NEW PERSPECTIVES ON PROHIBITION EXPERIMENT OF 1920S

Recently a number of historians have shown that the temperance movement that culminated in national prohibition was central to the American reform tradition. Such writers as James H. Timberlake have demonstrated in detail how the Eighteenth Amendment was an integral part of the reforms of the Progressive movement.1 Yet we commonly refer to the “prohibition experiment” rather than the “prohibition reform.” This characterization deserves some exploration. The question can be raised, for example, why we do not refer to the “workmen’s compensation law experiment.”. © 1968, Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.