TODAY IN HISTORY: October 28 - Today's Stories: Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor and the National Geographic Society, Temperance and Prohibition
Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor and the National Geographic Society
October 28, 1875 marks the birth date of Gilbert H. Grosvenor, the editor credited with transforming National Geographic Magazine from a small scholarly journal into a dynamic world-renowned monthly. Born in Istanbul (Constantinople), Turkey, Grosvenor’s family immigrated to the United States when he was fifteen, where he became an honor student, eventually studying at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Grosvenor joined the magazine in 1899 as an assistant editor.
Gilbert Grosvenor was recommended for the position by a friend of his father’s, inventor Alexander Graham Bell, who was at the time, president of the National Geographic Society. Bell became his father-in-law shortly thereafter when, in 1900, Grosvenor wed Bell’s daughter, Elsie May. Four years after joining National Geographic, Grosvenor took over as editor-in-chief and in 1920, he was elected president of the the society. Grosvenor filled the dual roles of editor of the magazine and president of the society until 1954, when he resigned to become chairman of the board, a position he held until his death in 1966.
The National Geographic Society was founded in Washington, D.C., in 1888 to support “the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge.” The society’s founders, an eclectic group of well-traveled men, considered a magazine one means of accomplishing this mission. They published the first National Geographic nine months after forming the organization.
In its early years, National Geographic was a journal with a plain cover and a circulation of less than one thousand. Under Grosvenor’s leadership, the magazine developed its extraordinary photographic service and map department, ultimately boosting membership from 900 in 1899 to more than 2 million at the time of his retirement in 1955.
During Grosvenor’s tenure, using revenues from the magazine, the society sponsored many notable expeditions and research projects including Admiral Robert Peary‘s 1909 expedition to the North Pole; Hiram Bingham’s 1911 discovery of Machu Picchu, and William Beebe’s record-setting undersea descent in 1934. The National Geographic Society continues this tradition, and has sponsored more than 8,000 research projects and more than 500 expeditions around the globe. Richly illustrated within the magazine, these explorations of land, air, and sea have introduced millions of people to amazing new worlds.
Today, the National Geographic Society is the largest nonprofit scientific and educational organization of its kind. In addition to publishing its flagship magazine, the society produces a wide array of educational materials and programs. The subject of many of these is the conservation and protection of wildlife, causes long championed by Gilbert H. Grosvenor.
Learn More
- Search on Grosvenor in the Daguerreotypes collection to retrieve ten daguerreotypes of the Bell family, part of the Gilbert H. Grosvenor Collection of Photographs of the Alexander Graham Bell Family. Included are images of Alexander Graham Bell’s wife, Mabel Hubbard, and his grandfather, Alexander Bell.
- The family tree of Gilbert Grosvenor and Elsie May Bell and photographs of the Grosvenors and their children are among several Bell family trees and numerous photographs found in the collection, Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers at the Library of Congress. Don’t miss the photograph of Bell flying a kite with his grandson, Melville Grosvenor.
- For more information about Grosvenor’s father-in-law, Alexander Graham Bell, see the Today in History features on Bell’s telephone and photophone inventions.
- Printed Ephemera: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera includes a flyer for an 1892 lecture held at the National Geographic Society by Mrs. French-Sheldon, “the first white woman who has ever visited Mount Kilma-njaro in Central Africa.”
- Search the Library of Congress’s visual collections on the phrase National Geographic to find additional images including the presentation of a medal to Amelia Earhart by Herbert Hoover and architectural plans related to the Society’s building.
- Search Today in History on conservation to find features on subjects including:
- Learn more about the movement to conserve and protect America’s natural heritage. Visit The Evolution of the Conservation Movement: 1850-1920.
Temperance and Prohibition
On October 28, 1919, Congress passed the Volstead Act providing for enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified nine months earlier. Known as the Prohibition Amendment, it prohibited the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” in the United States.
