OCR Specification focus:
‘In 1865, women’s rights were limited; prohibition campaigns built organisation.’
In 1865, women in the United States lacked legal and political rights, yet prohibition campaigns soon became vital arenas for activism, organisation, and early feminist mobilisation.
Women’s Position in 1865
Legal and Political Status
In 1865, women in the United States were legally and politically marginalised, with few rights beyond the domestic sphere. They could not vote, hold office, or participate meaningfully in public decision-making. Laws in most states defined women’s legal identities primarily through their husbands or fathers.
Coverture: A legal doctrine under which a married woman’s legal rights and obligations were subsumed by those of her husband, limiting her ability to own property or sign contracts independently.
Voting rights: No women had the right to vote at federal level, and only a handful of local jurisdictions permitted limited female participation in school board elections.
Property and legal autonomy: Married women’s property acts existed in some states but were inconsistent and often limited in scope.
Employment: Women’s work was largely confined to domestic service, teaching, and textile industries, often poorly paid and undervalued.
Social Expectations and the ‘Separate Spheres’ Ideology
The prevailing ideology of ‘separate spheres’ dictated that men belonged in the public world of politics and work, while women’s roles centred on home and family. This deeply entrenched belief reinforced female subordination and justified legal inequality.
Women were expected to embody piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness, the ideals of the so-called ‘Cult of True Womanhood.’
Public speaking, political organisation, or leadership roles were often considered inappropriate or even immoral for women.
Despite these limitations, the post-Civil War period offered new opportunities. The abolition of slavery and the broader redefinition of citizenship prompted many women to question their exclusion and seek ways to participate in public reform movements.
Origins of Women’s Organising: Reform Movements and Temperance
Social Reform as a Platform for Women
Denied formal political power, women found alternative avenues for public involvement through reform movements. Religious and moral campaigns provided socially acceptable ways to engage in public affairs, laying foundations for broader activism.
The abolitionist movement before 1865 had already offered many women experience in organising, speaking, and petitioning.
The post-war period saw women increasingly active in temperance, moral reform, and social welfare, campaigns that were seen as extensions of their domestic responsibilities.
The Temperance and Prohibition Movements
Among these reform causes, temperance – the movement to reduce or eliminate alcohol consumption – became particularly significant for women. The widespread social and economic harm caused by alcohol abuse, especially to wives and children, gave women a powerful moral rationale to act.
Temperance Movement: A social movement advocating moderation or abstinence from alcohol, driven by concerns over family welfare, public morality, and social order.
Alcohol was linked to domestic violence, poverty, and family breakdown, all issues that directly affected women.
By addressing alcohol abuse, women framed their activism as a defence of home and family, which was socially acceptable even within restrictive gender norms.
Prohibition Campaigns and Female Activism
The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
The most influential women’s organisation to emerge from the temperance movement was the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), founded in 1874. Although slightly later than the immediate post-war period, its roots lay in earlier female-led temperance campaigns of the 1860s and early 1870s.
The WCTU became one of the largest and most effective women’s organisations of the nineteenth century.
Its motto, “For God and Home and Native Land,” reflected a blend of religious conviction, domestic protection, and patriotic duty.
Leaders like Frances Willard transformed the WCTU from a narrow temperance group into a platform advocating for broader social reforms, including women’s suffrage, labour laws, and education.
Frances Willard (1839–1898), educator and reformer; WCTU president from 1879, she linked temperance to women’s political power and social reform. This portrait offers students a clear visual reference for the movement’s most influential leader. Source
Strategies and Tactics
Prohibition campaigns helped women develop a range of organisational and political skills:
Petitioning: Women circulated petitions to legislatures, collecting signatures and demonstrating widespread public support.
A Francis Murphy temperance pledge card (c.1877) inviting signers to abstain from intoxicants. Cards like this complemented petitions and canvassing, turning domestic-moral appeals into trackable commitments. Extra detail beyond the syllabus: this particular design is associated with evangelist Francis Murphy’s campaigns. Source
Public speaking and writing: Leaders addressed audiences and published articles, challenging gender norms that restricted women’s public voices.
Grassroots mobilisation: Local chapters organised rallies, marches, and prayer vigils, creating networks of female activists across the nation.
Wood-engraving depicting crusading women singing hymns outside bar-rooms in Logan, Ohio (1874). Such “pray-ins” were emblematic tactics of the Women’s Crusade, modelling the religiously framed, non-violent direct action that fed directly into early WCTU organising. Extra context beyond the syllabus: the scene was published in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper on 21 February 1874. Source
Moral suasion: Campaigners framed temperance as a moral and religious duty, appealing to shared values.
These methods allowed women to participate in public life without directly challenging the prevailing gender order. Over time, however, activism around temperance began to blur the boundary between private and public spheres, paving the way for more overt demands for political rights.
Prohibition and the Early Women’s Rights Movement
Building Organisational Capacity
The prohibition campaigns were crucial in building women’s organisational capacity. Through them, women:
Learned how to form committees, manage finances, and run national campaigns.
Developed leadership skills and experience in public advocacy.
Created national networks that could later be redirected toward suffrage and other reforms.
This infrastructure would later underpin the women’s suffrage movement, demonstrating the interconnectedness of temperance and broader campaigns for women’s rights.
Linking Temperance and Suffrage
Many female activists concluded that achieving prohibition required political power, particularly the vote. This realisation led to growing alliances between temperance and suffrage movements.
