the roaring twenties. the great war ended, people had a future to look forward to! the economy was...
TRANSCRIPT
The Roaring Twenties
• The Great War ended, people had a future to look forward to!• The Economy was booming, people were getting rich!• People thought the good times would never end, that they would keep on Roaring! “Up, up, up!!”•There was a general sense of lawlessness as both legal laws and social norms were challenged
“I’m sitting on top of the world”
Slang of the 1920s
• Baloney– means nonsense!
• Bee's Knees – An extraordinary person, thing, idea
• Cat's Meow – Something splendid or stylish
• Flapper – A stylish, brash, young woman with
short skirts & shorter hair • Moll
– A gangster's girl • Edge
– intoxication, a buzz. i.e. "I've got an edge."
What is Prohibition??
• Prohibition was a law prohibiting the manufacture, importation and sale of liquor during the war. It was supported by most Canadians as part of the war effort.
• Many believed that legislating prohibition would improve people’s lives.
What is the message of this cartoon?
What is the message of this cartoon?
Do you notice any pattern regarding the years when prohibition was introduced?
What reasons might there be for this timing?
Government control
Province/Territory Dry Liquor Stores Opened Drinking Allowed in Public Establishments
Prince Edward Island 1901 1948 1964
Manitoba 1916 1923 1928
Nova Scotia 1916 1930 1948
Alberta 1916 1924 1924
Ontario 1916 1927 1934
Saskatchewan 1917 1925 1935
New Brunswick 1917 1927 1961
British Columbia 1917 1921 1925
Newfoundland 1917 1925 1925
Yukon 1918 1921 1925
Quebec 1919 1919 1921
Reasons for the ban on alcohol:
• Unpatriotic to enjoy yourself while so many soldiers were suffering/fighting in the Great War
• Shouldn’t use grains and sugar to make alcohol when they were needed for the war effort
• Men were spending all of their money on alcohol and not on their families
• Alcohol causes men to miss work because they have hangovers• Alcohol can make you sick
What is the message in the poster?Who is its target audience?
Women’s Christian’s Temperance Union (WCTU)
• Women’s group that wanted prohibition• Social experiment!• Crimes and family violence, such as
child and wife beating, dropped sharply when alcohol was unavailable.
“BOOZE IS NO FRIEND OF THE WORKER”
THINK , PAIR, SHARE
What are the social consequences of alcoholism presented in this 1920s song on promoting prohibition?
PLEASE SELL NO MORE DRINK TO MY FATHER
Music by C. A. White. Words by Mrs. Frank B. Pratt
Verse 1Please sir will you listen a moment,I've something important to say. My Mother has sent you a message, Re-ceive it in kind-ness I pray.
'Tis of Father poor Father I'm speaking, You know him he's call'd ragged Gore. But we love him and hope we may save him, If you'll promise to sell him no more.
ChorusPlease sell no more drink to my Father,It makes him so strange and so wild,Heed the prayer of my heartbroken mother,And pity the poor drunkard's child
Verse 2My Father came home yester even, Reeled home thro' the mud and the rain. He upset the lamp on the table, And struck my sick Mother again,
Then all of the hours till the morning, He lay on the cold kitchen floor. And this morning he's sick and he's sorry,
Oh, promise to sell him no more. ChorusVerse 3
When sober he loves us so dearly,No Father is kinder than he. He wishes so much to stop drinking, But this is the trouble you see, He cannot withstand the temptation, He feels when he passes your door, As he goes to his work in the morning, Please promise to sell him no more.
Chorus
Members of the WCTU across Canada encouraged people to sign a pledge card such as the one above.
Why do you think WCTU employed Pledge Cards as a tactic?
How effective might such a pledge be?
Speakeasies
• Secret saloon bars opened up in cellars and back rooms.
• They had names like the ‘Dizzy Club’ and drinkers had to give a password or knock at the door in code to be let in.
• Speakeasies sold ‘bootleg’ alcohol.
‘Bootleggers’• The Canadian
Government soon made it legal to produce alcohol for export and medicinal purposes.
• Smugglers called ‘Bootleggers’ made thousands of dollars selling illegal alcohol to America.
Organized Crime
• The enormous profits to be made attracted gangsters.
• They bribed the police, judges and politicians.
• They controlled the speakeasies and the distilleries, and ruthlessly exterminated (killed) their rivals.
• By 1927 he was earning some $60 million a year from bootlegging.
• His gang was like a private army. He had 700 men under his control.
• He was responsible for over 500 murders.
• On 14th February 1929, Capone’s men dressed as police officers murdered 7 members of a rival gang. This became known as the ‘Valentine’s Day Massacre.’
Al capone
• Rocco Perri was called "Canada's King of the Bootleggers" and "Canada's Al Capone." • Perri was the head of the Calabrian mob in southern Ontario• smuggled booze into the USA in crates of “turnips”• believed to be dead – in a barrel filled with cement at bottom of Hamilton Bay