OHS Elibrary

by Gerald A. Hallowell, 1972, 181 pages

After a long history of agitation by temperance workers, the movement to prohibit the consumption of intoxicating beverages reached its peak in Ontario during, and in the years immediately following, the First World War.

In 1916 the provincial government, under Sir William Hearst, enacted the Ontario Temperance Act, which forbade the selling of liquor for beverage purposes and the keeping, giving, or having of liquor except in a private dwelling.

This book is concerned with the study of prohibition as a public issue and as a factor in the politics of Ontario from 1919 to 1923, the years which saw the astonishing rise and fall of a farmers’ government in the province.

This book is based on an MA thesis submitted to Carleton University in 1966.

About the Author

As published:

Gerald Hallowell received his BA from the University of Toronto in 1965 and his MA in Canadian history from Carleton University in 1966. Since then he has been employed for a year at the United Church of Canada Archives, travelled in Europe for a year, and worked for three and a half years in the Editorial Department of the University of Toronto Press. He is now teaching Ontario social and cultural history at Seneca College.