Neal Dow and Prohibition

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that Neal Dow (1804-1897) was passionate in his tireless campaign against alcohol; his Quaker roots led him to create laws like the Maine Law that made it illegal for the sale and consumption of alcohol. The paper relates that Portland, Maine, during Dow's formative years was a center of the rum trade with the West Indies, which affected the way local people viewed the use of alcohol, but young Dow's parties were alcohol-free and were still fun and he and his sister were still popular, key point that Dow believes shaped his life to be a prohibitionist. The paper relates that after leading the passage of the Maine Law, stopping the sale of alcohol in his home state of Maine; in 1852 and 1853, the states of Vermont, Rhode Island, Michigan, Ohio and Massachusetts all passed their own versions of the Maine Law; thus Neal Dow became a celebrity for prohibition and began reaching the masses of people who felt the same way.

From the Paper:

"Neal Dow's next goal was to become a missionary and share his gospel of prohibition to foreign countries. Dow went to England to gain support for prohibition there and used his Maine Law as an example. "The Maine Law Missionary was using his state's prohibition law mainly as an instrument of propaganda in distant areas. On his British tour, he had seen both the increasing strength of his foreign converts and the damaging effects of the charge that his was a dead letter." In Maine, it was a much different story. The state adopted a new Maine Law that would eliminate the harsh penalties for selling liquor and make it legal to sell local wines and ciders. It was not exactly what Dow wanted but it still kept the basic law of prohibition."

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