link, A. S., American Epoch (New York: Knopf, 1955), pp. 36–7Google Scholar, on whose summary of nineteenth-century prohibition drives I have drawn here.

page 161 note 1 See Cherrington, E. H., History of the Anti-Saloon League (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Publishing Co., 1913)Google Scholar.

page 161 note 2 J. R. Gusfield, ‘Status Conflicts and Changing Ideologies …’ (op. cit.), pp. 111–12.

page 161 note 3 Merz, op. cit. p. 23.

page 161 note 4 This point is emphasized by Carl Sheingold (personal communication).

page 162 note 1 Odegard, P. H., Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League (New York: Columbia U.P., 1928)Google Scholar.

page 163 note 1 A. Sinclair, op. cit.: ch. 3 and passim.

page 163 note 2 Cf. Frenkel-Brunswik, E., ‘Interaction of Psychological and Sociological Factors in Political Behaviour’, American Political Science Review, 46 (1) (1952), 44–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 163 note 3 A. Sinclair, op. cit. p. 174.

page 163 note 4 Ibid. ch. 2. For an even more orthodox psychoanalysis of Prohibition, see Lee, A. M., ‘Techniques of Social Reform; An Analysis of the new Prohibition Drive’, American Sociological Review, 9 (1) (1944), 65–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 163 note 5 Freud, S., Civilisation and Its Discontents (New York: W. W. Norton, 1962), p. 92Google Scholar.

page 163 note 6 A. Sinclair, op. cit. pp. 74–7. See also Asbury, H., Carrie Nation (New York: Knopf, 1929)Google Scholar.

page 163 note 7 Lee, op. cit. pp. 74–5.

page 164 note 1 See Adorno, T. W. et al. , The Authoritarian Personality (New York: Harper, 1950)Google Scholar; Frenkel-Brunswik, E., ‘Intolerance of Ambiguity as an Emotional and Perceptual Personality Variable’, Journal of Personality, 18 (1) (1949), 108–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rokeach, M., The Open and Closed Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1960)Google Scholar. Also compare Hofstadter (op. cit. pp. 70–81) on ‘History as Conspiracy’ in the folklore of populism.

page 164 note 2 Biographies of temperance leaders are suggestive—for example Dabney, V.'s study of the single-minded Bishop Cannon, Dry Messiah (New York: Knopf, 1949)Google Scholar.

page 164 note 3 The term is used by Hofstadter, Richard, ‘Pseudo-Conservatism Revisited’, in Bell, D. (ed.), The Radical Right (New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1964), p. 100Google Scholar.

page 164 note 4 I specifically disagree with Lee Benson's assertion (‘A Tentative Classification of American Voting Behaviour’, in Cahnmann, W. J. and Boskoff, A. (eds.), Sociology and History: Theory and Research, New York: Free Press, 1964)Google Scholar that the categories rational and non-rational ‘have value connotations that make them necessarily subjective and drastically limit their usefulness’. I use the terms in their strict Weberian sense: that is, they denote a quality of the means–end relationship as it appears from the perspective of the actor—in this case, the supporter of Prohibition.

page 164 note 5 Weber, Max, Economy and Society (3 vols.) (New York: Bedminster Press, 1968): vol. i, pp. 24–6Google Scholar.

page 164 note 6 Timberlake, op. cit. pp. 30–2.

page 164 note 7 Weber, loc. cit.

page 165 note 1 Hofstadter, The Age of Reform (op. cit.), p. 5.

page 165 note 2 Link, A. S., ‘What Happened to the Progressive Movement in the 1920's?’, American Historical Review, 64 (1959), 833–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 165 note 3 Every reform movement in Californian history with one exception—that of the Working-men's Party—supported Prohibition. G. M. Ostrander, op. cit.

page 165 note 4 Asbury, The Great Illusion (op. cit.), p. 114.

page 165 note 5 Timberlake, Prohibition … (op. cit.), p. 117.

page 166 note 1 That A1 Smith had begun his career in a saloon affiliated with Tammany Hall, and that he sought to defend the saloon, genuinely horrified many respectable people, and moved them to vote against him for President in 1928, for reasons other than his religion and his accent. See Miller, R. M., ‘A Footnote on the Role of the Protestant Churches in the Election of 1928’, Church History, 25 (1956), 145–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 166 note 2 See Timberlake, op. cit. p. 128.

page 166 note 3 Ibid. p. 44. This sort of evidence was drummed into schoolchildren by the McGuffey readers in personal hygiene.

