The Politics of Prohibition
American Governance and the Prohibition Party, 1869–1933

Draws on the history of America's longest-living minor political party - the Prohibition Party - to illuminate how American politics came to exclude minor parties from governance.

Lisa M. F. Andersen (Author)

9781316615928, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 10 March 2016

328 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.48 kg

'Lisa M. F. Andersen has written an exciting new study of the Prohibition party that looks at generations of Prohibitionists in their efforts to eradicate liquor production and consumption. This book will be of interest to anyone who wants to understand not only prohibition politics but also the evolving strategies of parties and pressure groups, the expansion and retraction of citizenship rights, and the development of the American political system. Beautifully written and absolutely engaging, this book provides an excellent analysis of the connections between partisan politics and electoral laws, and a brilliant interpretation of the impact of cultural ideals on political activism and citizenship engagement. Andersen shows that elections matter, as do election laws and their administration, in shaping democracy.' Melanie Gustafson, University of Vermont

This book introduces the intrepid temperance advocates who formed America's longest-living minor political party - the Prohibition Party - drawing on the party's history to illuminate how American politics came to exclude minor parties from governance. Lisa M. F. Andersen traces the influence of pressure groups and ballot reforms, arguing that these innovations created a threshold for organization and maintenance that required extraordinary financial and personal resources from parties already lacking in both. More than most other minor parties, the Prohibition Party resisted an encroaching Democratic-Republican stranglehold over governance. When Prohibitionists found themselves excluded from elections, they devised a variety of tactics: they occupied saloons, pressed lawsuits, forged utopian communities, and organized dry consumers to solicit alcohol-free products.

Part I. Building a Constituency: 1. Temperance, prohibition, and a party
2. Disorderly conduct in the emancipation era
3. Women's peculiar partisanship
Part II. The Minor Party Problem: 4. 'Collateral consequences' of the 1884 election
5. Writing prohibition into the soil
6. Strenuous bodies
Part III. Partisanship, Policy, and Protest Votes: 7. Opposing the prohibition amendment
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], History of the Americas [HBJK]