power around 1900, it would continue to be a force in American politics even after the repeal of Prohibition. Bordin shows how sentiment for prohibition developed and how groups seeking prohibition developed political skills that would one day make it possible.
Byerly, Victoria Morris. Hard Times Cotton Mill Girls: Personal Histories of Womanhood and Poverty in the South. Ithaca, N.Y.: ILR P, 1986.
Twenty case-history narratives of white and black women on the line at the mills tighten realities of the direct experience of alienated labor, class, education, and money in the midst of textiles industrialization of the New South. Personal histories fill gaps left (especially) by statistical studies of industrial unionization efforts, putting a human face on being underpaid and overworked; minimal interpretation, except in introduction. Legacy of racism figures into attitudes, but their shared experience and confrontations with anti-union management generally made workers allies, not adversaries, in the struggle for dignity and worth.
Clark, Norman H. Deliver Us from Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition. New York: W.W. Norton, 1976.
Clark presents the history of the temperance movement and its culmination in the passage of Prohibition as a reflection of the moral history of the American family. Prohibition, he emphasizes, came about after a century of experimentation with drinking and with temperance. Clark sees Prohibition as coming about because of changes in American society, and he sees the end of Prohibition as coming about for the same reason as further changes occurred because of the experience of the American people with prohibition and its effects.
Coffey, Thomas M. The Long Thirst: Prohibition in America: 1920-1933. New York: W.W. Norton, 1975.
Coffey tells the story of a number of individuals from the era of Prohibition and reflects the spirit of the age in their stories. He is interested ...