:Pathways to Prohibition: Radicals, Moderates, and Social Movement Outcomes.

Abstract

Ann‐Marie E. Szymanski presents a sophisticated and meticulous analysis of how the Anti‐Saloon League (ASL) successfully campaigned for national prohibition using a strategy she identifies as “local gradualism.” She explains that such an approach “focuses on local issues before targeting the state and national levels” and “emphasizes achieving moderate goals before pursuing more radical goals” (p. 5). By coaxing the citizens of local communities to adopt incremental changes in alcohol policy, the ASL managed to win “partial but positive victories” in towns and counties everywhere. In this way, the organization achieved governmental reforms first horizontally and then vertically in “an ever‐widening battle that lasted twenty years (from about 1900 to 1920)” (p. 4). Szymanski critiques many conventional explanations of the ASL's success. Some scholars have argued, for example, that the group triumphed because of its single‐issue focus, or its exploitation of the disenfranchisement of poor blacks and whites after 1895, or its manipulation of wartime hysteria after 1914. While these factors may have played a role, she argues that it was the ASL's strategy of local gradualism that ultimately won the day.