Prohibition Sources Question.
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Source A is useful because it is telling us about the long term spread and demands for prohibition. It tells us that some northern states had introduced prohibition before 1845, it also tells us that some Western frontier states had entirely banned alcohol in 1845. This map shows that just about all mid-western states were completely dry by 1915, the map also shows us where prohibition had not been introduced by the states before 1915 i.e. the eastern coast where most of the major cities are situated. This source tells us that there was limited support for prohibition before 1845 and 1915. From this we can assume that the government were responding to a public demand for the ban of alcohol in the USA.
However this source is limited in many ways. The first reason is it doesn't tell us why the states went 'dry' and it doesn't say when they went dry, as there is a 70-year gap between 1845 and 1915. It doesn't tell us whether it was popular in that state among ordinary people or whether it was a hand full of influential people. It also doesn't say why it was popular and whether it was religious groups who were the reasons behind prohibition in those states. It doesn't show which social classes supported it, whether it was a general view and which parts of society didn't support prohibition. It doesn't show how many people were against it and whether they were successful. It isn't useful in telling us whether the states turned against alcohol at the same time or if a domino effect happened. It also doesn't state why some states rejected it and the differences between the states i.e. if some states have more reason to want prohibition. Also the map doesn't show the whole of America and doesn't label the non-prohibition states, which is a visual bias. The reliability isn't really disputable as it is for an "American History Atlas" which will have been researched from state records and there is no reason to lie about the state of different areas of America. But the way it is presented is to enforce a point that prohibition was around before World War 1. So would emphasis the states, which were prohibitionist and ignore the opposition states. The demand for prohibition had increased dramatically in the First World War because it was thought to be less patriotic to drink alcohol. However this backs up what we know about prohibition existing before the 20th century in the frontier states where small local areas banned alcohol as far back as 1845. This source is useful in showing where prohibition began and slightly how it spread but it is not detailed enough to show the spread, demand and reasons behind prohibition in the United states.
2)
Source B is useful in giving an opinion on why the country turned "dry" in 1919 from some one whom has researched the subject. However the source was written for lower ability students in British schools. This means it will have been simplified so the students could understand. The book it comes from is called "success in 20th century world affairs" in 1981 which means that the book is very general and will only pass on the subject of prohibition and therefore not do much research on this time. He would have mainly been working on secondary evidence not primary and so would have had a vaguer in sight into the issue. In the passage the writer is trying to say that drinking was unpatriotic but because that is a big word for the students he goes around the word and explains it in a more simplistic way. This misses out a lot of information about prohibition because we know that there were many reasons why the country became "dry" and not just patriotism. This source has no need in being unreliable it is only the fact that is general and simplistic that would make the source unreliable to use as information to back up an argument.
Source C is useful in giving us more precise and complex reasoning behind the change to prohibition. A historian with a doctorate wrote it for a book called "the culture of the USA in the 1920's. This means that the book is going to be very detailed and complex about the prohibition subject. It was also written by a historian with a doctorate and therefore will have done thorough research on the subject with a wide variety of primary and secondary evidence. The source also gave more than one reason for the legislation of prohibition and reasons why people might have wanted prohibition. This shows that this source was carefully researched. However this source is not useful in giving any specific events to back his argument up. He also generalises the type of people that are for the prohibitionist movement "white southerners" he doesn't say where that is all white southerners, the middle class ones or just the working class.
This source is reliable, it was written with academic freedom unlike a fascist or communist country so has no reason to be biased and is written for students of high education therefore it would have to be precise and accurate.
The two sources have different reasons why prohibition was introduced, source B is focused on the reason that it was unpatriotic for Americans to drink alcohol normally brewed by people of German origin. Source C on the other hand is concentrating on the reasons that race, fear, religion and culture were to blame.
The two sources are different because of the situation and purpose of the piece. Source B was written for lower ability student and the book was a lot more general than source C which was written for higher education and the book it was from was specifically focused on the 1920's. Source B was targeted at the school student so that it had to be less detailed and be more simplistic for the children to understand.
