Women's Role In The Prohibition Movement

Despite the lack of attention on the topic, the role that women played during the Prohibition Movement in the early 1900’s goes well beyond surface level protests and advocating. Women may very well be the driving force behind the installment of the Eighteenth Amendment as well as its repeal thirteen years after its inauguration. The results of their activism both for and against the Prohibition Movement are still seen in our society today and impacted the direction of our nation economically and socially from the end of that era onward. The role of women in the Era of Prohibition truly started to take form in the early nineteenth century when a handful of women involved in the Protestant church began to protest alcohol. These women claimed …show more content…
The tax dollars to be had from legalized sales were also too tantalizing and urgently needed to pass up. The Twenty-First Amendment ended the experiment that most Americans believed had failed”. The incredible reform that many Prohibitionist hoped for never even surfaced because Americans were thrown into an immediate panic. The effects that the Eighteenth Amendment had were positive and beneficial at first. However it wasn’t long before corruption and crime took over. Another issue that Prohibition caused for the American economy was that “Prohibition removed a significant source of tax revenue and greatly increased government spending. It led many drinkers to switch to opium, marijuana, cocaine, and other dangerous substances that they would have been unlikely to encounter in the absence of Prohibition”. In his journal for the Cato Institute, Mark Thornton avidly discusses the issues that the Era of Prohibition placed on the …show more content…
Throughout their tireless efforts to improve the nation, they were able to not only make changes regarding alcohol but also to update and improve immigration policies, advance labor laws and to promote women’s suffrage. The handprints of women such as Frances Willard, Anna Gordon and Ella Boole as well as many others are still seen today as the Twenty-first Amendment is still in effect. It almost seems comical to imagine something as insignificant as alcohol could have such an impressive impact on an entire nation. The role that women played during this pivotal time in American history certainly laid the groundwork for the development of female presence in political, social, and economic issues and enabled women to leave an impact well into the