1. The Roaring Twenties

2. Why do you think this decade was called the “Roaring Twenties”?
The Great War ended, people had a future to look
forward to!
The Economy was booming, people were getting
rich!
People thought the good times would never end,
that they would keep on Roaring! “Up, up, up!!”
There was a general sense of lawlessness as both
legal laws and social norms were challenged

3. “I’m sitting on top of the world”
I’m rolling along, I’m rolling along
And I’m quitting the blues of the world,
I’m singing a song, yes singing a song
Glory Halleluiah, I just told the parson,
Hey pa get ready to call
Just like humpty dumpty,
I’m going to fall
I’m sitting on top of the world
Don’t want any millions,
I’m getting my share,
I’ve only got one suit, just one
That’s all I can wear
A bundle of money won’t make you feel gay
A sweet little honey is making me say:
And I’m sitting on top of the world.
I’m rolling along, just rolling along
And I’m quitting the blues of the world,
I’m singing a song, I’m singing a song
What does this popular song tell about the era?
What lyric makes you think that?

4. Slang of the 1920s Baloney Bee's Knees Cat's Meow Flapper Moll Edge
means nonsense!
Bee's Knees
An extraordinary person, thing, idea
Cat's Meow
Something splendid or stylish
Flapper
A stylish, brash, young woman with short skirts & shorter hair
Moll
A gangster's girl   
Edge
intoxication, a buzz.  i.e. "I've got an edge."

5. What is Prohibition??
Prohibition was a law prohibiting the manufacture, importation and sale of liquor during the war. It was supported by most Canadians as part of the war effort.
Many believed that legislating prohibition would improve people’s lives.

6. What is the message of this cartoon?

7. Prohibition in Canada
Government control
Province/Territory
Dry
Liquor Stores Opened
Drinking Allowed in Public Establishments
Prince Edward Island
1901
1948
1964
Manitoba
1916
1923
1928
Nova Scotia
1930
Alberta
1924
Ontario
1927
1934
Saskatchewan
1917
1925
1935
New Brunswick
1961
British Columbia
1921
Newfoundland
Yukon
1918
Quebec
1919
Do you notice any pattern regarding the years when prohibition was introduced? What reasons might there be for this timing?
Source: Craig Heron. Booze: A Distilled History. p. 270

8. Reasons for the ban on alcohol:
Unpatriotic to enjoy yourself while so many soldiers were suffering/fighting in the Great War
Shouldn’t use grains and sugar to make alcohol when they were needed for the war effort
Men were spending all of their money on alcohol and not on their families
Alcohol causes men to miss
work because they have hangovers
Alcohol can make you sick

9. What is the message in the poster?
Who is its target audience?

11. Women’s Christian’s Temperance Union (WCTU)
Women’s group that wanted prohibition
Social experiment!
Crimes and family violence, such as child and wife beating, dropped sharply when alcohol was unavailable.
“BOOZE IS NO FRIEND OF THE WORKER”

12. What are the social consequences of alcoholism presented in this 1920s song on promoting prohibition?
THINK , PAIR, SHARE

13. PLEASE SELL NO MORE DRINK TO MY FATHER Music by C. A. White
PLEASE SELL NO MORE DRINK TO MY FATHER Music by C. A. White. Words by Mrs. Frank B. Pratt
Verse 1 Please sir will you listen a moment, I've something important to say. My Mother has sent you a message, Re-ceive it in kind-ness I pray.
  'Tis of Father poor Father I'm speaking, You know him he's call'd ragged Gore. But we love him and hope we may save him, If you'll promise to sell him no more.
Chorus Please sell no more drink to my Father, It makes him so strange and so wild, Heed the prayer of my heartbroken mother, And pity the poor drunkard's child
Verse 2 My Father came home yester even, Reeled home thro' the mud and the rain. He upset the lamp on the table, And struck my sick Mother again,
Then all of the hours till the morning, He lay on the cold kitchen floor. And this morning he's sick and he's sorry, Oh, promise to sell him no more.
Chorus
Verse 3 When sober he loves us so dearly, No Father is kinder than he. He wishes so much to stop drinking, But this is the trouble you see,
He cannot withstand the temptation, He feels when he passes your door, As he goes to his work in the morning, Please promise to sell him no more.

14. Members of the WCTU across Canada encouraged people to sign a pledge card such as the one above. Why do you think WCTU employed Pledge Cards as a tactic? How effective might such a pledge be?

15. Speakeasies Secret saloon bars opened up in cellars and back rooms.
They had names like the ‘Dizzy Club’ and drinkers had to give a password or knock at the door in code to be let in.
Speakeasies sold ‘bootleg’ alcohol.

16. ‘Bootleggers’
The Canadian Government soon made it legal to produce alcohol for export and medicinal purposes.
Smugglers called ‘Bootleggers’ made thousands of dollars selling illegal alcohol to America.

20. Organized Crime The enormous profits to be made attracted gangsters.
They bribed the police, judges and politicians.
They controlled the speakeasies and the distilleries, and ruthlessly exterminated (killed) their rivals.

21. Al capone
By 1927 he was earning some $60 million a year from bootlegging.
His gang was like a private army. He had 700 men under his control.
He was responsible for over 500 murders.
On 14th February 1929, Capone’s men dressed as police officers murdered 7 members of a rival gang. This became known as the ‘Valentine’s Day Massacre.’

22. Rocco Perri was called "Canada's King of the Bootleggers" and "Canada's Al Capone."
Perri was the head of the Calabrian mob in southern Ontario
smuggled booze into the USA in crates of “turnips”
believed to be dead – in a barrel filled with cement at bottom of Hamilton Bay