Source C was targeted at a more intellectual audience and so would have had to be more thoroughly researched with primary and secondary evidence unlike B, which would not have needed as much research into it. Source B was also written for a very specific book focusing on the culture of America in the 1920's. The two passages focus on different reasons for the prohibition because one was needed to be a lot simpler but yet truthful in a way just not including all the facts the. The other focused on many reasons, as it had to be ...
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Source C was targeted at a more intellectual audience and so would have had to be more thoroughly researched with primary and secondary evidence unlike B, which would not have needed as much research into it. Source B was also written for a very specific book focusing on the culture of America in the 1920's. The two passages focus on different reasons for the prohibition because one was needed to be a lot simpler but yet truthful in a way just not including all the facts the. The other focused on many reasons, as it had to be a lot more complex for the education standards. We know that there were many reasons for the demand for prohibition. There were strong groups like the women's Christian temperance movement which got backing from powerful and wealthy people like Nelson Rockerfeller who together made a great impact on society for there own reasons. The women's Christian temperance movement wanted to ban alcohol so that it wouldn't corrupt society but Rockerfeller wanted to ban alcohol because h wanted his workers to be more sober and have a more productive work force. Also the fear of communism spreading to America was high and there was a common image that Russians drink a lot of vodka and so to drink is to be like the communists, this is how Americans thought that it was unpatriotic to drink. Both of the sources are right to an extent but source C is more complex and will have been better researched than the other source because of the needs for the different source would have been much different as well.
3)
Source D is useful in showing what the aftermath of a raid on a speakeasy. It also shows us the volume of liquor that was being circulated at the time. This shows us the type of people who were trying to stop the illegal alcohol trade and what happened when they were successful. It shows to a degree the severity and scale of the problem of illegal alcohol production. This is a good piece of primary evidence as it was taken at the time and does not lie, but photographs show a single moment in time. It doesn't show how they got the drink or how many times they had done this and what lead up to the confiscation of the alcohol. The picture also looks very staged as the liquor is set out to look more and all the agents are standing around looking at the camera. This shows that they are trying to exaggerate the amount that they have captured. This photograph is propaganda by the American government to make the federal agents look very successful as they were really a complete failure and very corrupted. However this is reliable, as it is good at showing the actual time because propaganda was used and this was a great example of that and to show what they really did.
Source E is a drawing of a raid on a speakeasy out of lower ability British schoolbook. It shows a drawing of a group of people throwing bottles of liquor against a brick wall to destroy the alcohol that they have found from a raid on a speakeasy. This is useful in showing how the agents' disposes of the alcohol and good at showing vaguely the amount of liquor one might find in a speakeasy. This is also good because it shows the agents in action unlike the still staged shot of the photograph. The reliability of the drawing is also under question as we don't know whether the drawing is based on an actually event, or whether it is just fabricated in the artist mind from accounts of raids and not based on a specific event. As it is a drawing we cant really tell whether it actually happened like that as the artist might of draw a picture to suit him and make it more exciting for the children reading the book. This source was made for a schoolbook so wouldn't have been purposefully unreliable but the source may well be exaggerating or even made up to get the point across.
We also know that federal agents captured no more than 10 percent of all the alcohol in circulation at the time so both sources don't show the whole picture. The photograph was staged and published as the police tried to stop the trade of alcohol and this photo was used as propaganda to put speakeasy owners off. But we know that prohibition actually increased the alcohol consumed by the public. It was estimated that in 1925 citizens consumed 200million gallons of spirits, 685 million gallons of malt liquor and 118 gallons of wine. Source E does show the agents destroying the alcohol and is not staged but we don't know if it is based on a really situation. Source D is primary evidence and there is not disputing what it is but source E is a secondary source drawn 40 years after prohibition ended and maybe didn't even happen. Source D shows a successful capture of a large amount of alcohol from a speakeasy but we know that there was only 1550 federal agents working on an 18700 miles of vast unpoliceable coastline. Between 1921-25 there were 6904 cases of people breaking the law on prohibition. Out of that 6904, 6704 were dismissed and out of the rest only 20 were convicted. This shows that the picture is unreliable and not the whole truth about raids on speakeasy's. Source D is more reliable than E in terms of whether it actually happened but source E is more reliable in terms of that it wasn't staged or used as propaganda but it is disputable whether it actually happened.
