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.
Thomas McKenney
Full name: Thomas Loraine McKenney
Lived: 21 March 1785-19 February 1859
Nationality: United States
Occupation: bureaucrat
As US Superintendent of Indian Affairs, the Quaker Thomas McKenney was an advocate for fair dealing with the Native American tribes, which meant opposing the white liquor traffickers seeking to swindle them. McKenney expanded the factory system of trading outposts, stocked with top-quality goods to give Native American fur traders top value for their pelts. He steadfastly built and maintained the system, especially against both small whiskey traders and politically influential tycoons such as John Jacob Astor, who saw the factory system as the foremost impediment to their own swindling and exploitation of Native American tribes through liquor for profit. Ultimately, Astor succeeded in lobbying Congress and having McKenney’s well-intentioned factory system abolished in 1822, opening the doors for the long, bloody wars, corruption, and bad-faith dealings of America’s “Century of Dishonor” in dealing with Native American populations.
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