Daily History Picture: Prohibition Beauties November 23, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures , trackback
This has to be a put up?
30 Dec 2015: Nathaniel: According to the this site, the “Lips That Touch Liquor…” photo is “a still from an [Thomas] Edison motion picture produced around 1910”. See the comment posted by Andrea Grimes about halfway down the linked page:
So no, apparently not a photo of an actual temperance group, and possibly intended satirically, although there’s no info about the movie itself.
Beach is quoting Andrea as she seems something of an authority: According to the Thomas Edison National Historic Park Archives, this is a still from an Edison motion picture produced around 1910. They do not know the title of this film. The caption information is incorrect — this photograph was not taken in the Black Maria, an experimental motion picture studio constructed by Edison in the 1890s. The original Black Maria was dismantled in 1903. I contacted them directly, since I was trying to locate information about this image, and had done some of the same research you had. Sincerely, Andrea V. Grimes, Special Collection Librarian Book Arts & Special Collections San Francisco Public Library
Diana B. Yes, it was a disparagement of the prohibition cause by a pro-alcohol faction. However Carrie Nation who was a major prohibition leader was rather elderly and formidable by the time the movement was really rolling in the US. It’s not possible to post a pic here but just google her with the word hatchet – she was famous for breaking bottles and possibly casks with one and often photographed menacingly holding it. It’s still a popular trope, since the myth prevails that women become feminists because they’re too ugly to get a man and you see similar sorts of modern pics with nasty things said about feminists (a belief in equality makes you ugly???). It reminds me of the panhandler I see all the time near my office who sweet talks women walking by but if they don’t give him anything he shouts “You’re fat!” as they walk away.
Bruce T: Is very real. I remember it being in my American History text my freshman year of college. I believe it’s from the late 1880’s, but I wouldn’t swear to it? The old battle-axe pointing at the sign always made me chuckle. “Lips That Touch Liquor, Will Never Touch Ours” and it’s variants, were a slogan of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. The noted comedian and notorious drunk, W.C. Fields used to have a field day with that slogan in his films. He nearly always cast his on-screen wives as hard-looking WCTU harpies Hell bent on reforming him while he went through convoluted methods to hide his drinking. The wife would utter “Lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine.” at least once in the film, and usually more. The character that Fields played was always happy with the arrangement. The WTCU is still around. They have a website www.wtcu.org. And they still use the slogan. Their most notorious member was one Cary Nation, a little hatchet wielding woman who would roll into saloons with a gang of the girls to tear the place apart. They were based in Kansas, a state a local politician and drunkard once referred to as “A barren plain fit only for groundhogs.” The women waited until the men went off to France for the Great War and pushed Prohibition through when they got the vote in 1920. A sneaky bunch.
