Firebrands

"Gioia Diliberto's fresh and timely take on the history of Prohibition focuses on four women who played central roles in promoting, enforcing, profiting from, and repealing the Eighteenth Amendment: Ella Boole, the head of the Women's Christian Temperance Union; Texas Guinan, a star of silent films and vaudeville who ran glitzy speakeasies; Mabel Walker Willebrandt, a genuine trailblazer tasked with enforcing Prohibition in the Department of Justice; and Pauline Sabin, a Chicago socialite who led the drive toward repeal. Cumulatively, Diliberto creates a varied and dynamic portrait of women in power, as both activists and institutionalists, in both politics and culture"--