{"product_id":"firebrands-the-untold-story-of-four-women-who-made-and-unmade-prohibition","title":"Firebrands: The Untold Story of Four Women Who Made and Unmade Prohibition","description":"Guaranteed to change how you picture Prohibition, this lively history turns the spotlight on four women in the immediate aftermath of winning the vote who played influential roles on all sides of the Eighteenth and Twenty-First Amendments.\n\nIn the popular imagination, the story of Prohibition in America is a story of men and male violence, one full of federal agents fighting gangsters over the sale of moonshine. In contrast, Firebrands is the story of four Jazz Age dynamos—all women –who were forces behind the passage, the enforcement, the defiance, and, ultimately, the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. They battled each other directly, and they learned to marshal clout with cowed and hypocritical legislators, almost all of them men. Their clash over Prohibition stands as the first significant exercise of women’s political power since women gained the right to vote, and their influence on the American political scene wouldn’t be equaled for decades.\n\nIn Gioia Diliberto’s fresh and timely take on this period of history, we meet Ella Boole, the stern and ambitious leader of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, who campaigned fiercely to introduce Prohibition and fought desperately to keep it alive. We also meet Mabel Walker Willebrandt, the most powerful woman in America at the time, who served as the top federal prosecutor charged with enforcing Prohibition. Diliberto tells the story, too, of silent film star Texas Guinan, who ran New York speakeasies backed by the mob and showed that Prohibition was not only absurd but unenforceable. And, she follows Pauline Morton Sabin, a glamorous Manhattan aristocrat who belatedly recognized the cascading evil in Prohibition and mobilized the movement to kill it.\n\nThese women led their opposing forces of “Wets” and “Drys” across a teeming landscape of bootleggers, gangsters, federal agents, temperance fanatics, and cowardly politicians, many of them secret drunks. Building on the momentum of suffrage, they forged a path for the activists who followed during the great civil rights battles of the mid-twentieth century. Yet, they have been largely lost to history. In Firebrands, Diliberto finally gives these dynamic figures their due, creating a varied and dramatic portrait of women wielding power, in politics, society, and popular culture.\u003cbr\u003eASIN: 0226819671\u003cbr\u003eVSKU: BVV.0226819671.G\u003cbr\u003eCondition: Good\u003cbr\u003eAuthor\/Artist:Diliberto, Gioia\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eNote:\u003c\/b\u003e Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition Notes\u003c\/b\u003e: The item shows wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are intact  including the dust cover, if applicable . Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.  \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Blue Vase Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43148780601405,"sku":"BVV.0226819671.G","price":6.55,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0589\/4225\/9261\/files\/0226819671-0.jpg?v=1777930321","url":"https:\/\/www.bluevasebooks.com\/products\/firebrands-the-untold-story-of-four-women-who-made-and-unmade-prohibition","provider":"Blue Vase Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}