Battling Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800-1933

From roughly 1800 to the repeal of national prohibition in 1933, temperance reform was a powerful and revealing American social movement. Alcoholic drink had been a fixture of daily life from colonial times, and to many Americans the saloon became a symbol of freedom and egalitarianism—a fitting emblem for American democracy. But many men and women believed that alcohol had a destructive impact on American society and fostered personal and political deviancy. Thomas Pegram’s narrative account…