We have only to look about us in this great city, to observe the traces of the deadly influence of intemperance. Everywhere, we face crime, disease and death, all testify to the necessity of the prosecution of the cause, of steadfast and unwavering effort and prompt action to lead to complete success.[Address by Charles C. Burleigh]. In The Whole World’s Temperance Convention. [Metropolitan Hall, NYC, Sept. 1-2, 1853] New York: Fowler and Wells, 1853. p. 10. National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection. Rare Book & Special Collections Division
The movement to prohibit alcohol began in the early years of the nineteenth century when individuals concerned about the adverse effects of drink began forming local societies to promote temperance in the consumption of alcohol. Some of the earliest temperance societies were organized in New York (1808) and Massachusetts (1813). Many of the members of these societies belonged to Protestant evangelical denominations and eventually organized religion played a significant role in the movements. As time passed, most temperance societies began to call for complete abstinence from all alcoholic beverages.
The Anti-Saloon League, founded in Ohio in 1893 and organized as a national society in 1895, helped pave the way for passage of the Eighteenth Amendment with an effective campaign calling for prohibition at the state level. Their success is reflected by the fact that as of January 1920, thirty-three states had already enacted laws prohibiting alcohol. Between 1920 and 1933, the Anti-Saloon League lobbied for strict federal enforcement of the Volstead Act.
Organizations like the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, founded by reformer and educator Frances Willard in 1883, mobilized thousands of women in the fight for temperance.
Willard also worked for women’s suffrage, as did many other women who found their political awareness expanded by involvement in the temperance crusade. Given their political and economic vulnerability, nineteenth-century women’s lives were easily devastated if the men they depended on “took to drink.” Famous for attacking saloons with a hatchet, Carry Nation’s flamboyant activism evolved from her upbringing in an atmosphere of strong religious beliefs and a failed marriage to an alcoholic. Although few embraced Nation’s extreme stance, Prohibition was viewed by many as a progressive social reform that would improve and protect the lives of women and children.
The Volstead Act ultimately failed to prevent the large-scale production, importation, and sale of liquor in the United States, and the Prohibition Amendment was repealed in 1933.
Taken from Inventing Entertainment: the Early Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies, the following recordings from the early 1920s lampoon Prohibition. “Dinnie Donohue” relies on the ethnic stereotype of a drunken Irishman, while “Save a Little Dram” features a minister complaining that his congregation is stingy with their gin.
“Dinnie Donohue, on Prohibition.”
An “Irish monologue,” Performed by William Cahill, Orange, N.J: Edison, 1921.
An “Irish monologue,” Performed by William Cahill, Orange, N.J: Edison, 1921.
“Save a Little Dram for Me.”
Written by Will E. Skidmore and Marshall Walker, Performed by Duke Rogers, Orange, N.J.: Edison, 1922.
Written by Will E. Skidmore and Marshall Walker, Performed by Duke Rogers, Orange, N.J.: Edison, 1922.
Learn More
- Newspapers documented the many issues surrounding the movement which resulted in the Prohibition Era. Search Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers to find articles both pro and con. Start with the following Selected Topics to identify important dates and suggested search strategies: Prohibition and Brewers’ Campaign Against Prohibition.
- Learn a temperance song. The sheet music collections contain a wealth of songs from the temperance movement and the Prohibition era, including the pathetic “Drink: A Temperance Song,” the virtuous “The Lips that Touch Liquor Shall Never Touch Mine,” and the comical “I Never Knew I Had a Wonderful Wife Until the Town Went Dry.” Search across the sheet music collections on temperance, prohibition, or drink.
- Explore African-American views on Prohibition. Search the collection The African-American Experience in Ohio: Selections from the Ohio Historical Society, 1850-1920 on temperance to read the African Methodist Episcopal(A.M.E.) Church Review on the subject of drink. Championing Prohibition in an article published in the January 1890 issue, the Rev. J. D. Peterson argued, “while we have temperate drinkers we shall ever be infested with drunkards, for the latter are manufactured from the former.”
- Printed Ephemera: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera includes numerous items related to the temperance and Prohibition efforts including a Family Temperance Pledge and the Anti-Saloon League of America’s analysis of the Supreme Court Decision on National Prohibition.
- The Making of America collections of books and periodicals contain extensive documentation of the temperance and Prohibition efforts in the political and educational arenas. From items such as the Text-book of Temperance and Ruined by Rum to articles reporting on legislative activities in the states, one can get a good overview of the strategies of those involved in these movements.
- Search the collection California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties collected by Sidney Robertson Cowell on temperance and prohibition to find recordings of “The Drunkard’s Dream,” “The Drunkard’s Child,” and “Goodbye, Booze.”
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