The WCTU formally endorsed women’s suffrage in 1881, arguing that women needed the vote to protect their homes and enact moral reform.
This link helped legitimise the suffrage cause among middle-class Americans who might otherwise have viewed it as too radical.
Opposition and Limitations
Cultural and Political Resistance
Despite these advances, women’s involvement in prohibition campaigns faced significant resistance:
Critics accused women of overstepping their ‘natural’ roles and disrupting social order.
Male-dominated political institutions often dismissed female activism, limiting legislative success.
Racial and Class Divisions
The temperance movement, like much nineteenth-century reform, was dominated by white, middle-class women. This sometimes alienated working-class and immigrant communities for whom alcohol was an important social tradition, and limited the movement’s inclusivity and effectiveness.
Legacy of Prohibition Campaigns
The prohibition campaigns of the late nineteenth century marked a turning point in women’s public activism. Beginning with socially acceptable aims centred on family and morality, they evolved into powerful vehicles for political consciousness and organisation. Through these campaigns, women:
Entered public life in unprecedented numbers.
Developed skills and networks that would fuel future feminist campaigns.
Challenged restrictive gender norms, laying essential groundwork for women’s suffrage and broader equality movements in the twentieth century.
FAQ
Temperance activists were reacting to widespread social issues linked to alcohol abuse. Many households suffered from domestic violence, financial instability, and neglect, with alcohol often blamed as a root cause.
Working-class families in rapidly industrialising cities were particularly affected, as heavy drinking was associated with poverty, poor health, and lost wages. Reformers argued that limiting alcohol consumption would improve family life, reduce crime, and strengthen moral values.
This focus on home and morality provided women a socially acceptable reason to engage in public activism, even in a society that discouraged their political participation.
Religion was central to temperance work. Many campaigners were devout Protestants who saw alcohol as a sin that corrupted individuals and communities. They framed prohibition as a moral duty, aligning activism with Christian ideals of self-control, purity, and family stability.
Churches often served as meeting spaces, while ministers supported campaigns from the pulpit. Religious framing also protected women activists from criticism, as their efforts were presented not as political agitation but as moral reform — a natural extension of women’s roles as guardians of the home and family.
Yes, significant regional variations existed. In the Midwest and rural areas, temperance campaigns often gained strong support due to religious conservatism and fears about alcohol’s impact on community life.
In urban centres, activism was more challenging. Immigrant groups, particularly Irish and German communities, viewed alcohol as part of cultural and social life, leading to resistance.
In the South, temperance intersected with racial and social hierarchies, and some campaigns excluded Black women or ignored issues affecting them. These regional differences shaped strategies and the success of campaigns, revealing how local culture and demographics influenced the movement’s reach.
The Women’s Crusade (1873–74) was a grassroots movement marked by spontaneous actions such as public prayer vigils, hymn-singing, and direct appeals to saloon owners to stop selling alcohol. It was local, emotional, and community-based, relying heavily on religious fervour.
The WCTU, founded shortly after, built on this energy but became a more formal, national organisation with structured leadership, membership, and strategic campaigning. It expanded its focus beyond temperance to include education, labour reform, and women’s suffrage, turning moral protest into a broader social reform agenda.
No, support was far from universal. Many working-class women viewed prohibition as irrelevant or even harmful, as alcohol was a central part of social life and community networks.
Immigrant women often opposed temperance efforts that targeted their cultural traditions, seeing them as attempts at forced assimilation.
Even some early feminists were cautious about aligning with temperance, fearing it might overshadow demands for political rights. These divisions show that while prohibition was a key avenue for women’s activism, it did not represent the views or priorities of all women in post-Civil War America.
Practice Questions
Question 1 (2 marks)
Identify two reasons why temperance and prohibition campaigns provided opportunities for women to become involved in public life in the late nineteenth century.
Mark scheme:
Award 1 mark for each valid reason identified. Answers may include:
They were seen as extensions of women’s domestic roles, making public involvement socially acceptable. (1)
Campaigning against alcohol allowed women to address issues like domestic violence and family welfare. (1)
Temperance work enabled women to organise petitions, speak publicly, and form networks. (1)
These campaigns created platforms from which women could advocate for broader reforms such as suffrage. (1)
Question 2 (6 marks)
Explain how women’s participation in prohibition campaigns helped lay the foundations for the women’s suffrage movement.
Mark scheme:
Level 1 (1–2 marks):
Simple statements or general points with limited explanation.
May mention that women organised or spoke publicly but without linking this to suffrage.
Example: “Women campaigned against alcohol and signed petitions.”
Level 2 (3–4 marks):
Some explanation of how prohibition work helped the suffrage cause, but lacking depth or range.
May include one or two linked points, e.g. organisational skills or political awareness.
Example: “Through temperance campaigns, women learned how to run organisations and gain public support. This helped them later campaign for the vote.”
Level 3 (5–6 marks):
Developed explanation showing clear understanding of how temperance campaigns contributed to suffrage.
Likely to cover several points with supporting detail, such as organisational experience, public advocacy, shifting gender norms, and links between temperance and political rights.
Example: “Prohibition campaigns gave women vital organisational experience, from petitioning to managing national movements like the WCTU. As they campaigned to protect families from alcohol’s effects, they realised political power was needed to pass laws, leading groups like the WCTU to endorse suffrage. Such activism also challenged gender norms, making women’s political involvement more accepted.”
