Women's effect in repealing prohibition

Thesis

The prohibition on alcohol raised many voices after the implementation of 18th amendment. The government was forced to change their decision and this, implemented 21st amendment which repealed the prohibition. There were many forces which paved the way for repeal of prohibition. The paper argues the special, pivotal and an effective role of women in the repeal of prohibition. The paper proves and provides evidence on how the women were united for the repeal of prohibition. The role of women in repeal of prohibition will be discussed in detail in this paper.

The thesis of this paper is the strong repeal of prohibition by women to protect the American families. The aim of this paper is to focus on the women's protest against the prohibition in America in the era of 1920s. The paper discusses the prohibition put on alcohol and the role of women in repealing prohibition. The topic is important because it describes the18th amendment imposed by the government and how the public repealed the prohibition. Prohibition began in the United States in 1920 when the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution took effect. The era that it ushered lasted until 1933, when special conventions in three-fourths of the states repealed prohibition. The argument of the paper is the important role of women in the repealing of prohibition.

Background of the prohibition

This section discusses what happened during prohibition. Temperance movements seeking to stop the consumption of alcohol were part of a wider movement seeking to regulate morals in the direction assumed most beneficial to others by moral entrepreneurs (Prohibition Party 2011, p.1). Although most of the world's religions condemn misuse of alcohol and Islam bans its use entirely, most do not seek to eliminate it totally. Many religions, in fact, use some form of alcoholic beverage in their sacraments. Beginning in the eighteenth century, however, rapid means for distilling alcohol increased its danger to public health and morals (American Prohibition Cases 2009, p.1). Technology and the Industrial Revolution also provided more reasons for overindulging in alcohol. The abuses of the Industrial Revolution and the practice of encouraging workers to drink cheap alcoholic beverages to help ease their pains are well known.

Fearing a politically powerful, wet, urban, and immigrant working class, and blaming saloons for crime, vice, and poverty, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), led by Frances Willard, and the Anti-Saloon League condemned saloons, especially those in large cities, and demanded national prohibition (American Prohibition Cases 2009, p.1). By the early 1900s, most Progressive reformers favored banning liquor. The dry strategy was to win rural areas and small towns to their cause with local option and then to attack the cities with statewide prohibition. In the long run, the Anti-Saloon League favored a constitutional amendment designed to guarantee that Congress could not interfere with prohibition in the future (Kyvig 2000, p. 3).

The Women's Christian Temperance Union, led most famously by Francis Willard from 1879 to 1898, was well organized and became the largest women's organization in the 1880s. Both the ...