4)
Source D is useful in showing what the aftermath of a raid on a speakeasy. It also shows us the volume of liquor that was being circulated at the time. This source shows us the type of people who were trying to stop the illegal alcohol trade and what happened when they were successful. It shows to a degree the severity and scale of the problem of illegal alcohol production. This is a good piece of primary evidence as it was taken at the time and does not lie, but photographs show a single moment in time. It doesn't show how they got the drink or how many times they had done this and what lead up to the confiscation of the alcohol. This picture is not useful because it looks very staged as the liquor is set out to look more than it really is and all the agents are standing around looking at the camera. This shows that they are trying to exaggerate the amount that they have captured. This photograph is propaganda by the American government to make the federal agents look very successful as they were really a complete failure and very corrupted. This would have tried to put the criminals off.
Source E is a drawing of a raid on a speakeasy out of lower ability British schoolbook. It shows a drawing of a group of people throwing bottles of liquor against a brick wall to destroy the alcohol that they have found from a raid on a speakeasy. This is useful in showing how the agent disposes of the alcohol and good at showing vaguely the amount of liquor one might find in a speakeasy. This is also good because it shows the agents in action unlike the still staged shot of the photograph. This is not useful because we don't know whether the drawing is based on an actually event or whether it is just fabricated in the artist mind from accounts of raids and not based on a specific one. As it is a drawing we cant really tell whether it actually happened like that as the artist might of draw a picture to suit him and make it more exciting for the children reading the book. This source was made for a schoolbook so wouldn't have been purposefully unreliable but the source may well be exaggerating or even made up to get the point across. This shows that the picture is unreliable and not the whole truth about raids on speakeasy's.
Between 1921-25 there were 6904 cases of people breaking the law on prohibition. Out of that 6904, 6704 were dismissed and out of the rest only 20 were convicted.
Source E was specifically made for education purposes but the photo was for propaganda uses. Both would be very useful for education as one shows how the agents disposed of the alcohol and the other shows how the American government used propaganda to make the federal agents look more successful. I think that source E is more useful for education about speakeasy raids as it shows clearly what happened at a raid and the photo is more of a staged scene for propaganda purposes.
5)
Source F is a extract from a book called "History of the United States" stating that in New York city between 1926 and 1927 there were many arrests for braking the laws of prohibition. But out of that only a fraction were ever sentenced because the juries didn't want to send people away for doing what they them selves were doing as well.
There are reasons to believe that this source would be precise like the right of academic freedom to research and study without having to conform to the government unlike in communist or fascist governments that sensor media and researchers and also use it as propaganda. Also it was written an academic historian who would have researched the subject extensively and thoroughly. He would have used primary evidence like police and court records from the time. This means that the evidence would be very precise because the records would have been produced in a free democratic country and not in an oppressive regime. However this source is not precise for the whole of prohibition and the whole of the country. The source only shows a two-year span of police records from 1926-27. Also it is not precise for America as it only shows what happened in New York and doesn't show what the whole country is like. New York is bound to be different as we know rural areas on the East coast were more accepting of drink than the bible belt states of the mid West. This period was also near the end of prohibition and we know that the laws were failing and more people were likely to try and break the law. Also the language used "cases dropped" implies a lack of vigilant policing. Also to all of crimes related to prohibition would have been reported. The corruption of the police force was so high that the records might have been changed slightly so certain people might have not been tried because of connections or bribes.
From my own knowledge facts do back this source up like the most notorious gangster Al Capone who was arrested for income tax evasion instead of the millions of gallons of alcohol his distributed across Chicago in the 1920's. Also one American writer stated that it was absurd to think that a police officer getting 30-40 dollars a week would be able to resist bribes from millionaires. Al Capone's own brother was a very successful prohibition agent, so successful that his corrupt senior sacked him. This kind of evidence gives the source credibility and proves that the figures or accurate but with the level of corruption through out the police force it is unlikely that the source is completely precise.
