PROHIBITION ERA
DINNER PARTY
OVERVIEW
Many noteable Americans played many roles
during the Prohibition era, from government
officials and social reformers to bootleggers and
crime bosses. Each person had his or her own
reasons for supporting or opposing Prohibition.
What stances did these individuals take? What
legal, moral, and ethical questions did they have to
wrestle with? Why were their actions important?
And how might a "dinner party" attended by them
bring some of these questions to the surface?
e d activities
r e l a t
PROHIBITION SMART BOARD WHO SAID IT? THE RISE & FALL OF
PICTIONARY ACTIVITY QUOTE SORTING PROHIBITION ESSAY
Use your skills to get Learn about Learn about the Learn about the
classmates to identify Prohibition through differences between background of the
and define which informational slides the Founders’ and 18th Amendment,
Prohibition era term and activities using the Progressives’ beliefs the players in the
you draw. SMART platform. about government by movement, and its
sorting quotes from eventual repeal.
each group.
Made possible in part Developed in
by a major grant from partnership with
TEACHER NOTES
LEARNING GOALS EXTENSION
Students will: The son of Roy Olmstead said about his
father: “My dad thought that Prohibition was
• Understand the significance of historical
an immoral law. So he had no compunction
figures during the Prohibition era.
[misgivings or guilt] about breaking that law.”
• Understand the connections between Discuss the statement as a large group. Then
different groups during the Prohibition have students respond to the statement in a
era. short essay. They should consider the following
questions:
• Evaluate the tension that sometimes
exists between following the law and • How can you know if a law is immoral?
following one’s conscience. • Should you feel misgivings for violating
laws you believe are immoral?
HOMEWORK • What tension can sometimes exist between
following the law and following one’s
A. After students complete the activity, beliefs?
have them write an essay about their
• Americans including Henry David Thoreau
historical figure’s role in Prohibition and
and Martin Luther King, Jr. have stated
why it was significant.
that not only is there no duty to obey unjust
B. Choose other historical figures not laws, but there is actually a duty to disobey
on the list from the Prohibition era them. Would that idea apply in the case of
and have students research their Roy Olmstead (who was known as a “good”
significance. Students can then report bootlegger because he did not sell low-
their findings to the class through a quality or potentially poisonous alcohol,
presentation using visual aids. and avoided crimes associated with large-
scale bootlegging)? Explain why or why not.
C. Have students sort the list of historical
• What avenues are available for citizens who
figures into categories of their own
want to change unjust laws?
choosing (Organized Crime, Progressive,
Anti-Prohibition) and then explain why
they put each person into the category.
PROHIBITION ERA
DINNER PARTY
ACTIVITY DIRECTIONS
A. From the cards that follow, assign each student a role as an important person
from the Prohibition era.
B. Divide students into small groups, making sure no one should have the same
role in each group. The students should take on the identity of their historical
figure and learn more about the other historical figures in their group.
C. Have students complete the Activity Guide as "dinner" progresses.
VARIATION: Include some character cards from the American Heroes activity
in the Being an American curriculum available at Teachers.BillofRightsInstitute.
org. For example, what might a dinner conversation look like between Thomas
Jefferson and Eliot Ness? Between George Washington and Al Capone? Have
students prepare some discussion questions for historical figures ahead of time.
SUGGESTED GROUPINGS
Capone Olmstead Willard Roosevelt
Ness Willebrandt Sabin Du Pont
Nation Thompson Anthony Barnum
Sunday Wheeler Hobson Russell
Bryan
American Heroes: Past and Present is available
at Teachers.BillofRightsInstitute.org
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PROHIBITION ERA
DINNER PARTY
ACTIVITY GUIDE
DIRECTIONS: Choose a new identity as an individual from the Prohibition era. Research the
life of this person and answer these questions.
