Prohibition Hangover- Part 6: Anti-Immigrant Sentiment

Michael Lerner, in his book "Dry Manhattan:  Prohibition in New York City," says courtrooms and jails were so overcrowded that judges began accepting plea bargains, "making it a common practice in American jurisprudence for the first time."

Anti-immigrant sentiment was a factor behind Prohibition, partly because of record-high immigration in the preceding decades.

Saloons in immigrant neighborhoods were prime targets because middle-class white Protestants viewed them as political and social danger zones.

"Often the political machines run by the bosses were based in these saloons, or used them for extending favors," Aaron Cowan said.  "So there was a concern about political corruption, changing social values, immigrants learning radical politics."

Prohibition's start in 1920 coincided with a major expansion of the Ku Klux Klan, which supported the ban on alcohol as it waged its anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic and racist activities.

The Volstead Act "provided a way for the Klan to legitimize its 100% Americanist mission -- it could target the drinking of those they perceived to be their enemies," McGirr said.

--CootDrinking

Prohibition Hangover-- Part 2: Not All That It Was Cracked Up to Be

"Prohibition had a lot of unintended consequences which backfired on the people who worked so hard to establish the law,: said Lisa McGirr, whose 2015 book "The War on Alcohol" examines Prohibition's political and social repercussions.

"It helped to activate and enfranchise men and women who had not been a part of the political process earlier,: she said.  "That was not the intention of the Prohibition supporters."

Ratification of the 18th Amendment in 1919, which set the stage for Prohibition's launch a year later, culminated in a century of advocacy by the temperance movement.  Leading forces included the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the Anti-Saloon League and many Protestant denominations.  

Prohibition supporters assailed the effect of booze on families and the prominent role that saloons played in immigrant communities.

Prohibition greatly expanded federal law enforcement powers and turned millions of Americans into scofflaws.  It provided a new revenue stream for organized crime.

--Cooter

Prohibition Hangover: 100th Anniversary of It in 2020

From the January 19, 2020, Chicago Tribune by David Crary, AP.

LESSONS LINGER A CENTURY AFTER ILL-FATED DRY ERA BEGAN.

In this era of bottomless mimosas, craft beers and liquors, ever-present happy hours, it's hard to think that 100 years ago the United States imposed a nationwide ban on the production and sale of all types of alcohol.

The Prohibition Era, which lasted from January 17, 1920, until December 1933, is now viewed as a failed experiment that glamorized illegal drinking, but there are several intriguing parallels in current times.

Americans are consuming more alcohol per capita now than at any time leading up to Prohibition, when alcohol opponents successfully made the case that excessive drinking was ruining family life.

But, today, more states are moving toward decriminalizing marijuana (and even selling it in stores with high taxes)

And, in this time of heightened racial division of today, Prohibition offers a poignant history lesson on how restrictions targeted Blacks and recent immigrants more harshly than in white communities.  That treatment eventually caused many of these people to join the Democratic Party, which engineered Prohibition's Repeal.

--CootDrink

50 Things About 'The Godfather'-- Part 3: Same Gal, Three Movies (and Related)

15.  Marlon Brando was 47 years old when he played Don Corleone -- the same age as Bradly Cooper, Leonardo DiCaprio and Joaquin Phoenix are today.  (He sure looked a lot older than that to me.)

16.  Before Brando was cast, the top choices tp play Don Corleone included Ernest Borgnine and Laurence Olivier.

17.  Joe Spinell, who played the hitman Will Cici, went on to portray the loan shark Gazzo in "Rocky."

18.  When Clemenza recites the ingredients for his spaghetti sauce ("You start off with a little bit of oil, then you fry some garlic, then you throw in some tomatoes...", that's in the Coppola family recipe.

19.  Nearly every critic in America praised the family, but Stanley Kauffman of the New Republic slammed Brando's performance, said Al Pacino "rattles around in a part too demanding for him" and opined James Caan was merely "OK as his older brother."

20.  Sofia Coppola was in all three "Godfather" films.

21.  In the original, she was Michael Francis Rizzi, the infant son of Connie and Carlo who is getting baptized.

22.  In "Godfather II," Sofia can be seen very briefly as an immigrant girl on the ship taking Vito Corleone to Ellis Island.

23. In "Godfather III," she was Mary Corleone, daughter of Michael and Kay.

--Cootleone

Chicago's Bohemian National Cemetery-- Part 7: Wanda Stopa Burial Site

Chicago's youngest and first assistant U.S. District Attorney was a brilliant Polish immigrant named Wanda Stopa.  She had been one of two women to graduate from John Marshall Law School in 1921.  But just three years after graduation, Stopa left her career, married a Russian count then fell in love with a rich, married advertising executive, Y. Kensley Smith, who paid for her to live in New York.

