The Passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919 and the Nineteenth

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Woman Suffrage Movement: The woman suffrage movement got its start in the mid-nineteenth century and attracted women who were already active in reform causes (e.g., abolitionism and temperance). Women who joined the suffrage movement in its early days had high hopes that women's access to citizenship and the vote would go a long way toward creating equality for women in American society. Suffragists had a brief moment of optimism after the Civil War when they thought they would win the right to vote along with African American men, but the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments added the word male to the Constitution, excluding women explicitly. The movement began to make inroads among middle-class and working-class women in American society in 1890, pushing for voting rights but also for other “women's” issues. The notion that women could use their supposed moral superiority to reform various elements of corruption in American society made the demand for suffrage seem less radical and more appealing to many women and men. Ultimately, World War I gave women many new opportunities, including serving in Europe as nurses and relief workers and working in defense jobs at home. Some suffragists capitalized on women's contribution to the war effort at home and abroad to argue that their efforts should be recognized and rewarded with the right to vote. Others appealed to the wartime need for national unity and the United States' hypocrisy in fighting for democracy while refusing women the vote. The combination of these strategies succeeded in turning President Wilson from an opponent to a supporter of woman's suffrage. Ratified in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the vote and raised expectations that women had finally come to the end of the long road to full equality.
Temperance Movement: The ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment marked the end of nearly one hundred years of activism. Women's role in the temperance struggle grew over the course of the nineteenth century, and the formation of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1874 brought the issue into the national spotlight. The WCTU argued that drunken, abusive husbands and fathers epitomized the evils of a society in which women remained second-class citizens, dependent on men for their livelihood. WCTU leader Frances Willard politicized the group and recruited women who used various strategies to affect the traditional political process, even though they could not vote. The WCTU was remarkably successful at organizing a mass movement of women united by women's issues and creating alliances with organizations such as the Knights of Labor and the People's party. By the 1890s, the WCTU's grassroots network of local unions included 200,000 dues-paying members and had spread to all but the most isolated rural areas of the country. By the time of the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919, it seemed as if women had gained important political experience and influence through the process of advocating for Prohibition, and that the banning of the sale and consumption of alcohol would go a long way toward shaping a new society in which women could be more equal participants.
Women's Political Status, 1920s–1930s: With the achievement of woman suffrage and Prohibition, many women felt that the 1920s was the beginning of a new era. They expected that they had achieved a new level of political power and influence and that their access to the vote would help them to bring about many of the reforms they had supported during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In fact, however, their political influence declined. They achieved only one significant legislative success with the passage of the Sheppard-Towner Act in 1921. The Equal Rights Amendment was defeated for the first time in 1923. Women's political influence was limited by male domination of both political parties, the rarity of female candidates, and women's lack of experience with voting, which kept many away from the polls. Black women in the South, like their male counterparts, were excluded from voting by poll taxes, literacy tests, and the threat of racial violence. In addition, the achievement of suffrage and temperance meant that women activists no longer had political goals that united them. As some women advocated special protections for women and others advocated equal rights, neither objective could be achieved. Women's access to citizenship and political rights served to underscore the extent to which they were still limited by economic, social, and cultural inequalities.

The Passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919 and the Nineteenth

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