6) 6) During the 1920's, attitudes to prohibition varied. There were different types of people for and against prohibition. I can use the sources and my own knowledge to explain these attitudes.
There were lots of different groups of people who supported prohibition. There were long-term campaigners, employers, Protestants, the government and their law enforcers and patriotic people. All of these had their own reasons for supporting prohibition.
Long-term campaigners were for prohibition. The campaigners had reached a peak during WW1, but they started their campaigns in the 1800's.Some areas had a local ban of alcohol by 1845;it was illegal to sell and consume alcohol in these states. After 1845 there was an increase in support for prohibition and more and more states were banning alcohol. Groups like the Anti-Saloon League, set up in 1886, and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union were powerful long before prohibition became a national law in 1920.Between 1906 and 1912, 7 states had passed local prohibition laws and by 1919 50% of the states in the USA had banned alcohol. This is shown in source A. It shows that large areas in the centre of America had local prohibition in 1845, and most eastern states were dry by 1915, 5 years before prohibition was made a national law in 1920.Although source A shows how long-term support for prohibition increased, it had limitations. The map only shows eastern parts of America, and as a large amount of the states aren't on the map, the long-term support of prohibition may be different in these states. The source gives no details on who actually supported prohibition in these states, whether it was the public or the local government. The map doesn't give the dates of when these states went dry, or why they decided to go dry, or say if states completely dry by1915 had earlier been subject of prohibition laws, which would tell us how strong the support for prohibition had been in these states.
Patriots were strong supporters of prohibition. Their views on prohibition were very popular throughout the war with Germany. These people said that Germany started the war because they were obsessed with alcohol, and the same thing would happen to America unless alcohol was banned. Their views were also very popular because they claimed that most of the alcohol bought and sold in the USA came from German breweries or it was sold by Americans with German backgrounds, and prohibition would decrease the German brewery profits. They also said that Russian communists thrived on alcohol, which scared some Americans, as they said America would turn communist if they didn't ban alcohol. Another one of their arguments was that immigrants in the USA had a sickly enthusiasm for alcohol, and so were more likely to break the law, and so prohibition would make the communities that people lived safer. Source B shows these arguments. It tells us that it was against the USA to drink alcohol because it was sold by Americans with German backgrounds. Source B was written for use in British schools and so has no reason to be biased, although the source is limited as it is taken from a book called `World Affairs in the 20TH Century` which means that the part on prohibition will be very small. Another reason is that the author of this source may not be an expert on prohibition, which tells us that the source may not be properly researched or it was researched with secondary sources, or inaccuracies could have been carried on from the sources used by the author.
Employers also supported prohibition. Nelson Rockerfeller, who was an important figure in the USA during the 1920's,had the view that banning alcohol would make workers more reliable and efficient, which would make his own profits increase. Many employers took this view, as making money was everything during the 1920's. Source C shows us this, it tells us that one of the main causes of prohibition was that employers wanted sober workers. Source C has been written by an academic historian, which makes the source reliable, as he will have written source C using a range of primary and secondary information. However, its use is limited in several ways. The book that the source has been taken from is called `The Culture of the USA in the 1920's`, which could explain the emphasis on this cause. The source was written after the prohibition law had been abolished, in 1972, and so may have been influenced by biased information used to write the source, no matter how well the information for this source had been researched.
Protestant people in southern and mid-western states were strong supporters of prohibition. They believed that drinking was against their religion, and that anyone who drank alcohol was going against God. Source C tells us that the main base for prohibition ideas came from Baptist and Methodist churches. They played on people's fear of God. This shows how important Protestants thought prohibition was. Nevertheless, source C is limited. Culture is the main topic of the book the source was taken from, and so only cultural factors are discussed, religion is one of them. Other important causes may have been missed out. Source C doesn't tell us about all of the causes of prohibition.