page 166 note 4 For a passionate case for Prohibition from a sociologist, see Howard, G. E., ‘Alcohol and Crime: A Study in Social Causation’, American Journal of Sociology, 24 (1918), 61–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 166 note 5 For example, A. Sinclair, op. cit. ch. 3.

page 166 note 6 Kuhn, T. S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), pp. 2–3Google Scholar.

page 166 note 7 That Irving Fisher, of ‘Quantity Theory of Money’ fame, was a leading temperance spokesman, serves to put the economics of the period in perspective.

page 167 note 1 Perhaps a little cynically, it has been suggested that some of the biggest contributors to temperance funds, such as the Rockefellers, saw the issue as a diversion from issues more strategic to the control of economic and political power (Lee, op. cit. p. 68). Later, the same motive could be adduced for contributing to the repeal movement, which makes this factor a useful, if far from decisive, one in explaining the reverse of Prohibition.

page 167 note 2 R. Hofstadter, ‘The Pseudo-Conservative Revolt’, in D. Bell (ed.), op. cit. pp. 43 ff.

page 167 note 3 Weber, op. cit. vol. III, pp. 926–39.

page 167 note 4 Hofstadter, ‘Pseudo-Conservatism Revisited’ (op. cit.), pp. 98–9.

page 167 note 5 Hays, S. P., ‘New Possibilities for American Political History: The Social Analysis of Political Life’, in Lipset, S. M. and Hofstadter, R. (eds.), Sociology and History: Methods (New York: Basic Books, 1968), p. 201Google Scholar.

page 167 note 6 Hays' point is developed at length in Berger, P. T. and Luckmann, T., The Social Construction of Reality (London: Allen Lane, 1967)Google Scholar.

page 167 note 7 Weber, loc. cit.

page 168 note 1 Gusfield, Symbolic Crusade (op. cit.). The fact that some of the groupings involved in the issue were nonetheless recognizably economic has created some confusion (see Nelson, op. cit. p. 38) and disagreement. Hofstadter and Sinclair tend to emphasize the aspect of rural–urban cultural conflict, while Timberlake and Gusfield in response emphasize the middle-class base of the movement. Both aspects are involved, as indicated below. But a grouping defined chiefly by its common economic characteristics may have symbols of common identity and pursue symbolic goals just as may a status-group. To label this ‘false-consciousness’ does not much advance the argument.

page 168 note 2 Gusfield, Symbolic Crusade, op. cit. pp. 102–3.

page 168 note 3 On reference groups, see Merton, R. K., Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1967), pp. 225–386Google Scholar. Lee Benson (op. cit. pp. 417–21) advances a threefold analytic distinction between the pursuit of political goals, fulfilment of political roles and orientation to reference groups, which if useful ought to be applicable in this case. But the latter pair are two kinds of reference group orientation, corresponding to the difference between normative membership reference groups and comparative reference groups. The type of action with which we are concerned here is at one and the same time pursuit of a political goal (of a status kind), the expression of membership in a normative reference group, and of non-membership in a negative reference group.

page 168 note 4 A. Sinclair, op, cit. ch. 1 and passim.

page 168 note 5 Clark, op. cit. p. 114.

page 168 note 6 Ibid. p. 118.

page 168 note 7 Timberlake, op. cit. p. 29.

page 168 note 8 Ibid. p. 30.

page 169 note 1 See White, M. and White, L., The Intellectual Versus the City (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P., 1962), passimGoogle Scholar.

page 169 note 2 Clark, op. cit. p. 114; emphasis supplied.

page 169 note 3 Hays, S. P., ‘Political Parties and the Community—Society Continuum’, in Chambers, W. N. and Burnham, W. D. (eds.), The American Party Systems (New York: Oxford U.P., 1967)Google Scholar.

page 169 note 4 See Lipset, S. M. and Hofstadter, R. (eds.), Turner and the Sociology of the Frontier (New York: Basic Books, 1968)Google Scholar.

page 169 note 5 Clark, op. cit. p. viii.

page 169 note 6 A. Sinclair, op. cit. p. 190.

page 169 note 7 Quoted in Miller, op. cit.

