The movement to prohibit alcohol began in the early years of the nineteenth century when individuals concerned about the adverse effects of drink began forming local societies to promote temperance in consumption of alcohol. The first temperance societies were organized in New York (1808) and Massachusetts (1813). Members, many of whom belonged to Protestant evangelical denominations, frequently met in local churches. As time passed, most temperance societies began to call for complete abstinence from all alcoholic beverages.
The Anti-Saloon League, founded in Ohio in 1893 and organized as a national society in 1895, helped pave the way for passage of the Eighteenth Amendment with an effective campaign calling for prohibition at the state level. By January 1920, thirty-three states had already enacted laws prohibiting alcohol. Between 1920 and 1933, the Anti-Saloon League lobbied for strict federal enforcement of the Volstead Act.
Organizations like the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union, founded by reformer and educator Frances Willard in 1883, mobilized thousands of women in the fight for temperance.Willard also worked for women's suffrage, as did many other women who found their political awareness expanded by involvement in the temperance crusade. Given their political and economic vulnerability, nineteenth-century women's lives were easily devastated if the men they depended on "took to drink." Famous for attacking saloons with a hatchet, flamboyant Carrie Nation's first marriage ended when her husband drank himself to death, leaving her with a small child to support. Although few embraced Nation's extreme stance, prohibition was viewed by many as a progressive social reform that would improve and protect the lives of women and children.
The Volstead Act ultimately failed to prevent the large-scale production, importation, and sale of liquor in the United States, and the Prohibition Amendment was repealed in 1933.
- Read personal recollections of the Prohibition Era, search on prohibition in American Life Histories, 1936-1940.
- Learn a temperance song. The American Memory sheet music collections contain a wealth of songs from the temperance movement and the prohibition era, including the pathetic "Drink: A Temperance Song," the virtuous "Lips that Touch Liquor Shall Never Touch Mine," and the comical "I Never Knew I Had a Wonderful Wife Until the Town Went Dry." Search across the sheet music collections on temperance, prohibition, or drink.
- Explore African-American views on prohibition. Search the collection The African-American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920 on temperance to read the African Methodist Episcopal Church Review on the subject of drink. Championing prohibition in 1890, the Rev. J. D. Peterson argued, "while we have temperate drinkers we shall ever be infested with drunkards, for the latter are manufactured from the former."
- Listen to "The Drunkard's Dream," "The Drunkard's Child," and "Goodbye, Booze." Search the collection California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties on temperance and prohibition.
