Temperance protest photograph   Save
Hopley Family Collection
Description: Photograph showing a temperance protest taking place outside Peters Laudenbach Saloon. The legible writing located on the back of the photograph reads: "John Hopley 1874| Crusade views| J. Carson,| PHOTOGRAPHER.| West End Quinby Block,| Bucyrus, Ohio.|...Peters & Laudenbach." During the late 1800s, support for Prohibition ("the outlawing of alcohol's manufacture, transportation, and consumption") gained tremendous support. On May 24, 1893, temperance advocates in Ohio formed the Ohio Anti-Saloon League in Oberlin, Ohio. This organization's members believed that American society was in moral decline. As people moved from rural areas to urbanized ones, many Americans believed that they were losing touch with their religious values. One way that people were violating God's desires was by consuming alcohol. The Ohio Anti-Saloon League hoped to prohibit alcohol by enforcing existing laws and by implementing new ones. This same year, temperance supporters in Washington, DC, formed their own Anti-Saloon League. In 1895, the Ohio and Washington organizations united to create the National Anti-Saloon League, which eventually became the Anti-Saloon League of America. The Anti-Saloon League adopted Prohibition as its primary goal, but also sought to eliminate bars, taverns, and saloons, believing that these businesses promoted the consumption of alcohol. For the first fifteen years of its existence, the Anti-Saloon League and its subsidiaries focused on implementing anti-alcohol laws in local communities. As support grew, including among such prominent Americans as John D. Rockefeller, the League began a national campaign to implement Prohibition. In 1913, the League sponsored a parade in Washington, DC. At the gathering's conclusion, the League's superintendent, Purley Baker, presented an amendment to the United States Congress and to the House of Representatives. This amendment would be the basis for the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which made Prohibition the law of the land. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: P156_B02F11_001_01
Subjects: Temperance--History; Alcohol; Women--Societies and clubs--Ohio;
Places: Bucyrus (Ohio); Crawford County (Ohio);