1. What is your person’s name and historical significance?
2. What was this person’s role leading up to, during, or after the Prohibition era?
3. Did their beliefs about temperance or Prohibition change over time? If so, how?
4. How is this person similar to you? How is he or she different?
After learning more about your historical figure, you will participate in a “dinner party” where
all of the guests take on the identity of their historical figure. Discuss your answers to the
above questions with the other guests and learn about the other historical figures in the group.
After greeting your fellow dinner guests, fill their names in the spaces below, and write at least
one question your “character” would have for him/her.
HISTORICAL FIGURE:____________________ HISTORICAL FIGURE:____________________
YOUR QUESTION: YOUR QUESTION:
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HISTORICAL FIGURE:____________________ HISTORICAL FIGURE:____________________
YOUR QUESTION: YOUR QUESTION:
HISTORICAL FIGURE:____________________ HISTORICAL FIGURE:____________________
YOUR QUESTION: YOUR QUESTION:
As you talk to the other participants in character, think about
FOOD FOR these questions:
THOUGHT • Are there connections between the historical figures at
your table? Why are these connections significant to the
Prohibition era?
• Would your historical figure agree or disagree with the
others at the table? Why or why not?
• How has your historical figure claimed a place in history?
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HISTORICAL FIGURES
AL CAPONE
Al Capone was born in 1899 to an immigrant family in Brooklyn,
New York. He earned his nickname “Scarface” after a brawl with a
guest at the saloon where he worked. Capone’s gangster boss sent
him to Chicago after he murdered two people in New York and put a
third in the hospital. Working closely with a mentor, he was soon heading up a number
of illegal businesses. Between 1925 and 1930, the income from Capone’s speakeasies,
gambling houses, distilleries, and brothels was topping $100 million a year. He protected
his interests with murder—his men would gun down rivals and enemies—while Capone
always had an alibi. Despite the many killings he was involved in, Capone was never tried
for the crime of murder.
In 1930, he became Chicago’s “Public Enemy Number One.” President Herbert
Hoover launched a double attack on Capone with the Bureau of Prohibition on one front,
and the Bureau of Internal Revenue on the other. In 1932, Capone was convicted of tax
evasion and sentenced to 11 years in federal prison. He became one of Alcatraz’s most
famous inmates, conducting himself as a model prisoner.
The reputation Chicago gained for illegal activities during Prohibition is largely due to
Capone. He has come to symbolize the collapse of the rule of law during the Prohibition
era. After his release from Alcatraz in 1939, Capone’s health was in decline due to
neurosyphillis. He spent the rest of his life at his estate in Florida where he died in 1947.
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FRANCES WILLARD
Frances Willard was born to educator parents in New York in 1839.
She grew up in Wisconsin where she and her brother were educated
by their mother. After graduating from college, she took leadership
roles in education and began to turn her attention towards
promoting temperance and the rights of women. In 1874, she co-founded the Women’s
Christian Temperance Union, whose mission was to create a “sober and pure world.” She
headed the organization from 1879 until her death.
Willard embraced the Progressive idea that government should work to bring about
conditions that would elevate men’s characters. She said, "The small meannesses bred
by the law of competition corrode men’s character as rust spoils steel.” As President of
the WCTU, Willard broadened the mission of the organization. The group advocated
for reform on a number of issues including worker's rights, prison, school reform,
and international peace. It lobbied legislatures to pass laws keeping the Sabbath Day
holy, arguing that activities such as golf should be prohibited on Sundays. Believing
that immigrants were more prone to alcoholism, the group supported Ellis Island’s
Americanization efforts.
Unlike other feminists of the time who argued women deserved the right to vote
because of their natural equality with men, Willard argued for the vote because men and
women were fundamentally different. Women, Willard believed, were morally superior
to men. Therefore, she reasoned, giving women the right to vote would help cleanse
society of its ills.
