A photograph of John Daniel and Allen Daniel in their buggy arriving at a Prohibition Picnic on the farm of Jacob M. Boyer, Lykens Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.
Prohibition Picnics were frequent occurrences in the Lykens Valley in the early years of the 20th Century. These picnics were organized and supported by prohibitionists who wanted the government to prevent the manufacture and sale of intoxicating alcoholic beverages. The men and women supporting this cause were usually members of the Prohibition Party, which supported and ran candidates in local, state and national elections. Others belonged to organizations with a longer history, the Anti-Saloon League and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.
The scene pictured here was on the farm of Jacob M. Boyer as supporting families arrived at a picnic sponsored by him. Typically, basket meals were brought by attendees. Platforms with canopies were built and speeches were made to the attendees who sat on wooden planks that were placed crosswise on long, parallel logs. The fiery speeches were often laced with language not suitable for children. Boyer held these picnics for about 10 years from 1908.
In January 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution was ratified and went into effect a year later. Pennsylvania was one of the last states to ratify the amendment, and despite the active prohibition movement in the Lykens Valley, Pennsylvania’s approval was not needed for ratification, the approval coming about one month after the actual ratification. The Volstead Act, the enforcing legislation, was approved by Congress later in 1919, but was vetoed by President Woodrow Wilson, whereupon Congress overrode his veto.
Prohibition was in effect in the United States from 1920 to 1933.
The Eighteenth Amendment failed for two reasons. (1) The public ignored the law, and breaking it became socially acceptable. (2) Organized crime profited from the illegal manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, and the violence of organized crime, moved public opinion toward repeal.
The Twenty-First Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and was ratified on 5 December 1933. This time Pennsylvania’s vote was one of the last three needed and occurred on the same day of the repeal.
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