Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the Constitution

The temperance movement in American society dated back to the early nineteenth century, but the Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited the making, selling, and transporting of alcoholic beverages, had its roots in the First World War. The push for morality was high at this time, and many advocates cried out against the manufacture of liquor at a time when soldiers were starving on the European battlefront. Not only this, but also many played the anti-German card and attacked breweries. Organizations such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League made the final push for the constitutional amendment of Prohibition, which went into effect January 1920. However, support for this cause soon weakened, and with the Twenty-First Amendment (1933), Prohibition was repealed.

Women's suffrage is another cause that dates back to the nineteenth century. After the Civil War, advocates saw the vote given to African-American men, but women had to wait until 1920 to receive suffrage. In the decades leading up to this constitutional amendment, many groups argued for the cause, and in 1890, the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association merged into the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which emerged as a powerful force behind women's suffrage. President Woodrow Wilson supported this movement in 1918, and Congress passed the amendment in 1919.

Divine, Robert A., T. H. Breen, George M. Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams. America Past and Present. Revised Sixth Edition, AP* Edition . Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc., 2003. 671-73. Print.

"Eighteenth Amendment", Ohio History Central, July 1, 2005, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1493

Web. 3 Feb 2011. <https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDgoaJC7f9WWqOoX9Jyva0Wvj0SSOtQRvkSiSnc40LX7j7c9zXaTWcEZiBm7koAGRp4jJnJdcwQWEnAtBtvhG_nLbCh9pF-Wo-7diXv6emYdj17U7PJhyZNMnGR3MoWUjFtUPU_KvCxuA/s1600/Prohibition.gif>.

Joint Resolution of Congress proposing a constitutional amendment extending the right of suffrage to women, May 19, 1919; Ratified Amendments, 1795-1992; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.