These crusaders managed to shut down some saloons, but not enough to ease the problem. The movement then began to fight to shut off the source of alcohol itself.

The first state prohibition law was passed in Maine in 1846, but few states did anything for decades to ease the flow of alcohol. But when the Anti-Saloon League was founded in 1893, it led a new wave of state prohibition drives that culminated in passage of the eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which banned the manufacture and sale of liquor in the United States for more than a decade.

The eighteenth Amendment was ratified on January 29,1919, and went into effect on January 29, 1920. Prohibition, however, did not stop millions of people from drinking. Americans flocked to establishments that sold alcohol illegally; these small, secretive clubs were nicknamed speakeasies because people often had to tell the guard at the door a password to gain entrance to them. The nation’s continued thirst for alcohol helped make multimillionaires of criminals like Chicago’s Al Capone, whose gangs illegally made, imported, and sold beer and liquor.

Prohibition simply did not work: Alcohol was still available for anyone who sought it. In Drinking and Intoxication: Selected Readings in Social Attitudes and Controls, Raymond G. McCarthy says that although inadequate enforcement and public corruption were factors, the major reason Prohibition failed was because people refused to give up their drinks:

It cannot be doubted that one element which would be essential for the successful enforcement of Prohibition was ultimately lacking — popular support. However much public sentiment the advocates of Prohibition had mustered in favor of the experiment before the Eighteenth Amendment was passed, sufficient popular support for its enforcement was not in evidence in the succeeding years.

Support for Prohibition gradually weakened, and in 1932 the Democratic Party adopted a platform calling for repeal, which helped Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt win election as president. In February 1933 Congress adopted the Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution, which repealed the Eighteenth, and on December 5, 1933, Utah became the 36th state to vote for repeal, thus ratifying die amendment and ending Prohibition.

Although Prohibition failed, some good came from it. Prohibition shattered the old saloon system, which was considered responsible for much of the nation’s alcohol abuse, and it helped curb America’s previously spectacular drinking habit. The nation’s per capita consumption of pure alcohol from 1906 to 1910 equaled 2.6 gallons, but after repeal of Prohibition in 1934 that figure had fallen to 0.97 of a gallon.

The Woman’s Crusade in Xenia, Ohio

During the winter of 1873-1874, the Woman’s Crusade against alcohol spread across much of the northern United States as thousands of women participated in demonstrations and prayer vigils to close down saloons. The following account of one such crusade, which conveys the sense of triumph felt by those who participated, is reported by a witness in Xenia, Ohio. It is from the Ohio State University history department’s Internet site on Prohibition.

Going out I saw crowds of people thronging towards Whitman street, and heard on every hand in joyful accents, “The Shades of Death [a saloon] has surrendered!: The good news proved true, and I found Whitman street thronged with people. A little before 3 o’clock, as it appeared from the general account, Mr. Steve Phillips, of the “Shades of Death,” invited the ladies to enter, and announced that he gave up everything to them, and would never sell anything intoxicating in Xenia again. Then the ladies, joined by the spectators, sang “Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” while the liquors were rolled into the street. A half-barrel of blackberry brandy, the same of high-wines, a few kegs of beer, and some bottles of ale and whisky were soon emptied into the street, amid the shouts of the enthusiastic multitude. Of the women around, some were crying, some were laughing, a few alternately singing and returning thanks. One elderly lady in the edge of the crowd was almost in hysterics, but still shouting in a hoarse whisper, such as one often hears at camp-meeting: “Bless the Lord! O, bless the tord!” She had the appearance of a lady in good circumstances, and a citizen informed me that she is ordinarily one of the quietest, most placid of women. One of her sons died of intemperance, and another is much addicted to liquor.