Women
Woman stands holding Heineken Beer at unidentified bar, 1968. LBSCB08-105b, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection, Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.
The major women's political activity of the late 19th and early 20th century was not organized around political rights or feminism but around the temperance movement. Prohibition of alcohol was a major reform movement from the mid-1800s through the 1920s. Women were at the heart of the movement that was rooted in Protestant denominations such as Congregationalists, Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians.
Before Prohibition, temperance activism by women was fueled by heavy-drinking husbands. Saloons were generally for men, the only women typically found there being prostitutes. Prohibition became law in 1920, but it did not stop people from drinking. Saloons were replaced by speakeasies, and women joined men in frequenting the illegal establishments. A new era of freedom was ushered in for women as the vote for women was ratified in August of 1920.