When Smith refused to leave his wife Geneivieve, nicknamed Doodles, Stopa showed up at their Palos Park home on April 24, 1924, intending to kill Smith's wife.  She took a shot, but it hit the couple's elderly caretaker, Henry Manning, killing him.

Stopa went on the run, killing herself by swallowing poison in a Detroit hotel room.

Approximately 10,000 Chicagoans turned out for her wake and funeral.

1918 Influenza in Butler Co., Pa.-- Part 4: Working Together and the "Foreign Population"

Butler County's Red Cross chapter contributed money and resources to combat the epidemic.   They published articles in the Butler Eagle with information on prevention and treatment as well as advertisements requesting volunteer nurses.  Two local women, Clara Beach and Helen Campbell,  worked with the city's health board to recruit volunteers through a county-wide telephone campaign, calling over 400 Butler County residents and recruiting 31 volunteers by the end of the first week.

On October 21, the New Castle News in neighboring Lawrence County reported conditions in Butler County were worse among the "foreign population."  Among them were many immigrants coming in from Eastern Europe with no family members to care for them.  (See my earlier posts about the mass burial site for the immigrant dead in the county.  Click on the Butler County Pa label below to see them.)

Their employers, local industries from the Saxonburg area, buried the dead in a mass grave in Winfield Township.  Father O'Callahan, from the St. John Parish in Coylesville, administered the Catholic burial rites for them and commissioned a wooden cross made of railroad ties

Luigi Pierpaoli, 1956 Andrea Doria Disaster Survivor, Dies from COVID-19-- Part 1

From the April 24, 2020, Chicago Tribune "Remembering the lives of those in Illinois who died from coronavirus."

The Tribune is running a full page featuring these most deaths every day now.  It honors them and others who have died.

LUIGI PIERPAOLI, 96

Died April 6 of complications of the virus.

Survived one of the nation's most famous maritime disasters as passenger on the doomed Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria in 1956.  Afterwards, he rarely spoke of it.  His son, Maurizio said, "You had to pry it out of him.  He never went on a large boat again and has been scared of water ever since."

In 1956, he followed his older brother and came to the United States leaving his family behind until he could get established.  He booked passage on the ill-fated Andrea Doria in the summer of 1956.  As it approached New York, it collided with the passenger ship Stockholm and sank with 51 casualties between the two ships.

(The Stockholm is still afloat and taking on passengers, although this is supposed to be the last year of its operation.)

--Cooter

Influenza Epidemic Victims in Butler County, Pa-- Part 1.: The Black Cross

I came across this while researching for my Saw the Elephant Blog:  Civil War and felt it appropriate for these days of the "V".

From the HMdb, Near Cabot in Butler County, Pennsylvania.  This is in the western part of the state.

From a marker.

"Here are buried an unknown number of local victims of the worldwide influenza epidemic of 1918-1919 -- one of history's worst  epidemics in terms of death.  In Butler County, the worst period was early October to early November 1918, with some 260 deaths in the county seat alone.

"Immigrant workers in the limestone and other industries are buried in this cemetery with one to five bodies buried in each grave.  A large wooden cross  long marked the site."

Otherwise, there was nothing to denote this as a cemetery.

--Cooter

Mt. Olive Pickles-- Part 2: What Keeps Mt. Olive Going

Today, Mt. Olive Pickles is the nation's largest privately held pickle company, with one million square feet of production and warehouse space located on 150 acres.  You enter Mt. Olive and see signs saying "Welcome to Mt. Olive.  Home of Mt. Olive Pickles."

Shikrey Baddaour left the business years before his death in 1938, his homegrown company is one of Wayne County's largest employers -- providing more than 600 jobs.

"Without Mt. Olive Pickle, you might have to roll the sidewalks up," says Charles Brown, town manager.  "Mt. Olive Pickle is what keeps Mt. Olive going."

Plus, Baddour's descendants have been very active in North Carolina ever since.

--Cooter

Mt. Olive Pickles-- Part 1: A Lebanese Opportunity

From the February 2017, Our State (N.C.) magazine  "Bringing It Home" Karen Sullivan.

The story of Lebanese Immigrants to North Carolina.

THE BADDOUR FAMILY, MOUNT OLIVE

Dreams of a better life caused thousands of Lebanese to leave their country between 1880 and 1920.  In North Carolina, the census counted nearly 1,400 people of Lebanese descent in 1920.

Shikrey Baddour was one of those early Lebanese immigrants, arriving in the early 1890s.  The streets were not paved with gold as he was told, but there was an abundance of opportunity.  By 1924, just nine years after he arrived in the U.S., he was already running a shirt factory in Goldsboro, N.C..

One day, on a drive through nearby Mt. Olive, he saw farms where cucumbers were rotting in the fields, he was inspired to turn this into a profit.  With the help of 36 shareholders, he started the Mt. Olive Pickle Company in 1926.

And, you can go into most any store here in the Midwest and find these pickles on the shelves today.

--RoadDog