March is Women’s History Month. For much of history, women were encouraged to live their lives in the private, or home sphere. But the temperance movement, and prohibition, forbidding by law the sale and/or consumption of alcohol, had women as its most active proponents. Temperance was closely aligned with the women’s suffrage movement. Especially in the south, temperance gave many women, black and white, their first taste of political activism. Bossier Parish was no exception.
The effort to eliminate alcohol, or the “dry” movement, as it was often known, began in force in the 1840s. By 1873, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) eclipsed other national antialcohol movements, especially becoming a political power across much of the Midwest and South including Louisiana. This was especially true in the strongly Baptist and Methodist areas of north Louisiana. The Women’s Christian Temperance Unions for Black women in Louisiana and some other states were called “Sojourner Truth” departments of the WCTU, named after the famous abolitionist and temperance advocate.
By the end of the nineteenth century, Bossier Parish had “voted out whisky” and outlawed the sale of alcoholic beverages. The editor of the “Bossier Banner-Progress,” Francis Scanland, stopped taking ads for whisky, even though, according him, they’d been offered ads for a sum of money they could have really used but they “cheerfully took our position with the women and children and prohibitionists of Bossier in their opposition to the whisky monster.” In an editorial in 1912 titled, “No more Whisky Ads,” Scanland went on to applaud other papers in surrounding parishes that were following suit and encouraged other editors to do the same.
In the United States from 1920 to 1933, a nationwide constitutional law, the Eighteenth Amendment, prohibited the manufacture, sale and transportation of intoxicating beverages. It did not outlaw the possession or consumption of alcohol. The Volstead Act, the federal law that provided for the enforcement of Prohibition, had enough loopholes and weaknesses to open the door to countless schemes to evade the “dry” mandate. Several of these schemes flourished in the backwoods, fields and even towns of Bossier Parish and northwest Louisiana. Reports in the local newspapers show that Bossier Parish law enforcement was kept busy tracking down the bootleggers (illegal manufacturers and distributors of alcoholic drink) and their hidden stills in the towns and remote corners of the parish.
The WCTU saw that they still had work to do . On July 1, 1926, the “Bossier Banner-Progress” reported that Mrs. J.H. Wheeler, president of the Plain Dealing chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union remarked on the WCTU’s current purposes: 1) “To permit no weakening of the Volstead Law,” 2) “To protest against the weakening or repeal of state enforcement laws, and urge the strengthening of those not in harmony with the Volstead Law,” and 3) “To work patiently, lawfully, fairly, patriotically and prayerfully for the observance and enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment in the confidence that it will forever remain a part of the Constitution.” To those ends, they would work to win a million members who would each sign the total abstinence pledge and had taken on the slogan, “Help Us to Hold and Enforce the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Law.” They would also enlist all governors, mayors, health directors, businessmen and other authorities to “bring to the attention of the people a realization of the disasters that would follow the return of the traffic in wine and beer.”
Of course, their assumption that the 18th Amendment would forever remain part of the Constitution, was proven incorrect in 1933, but liquor distillers’ activities were put on hold to make alcohol for war purposes. By 1945, this ban was about to lifted and Bossier WCTU women went right back into action themselves. The Bossier City chapter sent an angry telegram to President Harry S. Turman, reminding him of the of the “drunkenness, foolishness, debauchery, immorality, highway accidents, mayhem, suicide and murder” attributed to alcohol consumption, and also emphasized that with grains and sugars used in the manufacture of alcoholic beverages still at a shortage, he needed to save the grain for bread in areas facing starvation in Europe and China, and for them, the women of Bossier, he needed to save the sugar required for their canning of essential foods. The Bossier City WCTU also federated with three unions in Shreveport and a new WCTU chapter was formed in 1947 in Haughton. As a result of their efforts some parts of Bossier did remain dry by local ordinance well after Prohibition ended.
If you’d like to know more about Prohibition you can watch episodes of the Ken Burns documentary series “Prohibition” which is available to stream for free with your library card through Kanopy. If you need help accessing Kanopy, contact or visit us at the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center. You can also visit or contact us to peruse our oral history collection, and read the transcript of interviews that talk about prohibition. We are located at 2206 Beckett Street, Bossier City. We are open: M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. For more information, and for other intriguing facts, photos, and videos of Bossier Parish history, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok
Images:
- Frances Willard, image from the Library of Congress, c. 1890
- Root beer ad for temperance from the Bossier Banner-Progress Aug 05, 1897
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