The WCTU is an active international organization to this day, and works in several
countries including the United States in support of laws against alcohol, tobacco,
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ELIOT NESS
Eliot Ness was born in Chicago in 1903 to a family of Norwegian
immigrants. After graduating from the University of Chicago with
degrees in business and law, he became an investigator for a credit
company before returning for a Master’s degree in criminology.
Ness headed up a team of investigators at the Bureau of Prohibition charged with
bringing down Al Capone. Battling corruption within the Bureau itself, he whittled
a group of 51 investigators to an elite team of 10. They worked tirelessly and at great
personal risk. They used wiretaps to listen in on conversations and trailed his men in
their vehicles. Within six months, Ness’s team had shut down 19 illegal breweries. When
rumors spread that he and his men had refused bribes from Capone (bribes greater than
the men’s annual salaries) they earned the nickname “The Untouchables.”
Though Ness himself was not directly in volved with his capture, Capone was
eventually convicted on tax evasion charges. After Capone’s conviction, Ness continued
his fight against violations of the Volstead Act. When Prohibition ended in 1934,
he worked to battle labor racketeers, organized crime, and a corrupt police force in
Cleveland, Ohio.
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ROY OLMSTEAD
Roy Olmstead was born on a Nebraska farm in 1886. He moved to
Seattle to work in a shipyard in 1904 and joined the police force
three years later. In 1916, Washington became one of 23 “dry” states
enforcing laws against alcohol. As a police officer, Olmstead learned
about the business of illegally importing alcohol. By 1919, he began illegally importing
alcohol himself. When the 18th Amendment was passed and a more stringent federal law
was enforced, Olmstead was caught bringing in Canadian whisky by Prohibition Bureau
agents. He was fined and fired from the police force; he then turned to bootlegging full time.
Olmstead regularly paid off policemen and city officials, and soon his bootlegging
business was earning him more money in one week than he would have earned in 20
years on the force. Because his whiskey was always top-quality and he forbade his
men from carrying weapons, he became known in Seattle as “The Good Bootlegger.”
Olmstead’s son would later say about him, “My dad thought that Prohibition was an
immoral law. So he had no compunction about breaking that law.”
Federal agents, suspecting Olmstead of violating the Volstead Act, placed wiretaps to
listen in on conversations in his home and his office. They installed the eavesdropping
devices on the streets without getting a judge-approved search warrant. Olmstead was
convicted and sentenced to four years of hard labor. Olmstead challenged his conviction
on the basis that the wiretaps used to gain evidence against him were illegal under the
Fourth and Fifth Amendments. The Supreme Court ruled against Olmstead in Olmstead v.
U.S. (1928). The Court held that a wiretap was not a “search and seizure” under the Fourth
Amendment because phone conversations were no different from casual conversations
overheard in a public place. The Court also held that since Olmstead was not forced to give
a confession, Fifth Amendment protection from self-incrimination did not apply.
After serving his sentence, Olmstead was granted a full presidential pardon by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935. The Olmstead decision was overturned in the 1967 case
of Katz v. U.S., which held that warrants were required to wiretap public payphones, and
introduced the idea of “reasonable expectations of privacy” into Fourth Amendment law.
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FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
Franklin D. Roosevelt, born in New York in 1882, was involved in
politics from an early age. He served as a state senator, as Assistant
Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson, and as
Governor of New York. He originally supported Prohibition, but
changed his mind after he saw the problems associated with enforcement. He ran
for president in 1932, promising a “New Deal” for the American people, including his
support for a repeal of Prohibition.
The President has no official role in the constitutional amendment process.
Campaigning for president in 1932, Roosevelt asserted his personal belief in temperance
as a cardinal virtue, but criticized the enforcement of Prohibition. He agreed that the
“use of intoxicants has no place in this new mechanized civilization of ours,” but argued
that the enforcing of Prohibition had been, in most parts of the country, a “complete and
tragic failure.” Further, he explained, legalizing alcohol would provide more tax revenue
for the federal government.
