President Hoover's The Noble Experiment

“The Noble Experiment”, coined by President Hoover refers to the passage of the eighteenth amendment then thirteen years later its subsequent repeal as seen by the twenty-first amendment. Both were attempts by the federal government to juristically alter the day-to-day lives of American citizens. With these two amendments, the nation attempted to redesign the social culture, identity and purifying American image which clouded by the brew. On January 16, 1919, Congress passed the eighteenth amendment which would ban the production, public consumption and sale of alcoholic beverages and set the amendment to take effect the following January. In modern connotation, the average American hears the eighteenth amendment and conjures to mind a romanticized,

Even so, the eighteenth amendment prohibited what is arguably described as the true American past time, pushing the United States mentality back towards the smuggling, tax evading, limited government of colonial times. Consumption played a crucial role in colonial society for perceived health benefits, the continuance of daily life, and for social lubrication. Surrounding alcohol is a sundry supply of myths from health benefits to alcohols ability to keep an individual warm. A factual, important reason, lending credence to the so-called health benefits of consumption was the lack of clean drinking water. Alcohol had a higher sanity rate than water available in the eighteenth century. However, the consumption of alcohol did not come without

Many temperance societies existed in the early twentieth century, but the most prominent was the American Temperance Society. In 1835 the American Temperance Society formed, and while having significant membership numbers, initially, the temperance society did not have much political capital. (Jurkiewicz and Painter 4). In 1913 the ATS received their big break, when alcoholism became linked to higher poverty levels, domestic violence, the separation of families and other evils burdening the American culture (Jurkiewicz and Painter 5). ATS writers took to the streets and went nuts, releasing the stream of Temperance literature to gain further supporter by demonizing alcohol. Writers attempted to show drunks the hazardous effects of their ways. Those behind the Temperance movement preyed upon the fears of humanity’s worst, domestic violence, sexual abuse, the loss of childhood innocence (Reynolds and Rosenthal 61). In the end the Temperance movement was taken up largely by the middle class, women, religious peoples and conservatives; oddly enough however, the ATS while in need of support, did not need the support of African Americans. Women flocked to this movement for a variety of reasons including, early twentieth century American women held few freedoms which forced not only them but more importantly their children to rely upon the husband, the