Prohibition was a momentous period in the history of the USA, during which the government was trying to ban alcohol. There were several reasons for introducing the prohibition legislation. Firstly, liquor was considered as the “national danger” since too many men attended saloons and behaved in an entirely uncontrolled way after having too much to drink. Secondly, there was an opinion that alcohol was a capitalist plot to undermine the will of a working man.
Finally, there was also the idea that the prohibition of liquor would allow controlling African Americans easier. The Whites were afraid both of the possibility of Afro-Americans getting the right to vote and their likelihood to fight against their oppressors physically. Hence, the image that most Americans dreaded was a Negro man with a ballot in one hand and a bottle in the other.
While the attempts to introduce prohibition seemed to be too weak to succeed at first, more and more states turned to support the ban on liquor. However, the first attempt to do so was suppressed when the war started, and the country had to think about the enemy as more menacing than the bottle. It was interesting to find out that there were some groups of individuals, both of male and female gender, who did not want alcohol to be prohibited.
Naturally, the producers of liquor and owners of saloons protested, but it was surprising to hear that some women did not want alcohol products to be banned. Eventually, it turned out that bypassing the 18th amendment, the government did not gain an alcohol-free country. People continued to produce and sell liquor illegally, which undermined both the economic and social relationships within the USA.