In March of 1933, Roosevelt signed an amendment to the Volstead Act permitting
the manufacture and sale of beers and light wines that fell below a new, higher legal
definition of “intoxicating” beverages. On December 5, 1933, the 21st Amendment was
ratified, and Roosevelt issued a proclamation announcing the repeal of Prohibition.
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PAULINE SABIN
Pauline Sabin was born to a wealthy, politically active family
in New York family in 1887. Her father and grandfather were
cabinet members in earlier administrations. She married into a
politically active family as well – her husband was the treasurer
of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA). In 1921, she founded
the Women’s National Republican Club, and in 1928, she worked for the election of
presidential candidate Herbert Hoover, despite feeling uncertain about his stance on
Prohibition. Originally in favor of Prohibition, Sabin began to question it as she saw its
effects and the growth of government it caused. In 1929, when she decided that President
Hoover had failed to deliver on a promise to re-evaluate Prohibition, she resigned
from the Republican National Committee and founded the Women’s Organization for
National Prohibition Reform (WONPR).
The WONPR borrowed many of the arguments used in favor of Prohibition that had
been used by the group Women's Christian Temperance Union to argue for its repeal.
Sabin argued that the lawlessness spurred by Prohibition was a threat to families.
She believed the idea that Prohibition laws would eliminate peoples’ desire to drink
was dangerous. She said, “Children are growing up with a total lack of respect for the
Constitution and the law .... The young see the law broken at home and upon the street.
Can we expect them to be lawful?” She also asserted that repeal of Prohibition would
return control over personal decisions where it belonged – families.
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PIERRE S. DU PONT
Pierre du Pont was born on his family’s estate in Delaware in 1870
and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a
degree in chemistry when he was 20. After first going into the family’s
business, he became Chairman of General Motors as well in 1915.
Du Pont became active in the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA)
in 1925. He was concerned about the growth in government he saw during World War I and
the Progressive Era. He saw that the result of Prohibition had been more alcohol abuse, not
less. It had created opportunities for organized crime. The federal government had lost a
revenue stream from excise taxes on liquor. Du Pont was concerned that the new income
tax, which had been ushered in with the passage of the 16th Amendment in 1913, as well as
a new tax on inheritances, would damage American industry.
Like some other Americans, Du Pont found himself at odds with both major parties
during and after Prohibition. He broke from the Republican Party in 1928 due to its
stance on Prohibition and was also at odds with the Democratic Party and President
Roosevelt because of his philosophical disagreement with New Deal policies. He helped
found the American Liberty League in 1934, a group which opposed the New Deal and
emphasized economic freedom.
After repeal, Congress did cut taxes for workers making less than $3,000 per year,
while raising taxes on the wealthy. In 1936, Du Pont expressed his wish that he had
focused more attention on repealing the 16th Amendment, which empowered the federal
government to tax incomes.
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MABEL WALKER WILLEBRANDT
Mabel Walker Willebrandt was born in Kansas in 1889. After
graduating from college she worked as a teacher while attending law
school at night. After finishing her law degree, she went on to earn
a Master’s degree as well. In 1921 she was appointed to the position
of Assistant Attorney General of the United States, the second woman to hold that post.
The highest ranking woman in the federal government at that time, she was responsible
for prosecuting, among other crimes, violations of the Volstead Act.
Though Willebrandt personally opposed Prohibition, she carried out her duties to
enforce the law. “Give me the authority and let me have my pick of 300 men and I’ll
make this country as dry as it is humanly possible to get it,” she said. Her commitment
to upholding the unpopular Volstead Act did not always win her friends, particularly
when she exposed political interference and weak enforcement in state governments
and federal agencies. She had little patience for the men who ran the Prohibition Bureau.
She helped oversee growth in the federal government’s ability to investigate and punish
criminals. The first federal prison for women was established under her administration,
and her office oversaw close to 50,000 prosecutions for Volstead Act violations. She
argued more than 40 cases before the Supreme Court. All of these achievements made
her known as the "First Lady of the Law."
