'Prohibition is here to stay': The Reverend Edward S. Shumaker and the rise and fall of dry culture in America.

摘要

While the attempt by reformers to outlaw alcohol in the United States is commonly viewed as a foolhardy effort by a zealous minority to force its values upon the majority of citizens, the reality of Prohibition is something else entirely. Coming largely, though not exclusively, from white, evangelical Protestant churches, the architects and supporters of the Eighteenth Amendment were at the heart of mainstream American culture during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One representative of this group was the Reverend Edward S. Shumaker, who led the Indiana branch of the Anti Saloon League. During the first three decades of the twentieth century, Shumaker was one of the most powerful men in the state, at a time in which Indiana embodied Midwestern, and thus American, values. By utilizing religion, politics, and the legal system, dry culture was able to enact what it believed to be the most significant reform of the Progressive era. Far from being a mistake, Prohibition was a "noble experiment" at mitigating the problems of a newly industrialized and urban America. That dry culture ultimately failed to sustain national Prohibition is secondary to how examination of it allows for a better understanding of the core beliefs and attitudes of an important segment of American society, and how its members shaped and continue to influence the country to the present.