Liberated Spirits: Two Women Who Battled Over Prohibition

This disjointed narrative centers on two women, lawyer Mabel Walker Willebrandt and socialite Pauline Sabin, who both understood “the importance of the moment”—the passage of Prohibition and women’s suffrage in quick succession—but ended up on opposite sides of the liquor ban. The authors’ argument that the success or failure of Prohibition was often measured by the public in terms of the success or failure of these two women is vague and unconvincing. As U.S. assistant attorney general, Willebrandt prosecuted Prohibition violators, so Americans were likely aware of her work, but what they thought of it remains unexamined. New Yorker Sabin represents the anti-prohibitionists (or the “wets”); a rising voice within the Republican Party, she eventually sided with the faction that believed the amendment unconstitutional and ineffective. Appearing throughout the book are accounts of rumrunner Roy Olmstead, who serves as an example of the lawbreakers Willebrandt contended with. The authors skillfully handle these sections, which perk up the tale a bit, but the main personalities here had little interaction with one another, which inevitably saps narrative tension. The link between Prohibition and women’s suffrage is an intriguing and somewhat underexplored angle, but interested readers won’t find a gripping story here. Agent: Brian Lipson, IPG. (Oct.)