MAJOR FIGURES- Prohibition
Neal Dow:
Lois Long:
- "father of prohibition"
- Born in Maine, and of Quaker heritage
- Worked at father's business
- This is where he witnessed excessive workplace drinking
- He grew to hate consumption and actively advocated against it. When he was elected to mayor, his first act was to pass the Maine Law.
- Maine Law: prohibited alcohol production. It made Maine one of the first "dry" states
- however, a lot of his changes weren't received well.
- Portland Rum Riot: 1855. He was storing rum in hospitals for medical purposes only, but the public found out and rioted. One person was killed and several were injured
- so, he was successful in lessening alcohol production and consumption but he also contributed indirectly to the rise of illegal alcoholism because his reforms spawned bootlegging and speakeasies
Lois Long:
- Journalist: pen name- "lipstick"
- Newspaper editor at her college, Vassar, and then at Vogue and Vanity Fair when she moved to NY
- Wrote about speakeasies and flappers
- She was a flapper herself, so in her writing she was able to bring the flapper perspective on speakeasies to light
- she wrote from a "liberated woman" perspective
- she spoke of how women were tired of being excluded from the social and political platform, and so were "going to hell, laughing and singing"
- every night she would tour the speakeasies of New York- she wrote about drinking and dancing in the prohibition era
- at the time, her writing was a source of enjoyment and excitement for her readers, but now it helps modern day people understand the full extent of the effects of the prohibition era in terms of prohibition's effectiveness