Hand and Hand Feeblemindedness and Alcoholism
Dublin Core
Title
Hand and Hand Feeblemindedness and Alcoholism
Subject
This poster weaponizes pseudoscience to claim that alcoholic parents are more likely to have "feebleminded" children which reinforced prohibitionists’ belief that alcoholism perpetuates itself across generations. It also reflects the broader eugenicist goal of cultivating "ideal" American citizens which is a robust population of healthy babies destined for productivity, not vice.
Description
The poster presents two pie graphs with manipulated data:
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Graph 1: Percentage of 250 "feebleminded" children with alcoholic parents
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Graph 2: Percentage of 100 "normal" children with alcoholic parents
By using unequal sample sizes (250 vs. 100), the creators artificially inflate the correlation between parental alcoholism and cognitive disability. Their claim that "feebleminded" children are five times more likely to have alcoholic parents is statistically unethical, as the skewed datasets mislead viewers into accepting a false causation.
This propaganda tactic exaggerates temperance rhetoric while ignoring critical variables like poverty or education that influence child development.
Creator
The American Issue (Westerville, Ohio)
Source
HathiTrust
Publisher
University of Michigan
Date
1913
Rights
Public Domain
Format
PDF
Language
English
Type
Newspaper Image with Text
Identifier
Newspaper Image with Text
Coverage
Prohibition
Still Image Item Type Metadata
Original Format
Poster
Physical Dimensions
6 x 9 in
Files
Collection
Citation
The American Issue (Westerville, Ohio), “Hand and Hand Feeblemindedness and Alcoholism,” Visuals of Prohibition, accessed September 28, 2026, https://www.prohibition-visuals.leadr.site/items/show/17.