13. Prohibition Played a Key Role in the Emergence of the Suffrage Movement
Early suffragette Susan B. Anthony abhorred alcohol and gave her first speech in 1849 to a group called the Daughters of Temperance. She joined the suffrage movement when male temperance advocates tried to keep her quiet. In 1852, the Sons of Temperance denied her the right to speak at a meeting because she was a woman. As their chairman put it, “the sisters” were not there to speak, but “to listen and learn“. The same thing happened at a NY Temperance Society meeting, and at a World Temperance Society Convention.
So Anthony joined forces with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who referred to alcohol as “The Unclean Thing“, and devoted the rest of her life to the suffrage movement. In the nineteenth century, the single greatest motivator for women to want to vote was the desire to do something about alcohol. They saw the emergence of saloons as a malignity that threatened the moral fabric of society and wanted them closed, or at least regulated. They wanted greater protection from the physical abuse of drunken spouses. They wanted property rights to protect themselves and their children from profligate husbands who blew the family’s finances on booze.