It is obvious that the government and the law enforcers supported prohibition. The Federal Prohibition Bureau was set up, and agents such as Elliot Ness were excellent enforcers of prohibition. There were raids on illegal bars, called speakeasies, although these raids were very rare, they did happen once in a blue moon. Source D shows us this. Source D is a photograph of prohibition agents after a raid on a speakeasy; they are surrounded by a large amount of alcohol. Although the photo was probably staged, it shows us what the government wanted people to believe. They thought that if people saw how successful the prohibition agents were they would stop going to speakeasies. The source does have limitations. It is almost certainly propaganda and so doesn't show us the truth, as there were not many prohibition agents that were successful.
There were a lot of people that opposed prohibition. These people were: those who thought the law wasn't working, those who thought prohibition was reducing respect for the law, gangsters who were involved in organised crime, and ordinary people who just wanted a drink. During prohibition organised crime was a huge business. Bootleggers brought alcohol from overseas and Canada. They realised that a lot of Americans wanted to drink alcohol, so they set up illegal pubs called speakeasies. Before prohibition there were 15000 bars in New York but after the law came into force the illegal speakeasies rose to 32000. Many of them were hidden in basements and other out-of-the-way places and were installed with the most up to date alarm systems available at the time. One of the most famous gangsters of the l920's was Al Capone who is thought to have made between $60 and $l00 million dollars a year from trading in illegal alcohol. The price of whisky increased by 600% to $24 per gallon in the space of six years and most of the gangsters benefited hugely from this and became wealthy men.
Source D shows the success of organised crime in the l920's. There were very few successful raids on speakeasies and the one featured in the photograph was probably staged for the purpose of propaganda by the government. It tells us that the government was trying to cover up the fact that there was an increase in organised crime and shows us that the government wasn't strong enough to enforce their new law. The source is limited in several ways; one of these reasons is because the photo has been staged we don't know which parts to believe.
Many organisations of the time were opposed to the law which they felt was not working, the Moderation League were of the opinion that the legislation wasn't clear enough and the Women's Organisation for National Prohibition Reform thought it was incorrect to ban something which was obviously very popular throughout the country. Many of the law-enforcing agents were easily bribed leading to the breakdown of cases because of 'Not enough evidence'. Source F shows this. It tells us that "Out of 6902 cases involving people breaking the law about drink, 6074 were dropped for not enough evidence and 400 were never tried" The source only looks at a period of two years in New York which must be a very small percentage of the total problem over the whole of the U.S.A.
Many people thought that the prohibition law was reducing respect for law and order generally, in particular, the crime of murder in large cities throughout the country increased from 5.6 to 10 per l00000, an increase of 78%. The American Legion was against prohibition because it made people have less respect for the law. Source E shows us this. It shows prohibition officers destroying the contents of a speakeasy. It shows it as if it was happening every day, and it suggests speakeasies were copious, and lots of people were breaking the law. Source E does have limitations. It is only a painting, and although it was probably based on sources, it is just the view of the artist and how he interpreted it. The source was painted for students of a lower ability, and it may have been simplified and made more exciting to make it more interesting.
Despite the popularity of prohibition before it became a law in 1920, there were a lot of ordinary people who just wanted a drink. They hid their alcohol in false books, hip flasks, and hollow canes. People bought grape juice that would turn into wine after just 60 days of fermentation. Some people even had home made, illegal, stills. The newness of prohibition quickly wore off and a lot of people realised they just wanted a drink. There were over 300,000 illegal bars in the USA, all supported by ordinary law abiding citizens. Source D shows us how much persuasion the government had to use to make people support prohibition. It is a piece of propaganda issued by the government; it is a photo of prohibition officers after they had raided a speakeasy. The government was forced to lie, almost threatening them with being caught, and this still didn't stop them drinking. Eventually the law was abolished when President Roosevelt was elected after his campaign to end prohibition.
Overall, there were a lot of groups of people who supported and opposed prohibition. Long-term campaigners thought it would lead to people living a better life, patriots thought it would make the USA a better country, employers thought it would increase their profits, Protestants believed that God wanted the law to be in place, and the government just wanted to stay in power. Gangsters knew it would make them huge profits, people who thought the law wasn't working were loosing respect for the law and order, which made them think the country an unsafe place to live, and most people just wanted a relaxing drink at the end of a hard day.
Prohibition Coursework
Scott Henderson 11VN - 1 -
