Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in the context of "Anti-Saloon League"

The Prohibition era was the period from 1920 to 1933 when the United States prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures, and Prohibition was formally introduced nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on January 16, 1919. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933.

A wide coalition of mostly Protestants, prohibitionists first attempted to end the trade in alcoholic drinks during the 19th century. They aimed to heal what they saw as an ill society beset by alcohol-related problems such as alcoholism, domestic violence, and saloon-based political corruption. Many communities introduced alcohol bans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and enforcement of these new prohibition laws became a topic of debate. Prohibition supporters, called "drys", presented it as a battle for public morals and health. The movement was taken up by progressives in the Prohibition, Democratic, and Republican parties, and gained a national grassroots base through the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. After 1900, it was coordinated by the Anti-Saloon League. Opposition from the beer industry mobilized "wet" supporters from the wealthy Catholic and German Lutheran communities, but the influence of these groups receded from 1917 following the entry of the U.S. into the First World War against Germany.

A speakeasy, also called a beer flat, blind pig, or blind tiger, was an illicit establishment that sold alcoholic beverages. The term may also refer to a retro style bar that replicates aspects of historical speakeasies.

In the United States, speakeasy bars date back to at least the 1880s, but came into prominence in the United States during the Prohibition era (1920–1933, longer in some states). During that time, the sale, manufacture, and transportation (bootlegging) of alcoholic beverages was illegal throughout the United States, due to the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Speakeasies largely disappeared after Prohibition ended in 1933. The speakeasy-style trend began in 2000 with the opening of the bar Milk & Honey.

The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or total abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emphasize alcohol's negative effects on people's health, personalities, and family lives. Typically the movement promotes alcohol education and it also demands the passage of new laws against the sale of alcohol: either regulations on the availability of alcohol, or the prohibition of it.

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the temperance movement became prominent in many countries, particularly in English-speaking, Scandinavian, and majority Protestant ones, and it eventually led to national prohibitions in Canada (1918 to 1920), Norway (spirits only, from 1919 to 1926), Finland (1919 to 1932), and the United States (1920 to 1933), as well as some provinces in India (1948 to present). A number of temperance organizations promote temperance.

The 1920s (pronounced "nineteen-twenties" often shortened to the "'20s" or the "Twenties") was a decade that began on January 1, 1920, and ended on December 31, 1929. Primarily known for the economic boom that occurred in the Western World following the end of World War I (1914–1918), the decade is frequently referred to as the "Roaring Twenties" or the "Jazz Age" in America and Western Europe, and the "Golden Twenties" in Germany, while French speakers refer to the period as the "Années folles" ('crazy years') to emphasize the decade's social, artistic, and cultural dynamism.

The devastating Wall Street crash in October 1929 is generally viewed as a harbinger of the end of 1920s prosperity in North America and Europe. In the Soviet Union, the New Economic Policy was created by the Bolsheviks in 1921, to be replaced by the first five-year plan in 1928. The 1920s saw the rise of radical political movements, with the Red Army triumphing against White movement forces in the Russian Civil War, and the emergence of far-right political movements in Europe. In 1922, the fascist leader Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy. Other dictators that emerged included Józef Piłsudski in Poland, and Peter and Alexander Karađorđević in Yugoslavia. First-wave feminism made advances, with women gaining the right to vote in the United States (1920), Albania (1920), Ireland (1921), and with suffrage being expanded in Britain to all women over 21 years old (1928).

The Twenty-first Amendment (Amendment XXI) to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which had mandated nationwide prohibition on alcohol. The Twenty-first Amendment was proposed by the 72nd Congress on February 20, 1933, and was ratified by the requisite number of states on December 5, 1933. It is unique among the 27 amendments of the U.S. Constitution for being the only one to repeal a prior amendment, as well as being the only amendment to have been ratified by state ratifying conventions.

The Eighteenth Amendment was ratified on January 16, 1919, after years of advocacy by the temperance movement. The subsequent enactment of the Volstead Act established federal enforcement of the nationwide prohibition on alcohol. As many Americans continued to drink despite the amendment, Prohibition gave rise to a profitable black market for alcohol, fueling the rise of organized crime. Throughout the 1920s, Americans increasingly came to see Prohibition as unenforceable, and a movement to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment grew until the Twenty-first Amendment was ratified in 1933.

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity." It plays an influential role in the temperance movement. Originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement, the organization supported the Eighteenth Amendment and was also influential in social reform issues that came to prominence in the Progressive Era.

The WCTU was originally organized on December 23, 1873, in Hillsboro, Ohio, and, starting on December 26, Matilda Gilruth Carpenter led a successful campaign to close saloons in Washington Court House, Ohio. WCTU was officially declared at a national convention in Cleveland, Ohio, November 18–20, 1874.