She campaigned for Herbert Hoover in 1928, earning the nickname “Prohibition
Portia” from the opposition. She was fired by Hoover in 1929 because her outspoken
ways had her in the headlines too much.
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SUSAN B. ANTHONY
Susan B. Anthony grew up as a Quaker and believed that drinking
was a sin. She was a leader of the Daughters of Temperance group
in the state of New York. With Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anthony
formed the Women’s State Temperance Society in 1853. The goal
of the Society was to get the state legislature to pass a law limiting liquor sales, but the
state wouldn’t accept its petition because most of the signatures were from women and
children. Anthony became determined to gain women’s suffrage so that women’s views
would be taken seriously.
Anthony published a women’s rights journal titled The Revolution, but she refused to
allow advertisements from patent medicines that contained alcohol or opiates. Anthony
and Stanton ended up resigning from the Women’s State Temperance Society because
other members believed they were too concerned with women’s rights and not with
temperance.
HOWARD HYDE RUSSELL
Howard Hyde Russell was a lawyer who gave up his practice to
become a minister. He was adamantly against alcohol and saloons.
He founded the Anti-Saloon League (ASL) in Ohio in 1893. In 1895,
the ASL became a national organization and Russell was elected as
superintendent.
The ASL called itself "The Church in Action Against the Saloon." Russell wrote, "In
the awed silence of my heart, I was compelled to believe the statement was true, 'The
ASL movement was begun by Almighty God.'"
After the turn of the twentieth century, he formed the Lincoln Lee Legion which
promoted temperance by having young people sign pledges to abstain from alcohol use.
Russell raised five million dollars to support the prohibition movement. Russell and
the ASL claimed a victory with the ratification of the 18th Amendment in 1919. Even
after the repeal of Prohibition 13 years later, Russell continued to fight for prohibition of
alcohol until his death in 1946.
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WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
William Jennings Bryan was born in Illinois and moved to Nebraska
in 1887 where he practiced law. Running on a populist platform, he
was the first Democrat ever elected from Nebraska to the House
of Representatives. He lost his bid for Senate in 1894, and became
editor of the Democratic newspaper, the Omaha World-Herald.
The most famous orator of his day, Bryan was a major player in progressive politics.
He served as a member of Congress, Secretary of State under President Woodrow
Wilson, and ran for president three times. Bryan originally remained neutral in the
prohibition debate, but by 1910, he had come out in favor it. He campaigned throughout
the country for the passage of the 18th Amendment. He also supported the other
progressive amendments – the 16th, 17th, and 19th.
Bryan was also very concerned about the teaching of evolution, calling it
“consummately dangerous.” He argued against Clarence Darrow for a literal
interpretation of the Bible and in opposition to the teaching of evolution in what became
known as the Scopes Monkey Trial. He died five days after that trial ended.
CARRY NATION
After her first husband, Charles Gloyd, died from alcoholism
in 1868, Carry Nation began to vehemently fight for Prohibition
of alcohol. She married David Nation in 1874, and they moved
to Kansas where Carry started a local chapter of the Women’s
Christian Temperance Union. To protest bars and saloons that served alcohol, Nation
resorted to vandalism and destruction of property, using a hatchet to smash the
establishments. Nation created a new organization called the Prohibition Federation,
published a newspaper called The Hatchet, and sold miniature hatchets as souvenirs.
Though she brought the cause a lot of publicity, she had little to no impact on the main
events of prohibition.
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WILLIAM ASHLEY SUNDAY
Billy Sunday started out as a baseball player in the National League,
but he left for the evangelical Christian ministry in the early 1890s.
Sunday became a champion of temperance and used his sermons
and revivals to promote prohibition. "I'll fight them till hell freezes
over. Then I'll buy a pair of skates and fight them on ice!" he said at a University of
Michigan rally. One of his most famous sermons was titled “Get on the Water Wagon”
in which he preached against the liquor industry. After the 18th Amendment passed,
Sunday continued to work to support the movement. Even after its repeal, Sunday called
for Prohibition to be reintroduced.
