20 people you didn’t know were Prohibitionists

Speakeasies, rum runners, and backwoods fundamentalists railing about the ills of strong drink are just one small part of the global story of prohibition. The full story of prohibition—one you’ve probably never been told—is perhaps one of the most broad-based and successful transnational social movements of the modern era. The call for temperance motivated and aligned activists within progressive, social justice, labor rights, women’s rights, and indigenous rights movements advocating for communal self-protection against the corrupt and predatory “liquor machine” that had become rich off the misery and addictions of the poor around the world.

From the slums of South Asia, to the beerhalls of Central Europe, to the Native American reservations of the United States, discover 20 key figures from history that you didn’t know were prohibitionists.

Daniel O'Connell

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Full name: Dónall Ó Conaill

Lived: 6 August 1775-15 May 1847

Nationality: Ireland

Occupation: barrister, activist, parliamentarian

Widely recognized as the political leader of Ireland’s Roman Catholic majority in the early 19th century, Daniel O’Connell hitched the cause of Irish nationalism and liberation from the United Kingdom to the rising temperance organization of Cork friar, Fr. Theobald Mathew, who had administered temperance pledges to nearly two-thirds of the population of Ireland. While Fr. Mathew had little interest in politics, O’Connell saw in temperance a new identity for “Ireland Sober, Ireland Free.” Abstinence would not only demonstrate Irish enlightened preparedness for Home Rule, but would starve the liquor revenues made by English distillers and publicans at the expense of Irish drunkenness and debauchery.