The temperance movement linked booze to domestic violence. Did it have a point?

Rather than moralist disdain, Prohibition activists wanted alcohol banned for a more practical reason: women’s safety

The temperance movement seized American public life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, galvanizing women in a mass social crusade. Linked to the abolitionist and women’s suffrage movements – with which it shared prominent intellectuals and overlapping leadership, including the likes of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony – the temperance movement was part of a mass mobilization of American women fighting for social change. Like the abolitionist and women’s suffrage movements, temperance eventually achieved its political goal: for the 13 years of Prohibition, 1920 to 1933, the sale and consumption of alcohol was banned in the US.

Read the full article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/03/women-alcohol-drink-culture-prohibition-temperance