Framing and Strategy: Explaining Differential Longevity in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League |
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| Authors: | Brian L Donovan |
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| Institution: | Is a doctoral student in sociology at Northwestern University. He holds a BA in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley. His primary research interests include social movements and various comparative/historical topics. His current research involves a comparison of nineteenth- and twentieth-century chastity movements. |
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| Abstract: | This study examines the sources of strength and mobilizing impetus in the Anti-Saloon League (ASL) and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in the early twentieth century. Both the ASL and the WCTU played essential roles in the establishment of national prohibition. The quick demise of the ASL after the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1933 and the endurance of the WCTU cannot be explained only by the structural conditions that confronted the two movements, as suggested by the resource mobilization approach. Using Snow and Benford's "collective action frame" concept, it is argued that a consideration of meanings constructed by the movements'leaders and their translation into strategic action provides a better account of the temporal viability of the WCTU and ASL. The critical distinction between the WCTU and ASL was in how they framed the "alcohol question." Both the relative success of the WCTU and the failure of the ASL were contingent upon their ability to adapt their rhetoric and corresponding strategies to rapid shifts in the cultural and economic climate of the late twenties and early thirties. |
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