Causes of prohibition (iGCSE HISTORY)

Prohibition was a ban in the United States, from 1920 to 1933, of the sale, purchase, transportation and importation of alcohol.

MEDICAL

By that time people were started to realise that alcohol damaged our health and could affect our lives. Many American men suffered from Sclerosis, which is caused by alcohol and lung cancer from smoking cigarettes. Those people suffered badly and eventually died. Because of this, many children fought their lives without their fathers, which led to families’ financial problems.

ECONOMIC

Many labourers got drunk and so they could not perform the job properly. The absence from work each week was very high, therefore the company was less efficient. The company could not afford to produce the same products in the time that they should and the industrialists were not satisfied.
Other people also insisted that buying beer meant that the money flew away to Germany because all of the brewers were actually located in Germany. The solution that people came up was instead of helping Germany with her economy that was to spend the large amount of money on some other necessaries.

POLITICAL

Many votes were won in rural areas because politicians promised to back up prohibition, which helped those politicians to win the election.

SOCIAL

The last point of all, which we have agreed on the most important, was that the husbands were spending their family’s saving stupidly on alcohol instead of essential items, e.g. Education. That problem led to family arguments, which eventually led to divorce. The problem pressurised women the most, therefore they set up the anti-saloon groups.

Sources on Prohibition