So the materialist analysis is that this is all in the context of increased proletarian immigration from majority Catholic nations who brought with them a tradition of labor organizing and in order to survive in the US began living more closely with their neighbors. This created anxiety and saloons became a signifier of labor unrest, immigrants, and Catholics and would be blamed by bosses for strikes being organized and by Progressives for any and all social ills.
There was certainly an element of genuinely combatting abuse, but this was the progressive era, any social ill that was combatted came with a dozen horrible things and had an element of social hegemony. I am pretty proud of this part of my original comment
Poverty was caused by drink, not the bosses, Abuse was caused by drink, not by the patriarchal society, drink was the reason the immigrants are bad and must be "cleansed" and made American or have their kids taken away. Drink caused workers to earn lower wages cause slaking, not the system of wages itself being a shackle upon working people.
I recently bought a book "through jaundiced eyes" about how political cartoons depicted workers in the US, havent read it yet, but a BIG part of anti-labor cartoons just from prior courses I have taken is drunken stereotypes. This is why the Irish stereotype of being a drunkard exists
So the materialist analysis is that this is all in the context of increased proletarian immigration from majority Catholic nations who brought with them a tradition of labor organizing and in order to survive in the US began living more closely with their neighbors. This created anxiety and saloons became a signifier of labor unrest, immigrants, and Catholics and would be blamed by bosses for strikes being organized and by Progressives for any and all social ills.
There was certainly an element of genuinely combatting abuse, but this was the progressive era, any social ill that was combatted came with a dozen horrible things and had an element of social hegemony. I am pretty proud of this part of my original comment
I recently bought a book "through jaundiced eyes" about how political cartoons depicted workers in the US, havent read it yet, but a BIG part of anti-labor cartoons just from prior courses I have taken is drunken stereotypes. This is why the Irish stereotype of being a drunkard exists