Debates were a popular form of entertainment at the Chautauqua. Two popular topics were Prohibition and Woman Suffrage. For a generic lesson pan about debate, go to Sample Debate Lesson Plan.
Prohibition refers to the time between 1920 and 1934 when it was illegal to make or sell intoxicating alcoholic beverages in the United States.
The movement against alcohol became significant in the 19th Century, spread throughout the United States between 1829 and 1850 and continued into the 20th Century though the efforts of the Women's Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League. The efforts of prohibitionists ultimately resulted in the 18th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It prohibited the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors in, or the importation of intoxicating liquors into, the United States or any territory under its jurisdiction.
The 18th Amendment was ratified on January 29, 1919 and went into effect January 1920. The Volstead Act, also known as the national Prohibition Act, was enacted to enforce the amendment. In 1933, the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment.
The Two Sides of Prohibition
Pro: liquor consumption ultimately produces poverty and social desolation, including unemployment, wife beating, child abuse and other types of violence.
Con: Drinking does not necessarily lead to problems.
Did prohibition reduce alcohol consumption?
| Yearly per capita consumption of alcohol* |
| 2.6 gallons per capita in 1906-10 1.69 gallons per capita in 1911-14 .97 gallons per capita in 1918-19 .73 gallons per capita in 1921-30 1.14 gallons per capita in 1927-30 .97 gallons per capita in 1934 1.54 gallons per capita in 1940 2.6 gallons per capita in 1976 What is it today? Use Google to search for the answer. |
Why was prohibition repealed?
The Wickersham Commission, appointed by President Hoover to investigate the enforcement problem, concluded that Prohibition had probably been good for the health of the poor. So, why was Prohibiotn repealed? Use Google to search for the answer.
* Balkalar, James. B. and Lester Grinspoon. Drug Control in a Free Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
Although some individual states had given women the right to vote as early as 1869, the United States of America did not extend this right to all women until ratification of the 19th Amendment in August 1920.
In 1885, John A. Pickler introduced a woman suffrage bill in South Dakota that was passed by both houses of the legislature and then vetoed by Governor Gilbert Pierce. Four referendums to enfranchise women in South Dakota Failed: 1890, 1894, 1898 and 1910.
Pro: Women should be given the right to vote in order to take full part in a democratic society. Alice Stone Blackwell, in the territorial paper the Rolla Star, wrote against the notion that voting would put her in contact with men too bad for her to associate. "It is," she said, "as if a man should chivalrously forbid his wife to do any housecleaning, on the ground that the house was too dirty for her to touch it; and at the same time should expect her to go on living in this same dirty house, surrounded by all the uncomfortable and unwholesome consequences of its unclean condition."
Con: Women should not vote.
According to the Rolla Star, women needed to be protected against contact with "notoriously corrupt caucus-room" and "the promiscuous crowd that usually surround the ballot-box." "Woman occupies a higher and more noble sphere" as wife and mother. If she were to vote, "...how soon would her ennobling character be trailing in the dust, and man cease to reverence and respect the weaker sex."
Why did it take so long for women to get the vote?
The early state suffrage organization campaigned for both woman suffrage and temperance. Consequently, the liquor industry became a primary opponent of woman suffrage. "Either through bribes or direct financial support, the liquor interest in South Dakota gave money to any group that was against female suffrage and made a tremendous impact on the course of the woman suffrage movement."*
Internet Resources:
*Easton, Patricia O'Keefe. "Woman Suffrage in South Dakota:
The Final Decade, 1911-1920." South Dakota History 13,3 (Fall 1983):
206-226.
Wittmayer, Cecelia M. "The 1889-1890 Woman Suffrage Campaign: A Need
to Organize." South Dakota History 11,3 (Summer 1981): 199-225.