PUBlic Professor Series | Dr. Tom Robinson
Sex, Drugs, Jesus, and Gin
, Department of Religious Studies
The 鈥淩oaring Twenties鈥 was an age of clashes and conflicts. Prohibition had set out to make America dry. Liquor and the law fought and liquor won. Atheists and revivalists competed to see who could most permanently send the other to hell or some other place of extinction. Evolutionists and evangelicals made a monkey of a Tennessee courtroom. Hollywood and Heaven tangled as the most famous woman preacher (a Canadian) built her grand 5300-seat revival auditorium two miles from Hollywood鈥檚 door. Risqu茅 flappers did what 鈥済ood girls鈥 didn鈥檛 do鈥攕moked, drank, and showed their knees, and young girl preachers called the flappers out. One of these girls stood out, as widely known as the child stars of Hollywood. This is her story, set against the backdrop of the 1920s, revealed through the incidents and accidents of 鈥渄oing history.鈥