P.T. BARNUM
Barnum is best known as the founder of what became the Ringling
Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, and for statements like
“Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the
American public.” He was also a staunch supporter of temperance.
At Barnum’s American Museum, an 1849 melodrama titled The Drunkard, or the Fallen
Saved showed the evils of alcohol to the audience in the Lecture Room. No alcohol was
allowed in the American Museum, and Barnum would even require those patrons who
left for a nearby saloon during intermission to pay the admission fee again in order to
return for the second act. Barnum lectured widely on temperance throughout the mid-
nineteenth century.
Barnum also became involved in politics. Originally a Democrat, he switched to
the Republican Party in support of Abraham Lincoln. He served two terms in the
Connecticut legislature. He ran for a seat in the U.S. Congress but was unsuccessful.
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ELIZA THOMPSON
Thompson became involved in the temperance movement after her
son died from an alcohol addiction. In December 1873, "Mother"
Thompson and 75 other women protested at bars and saloons in
her hometown in Ohio. They went to each establishment, knelt
in the snow, and prayed for its closure. The group also demanded that saloon owners
sign a pledge to stop serving alcohol. Within days, nine of 13 establishments had closed
their doors. The movement spread across the state of Ohio and the rest of the country.
Thompson was elected chairman of the Women’s Crusade at a state convention in 1874,
and many members of that group went on to join the Woman’s Christian Temperance
Union.
RICHMOND P. HOBSON
Hobson was a United States Navy officer and served as a U.S.
Representative from Alabama from 1907-1915. In 1914, Hobson
introduced a bill that would call for an amendment banning alcohol
in the United States. The measure received a majority of votes in
each house, but it did not receive the two-thirds super-majority necessary to be passed.
The Anti-Saloon League was watching, and learned which congressional seats they
would need to target to get what would be the 18th Amendment passed a few years later.
Upon leaving Congress, Hobson continued his crusade against alcohol and drugs and
became known as “The Father of American Prohibition.” Hobson wrote several books
on the subject, gave speeches on radio programs, and lobbied Congress for more laws to
restrict drugs and alcohol. Hobson was the ASL’s highest-paid speaker and he founded
his own organization, the International Narcotic Education Association.
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WAYNE B. WHEELER
Wayne Wheeler was born in Brookfield, Ohio and graduated from
Oberlin College. He first became involved in the temperance
movement during his college days when he heard Howard Hyde
Russell speak. Russell recruited the young college graduate, and
Wheeler became one of the first full-time employees of the Anti-Saloon League in 1893.
Wheeler moved up through the ranks of the organization, becoming superintendent
in 1902. When it became clear that the ASL needed legal counsel, Wheeler went to law
school. As an attorney, Wheeler handled hundreds of dry law cases. He headed up efforts
to defeat candidates who refused to support prohibition. After one particularly dramatic
campaign victory, he declared, “Never again will any political party ignore the protests of
the church and the moral forces of the state.”
Wheeler’s greatest notoriety came from his work as the ASL’s chief lobbyist. He
became famous for his use of pressure politics, keeping note card files of politicians to
target. He used mass media to his advantage, striking fear into politicians worried about
keeping their offices. The editors of the New York World called him “the legislative bully
before whom the Senate of the United States sits up and begs.” He was instrumental in
helping to draft the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act.
By 1926 Wheeler was at the center of controversy when some in the ASL questioned
the League’s spending in some political campaigns. Suffering from ill health, he died at
his Michigan vacation home the following year. Upon his death, the Washington Post
wrote that “no other private citizen of the United States has left such an impression upon
national history.” The New York Herald Tribune wrote, “Without Wayne B. Wheeler’s
generalship it is more than likely we should never have had the Eighteenth Amendment.”
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