Prohibition in the City of Lights Exhibit

PROHIBITION IN THE CITY OF LIGHTS At the turn of the 20th century, the Women’s Suffrage Movement had momentum. Decades of persistent, widespread activism had resulted in four states granting women the right to vote: Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho. Support for enshrining women’s suffrage in a Constitutional Amendment was steadily growing. The movement itself, however, was not a monolithic entity. Instead, it was a coalition of millions of women spread across 45 states and numerous organizations. Coinciding with the Women’s Suffrage Movement was the Temperance Movement, which opposed the proliferation of alcohol in America and viewed it as a form of societal poison. The American Temperance Society (ATS) was one of the first organizations in this movement. In 1874, an organization called the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) formed with the same goal, but focused on how alcohol negatively affected women. Initially, their activism was focused on limiting the spread of alcohol, but it eventually widened to include other women’s issues – most notably, suffrage. This created an overlap between members of the WCTU and the larger Women’s Suffrage Movement. In 1920, both movements would achieve historic wins for their respective causes with the 18th and 19th Amendments.