Document: Testimony of the Women's National
Committee for Law Enforcement (1926)
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Testimony
of Mrs. Henry W. Peabody (President of the Women's National Committee
for Law Enforcement), The National Prohibition Law, Hearings before
the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 69th Congress, 1st Session
(1926): 666-67
Comments:
The Women’s National Committee for Law Enforcement
brought together the large number of women’s groups still supporting
prohibition. Though younger women in the 1920s began to drink more,
leaders of the women’s movement, such as Lucy (Mrs Henry W.) Peabody,
thought that prohibition would improve provision for families with money
not spent on liquor, prevent drunken assaults on women, and stop domestic
violence.
Lucy Peabody was the widow of a prominent Boston merchant; a Baptist,
Mrs Peabody was active in the overseas Protestant mission movement,
especially inter-denominational missions. She broke with her own Baptist
church over her inter-denominational focus and campaigned for the sending
of independent missionaries to the Philippines. She was a leading opponent
of the anti-prohibitionists, becoming the President of the Women's National
Committee for Law Enforcement for a decade in the 1920s and early 1930s.
An informative biographical entry on her can be found in Edward T. and
Janet W. James, eds., Notable American Women (Cambridge, Mass:
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971), vol. 3, pp. 36-38.