page 170 note 1 Festinger, L., A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (New York: Row, Peterson & Co., 1957)Google Scholar. For an excellent survey of this idea and other ‘consistency’ theories, see Zajonc, R. B., ‘The Concepts of Balance, Congruity and Dissonance’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 24 (2) (1960), 280–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 170 note 2 After the early voting studies, sociologists came to virtually discount the rational-independent voter of democratic theory. Anyone who changed his mind seemed an apathetic being on the margin of the political process. But more careful analysis has indicated the error of this view. See Daudt, H., The Floating Voter and the Floating Vote (Leiden: H. Stenfert Kroese, 1961)Google Scholar. Campbell, A. et al. , The American Voter (New York: Wiley, 1960), pp. 256–65Google Scholar, also provides a more accurate view (though not to Daudt's entire satisfaction). The voting studies came long after the Prohibition period, of course, but I feel justified in assuming that significant numbers of voters did change their minds.

page 170 note 3 See Merton, R. K., ‘The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action’, American Sociological Review, 1 (1936), 894–904CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 171 note 1 Quoted in Asbury, The Great Illusion, op. cit. p. 155.

page 171 note 2 A. Sinclair, op. cit. p. 231.

page 171 note 3 Williams, R. M. Jr, American Society (New York: Knopf, 1960), pp. 372–96Google Scholar; cf. Gusfield, Symbolic Crusade, op. cit. pp. 111–17.

page 171 note 4 A. Sinclair, op. cit. p. 240.

page 172 note 1 Merz, op. cit. pp. 132–3.

page 172 note 2 Ibid. p. 185. Compare with the defences against failure of the millenarian group studied by Festinger, L. et al. , When Prophecy Fails (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1956)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 172 note 3 Sinclair, Upton, The Wet Parade (London, T. Werner Laurie, 1931), p. 449Google Scholar.

page 172 note 4 Ibid. p. 292.

page 173 note 1 Handy, R. T., ‘The American Religious Depression 1925–35’, Church History, 29 (1) (1960), 3–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 173 note 2 A. Sinclair, op. cit. pp. 423–30.

page 173 note 3 Link, ‘What Happened …’, op. cit.

page 173 note 4 Hofstadter, The Age of Reform, op. cit. p. 290.

page 173 note 5 A. Sinclair, op. cit. p. 361.

page 174 note 1 Rostow, W. W., The Stages of Economic Growth (Cambridge U.P., 1960)Google Scholar.

page 174 note 2 Link, ‘What Happened…’, op. cit. p. 843.

page 174 note 3 Miller, R. M., ‘A Note on the Relationship between the Protestant Churches and the Revived KKK’, Journal of Southern History, 22(3) (1956), 335–68Google Scholar. Miller points out that there was very considerable opposition to the Klan within the Protestant churches.

page 174 note 4 Prohibition has traditionally been seen as a veil for the real issues, especially for religious prejudice. But the following references can be cited in support of the view that religion was not decisive in 1928: Ogburn, W. F. and Talbot, N. S., ‘A Measurement of the Factors in the Presidential Election of 1928’, Social Forces, 8 (1929), 176–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; R. M. Miller, ‘A Footnote on the Role of the Protestant Churches …’ (op. cit.), and more fully in his American Protestantism and Social Issues 1919–1939 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1958)Google Scholar; Odegard, P. H., ‘A Catholic for President?’ (in Odegard, (ed.), Religion and Politics (New York: Oceana Publications, 1960), pp. 162–7)Google Scholar; Lipset, S. M., ‘Some Statistics on Bigotry in Voting’, Commentary, 30 (1960), 286–90Google Scholar; and ‘Religion and Politics in the American Past and Present’ (in Lee, R. and Marty, M. E. (eds.), Religion and Social Conflict (New York: Oxford U.P., 1964), pp. 69–126Google Scholar).

In any case, not all the arguments were at the level of bigotry; even in 1932, many of the radical Social Gospellers voted for Hoover as a last hope of defending Prohibition. See Meyer, D. B., The Protestant Search for Social Realism 1919–1941 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960)Google Scholar.

page 175 note 1 See Campbell et al., op. cit., fora discussion of ‘maintaining’, ‘deviating’ and ‘realigning’ elections, based on Key's idea of the ‘critical election’ (Key, V. O. Jr, ‘A Theory of Critical Elections’, Journal of Politics, 17 (1955), 3–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Secular Realignment and the Party System’, ibid. 21 (1959), 492–510). The 1928 election was, in New England at least, a preliminary to the great realigning election of 1932, when prohibition was only one element in the general flux. (On this last point, see Miller, ‘American Protestantism …’, op. cit. pp. 119–20.)

page 175 note 2 Cf. Goldthorpe, J. H., ‘The Development of Social Policy in England, 1800–1914’, Transactions of the 5th World Congress of Sociology (Washington D.C.: International Sociological Association, 1964), vol. 4, pp. 41–6Google Scholar.