Blue Ribbon
The Blue Ribbon was the symbol of the temperance movement. Though quite why blue was chosen is anybody’s guess. However, the growing opposition to alcohol was one of the most significant social phenomenon of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Fuelled by every form of propaganda that could occur to them, the temperance movement gradually won more and more converts to it’s cause. In America they achieved their ultimate triumph with Prohibition. Even in France, nation of distinguished drinkers, they managed to get absinthe made illegal, leading to an almost continent-wide ban across the rest of Europe. Meanwhile, in Britain they accomplish a mess.
For a start they put back women’s suffrage by several decades because the breweries were convinced that as the temperance movement was largely feminine the pubs would all be closed down if women got the vote, and they paid for opposition accordingly. Then they caused widespread malnutrition and health problems amongst the working class by encouraging them to drop an important nutritional part of their diet (beer). And finally they produced the Gordian knot of licensing laws that made drinking at unusual times difficult and meant (much to their annoyance, no doubt) children under fourteen weren’t allowed into pubs at all. People do seem to have enjoyed the free magic lantern shows and other alcohol-free treats, and no doubt some people were helped by the missions, but it can’t be said there was a great benefit to the nation from all this. But due to a curious oversight – probably on the grounds that it was never very popular – the British never did get round to banning absinthe.