11. Brewers Became Avowed Enemies of Women’s Right to Vote
The Brewers Association sought to differentiate beer from liquor, and even joined those who attacked distilled spirits. However, when faced with a common threat, the brewers swiftly closed with the distillers to ward off a new threat that threatened the very existence of their businesses: women’s votes. America’s women tended to be in the anti-alcohol camp, but so long as they were unable to vote, their sentiments posed little threat to drink manufacturers’ bottom line. That changed when some states began to grant women the right to vote.
By considerable majorities, women voters tended to back candidates who advocated for temperance and prohibition. The result was a steady tightening of alcohol-related regulations at the local and state levels and a steady rise in statewide prohibition laws. So brewers and distillers fought against the granting of the right to vote to women, by generously funding and supporting anti-suffrage politicians and organizations. Fortunately for women’s rights, the advocates of prohibition managed to counter the drink sellers’ lobbying with a lobby of their own, the most powerful one in the history of the US.
