Connecticut Society for the Reformation of Morals is founded.
1826 − Boston ministers found the American Temperance Society (ATS) and by 1831, they are 170,000 members strong.
1833 − The American Temperance Union is founded and a year later, they have one million members.
1838 − Massachusetts prohibits the sale of alcohol in amounts less than fifteen gallons, but repeals the law two years later.
1840 − The short-lived Washington Temperance Society is founded in Baltimore, Maryland (it was named after President George Washington) and becomes known as the Washingtonian movement. This society is likened to Alcohol Anonymous today. Members consist of reformed heavy drinkers who meet together, give testimonials, support one another, and take a pledge to abstain from alcohol. Two years later, they have 600,000 abstinence pledges and by 1843, the society fades away.
1851 − The state of Maine passes a state Prohibition law with the help of Portland mayor Neal Dow (1804–1897). It becomes known as “The Maine Law.” Other states that begin to follow suit include Vermont, Kansas, Iowa, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
1869 − The National Prohibition Party is founded in Chicago.
1874 − The Women’s Christian Temperance Union is founded.
1876 − The World’s Women’s Christian Temperance Union is founded.
1880 − Kansas becomes the first state to go completely dry with the help of governor John St. John and the National Women’s Christian Temperance Union.
1888 − The Supreme Court strikes down state Prohibition laws if they forbid the sale of alcohol that was transported into the state in its original passage. This means hotels and clubs could sell an unopened bottle of liquor, even if the state bans alcohol sales.
1893 − The American Anti-Saloon League is founded in Ohio. The league is a nonpartisan organization that focuses on Prohibition through the publication of pamphlets, songs, fliers, cartoons, stories, magazines, and newspapers. They are active until 1933.
1899 − Six-foot-tall, fifty-three-year-old Carry Nation begins walking into Kansas saloons with a hatchet destroying everything she can. This goes on for ten years, and she is arrested and fined thirty-two times.
1901 − Prince Edward Island in Canada starts Prohibition. It is lifted in 1948.
1908 − Massachusetts bans alcohol in 249 towns and 18 cities.
−Mississippi bans alcohol on December 31 (kind of mean to do on New Year’s Eve), and does not lift their ban until August 5, 1966. The Broadwater Beach Resort in Biloxi (today it’s called President Casino Broadwater Resort) is the first to receive an on-premise liquor license and the second—but first liquor store—license goes to the Joe Azar and his brother for Jigger & Jug in Package Store in Greenville, Mississippi (304 US-82). It is still in operation today. On a side note, Joe Azar’s son, Steve, grows up to be a Nashville country music star with his biggest hit called “I Don’t Have to Be Me ’Til Monday” (2002).
−In May of 2010, Austin Evans and Richard Patrick open Cathead Distillery—the state’s first distillery (and only so far). The name Cathead is in honor of blues musicians who are nicknamed “catheads.” In addition, on July 1, 2013 the last remaining homebrewing law is passed in Mississippi, making homebrewing legal in all fifty states.
1910 − Australia starts Prohibition, then lifts it in the capital city of Canberra in 1928.
1912 − Congress passes a law overturning the Supreme Court’s 1888 ruling, which permitted states to forbid all alcohol.
−Absinthe is banned in America.
1914 − The Anti-Saloon League proposes a constitutional amendment to prohibit the sale of alcohol.
−Russia starts Prohibition, then lifts it in 1925.
1915 − Saskatchewan, Canada, starts Prohibition, then lifts it in 1925.
−Iceland starts Prohibition, then lifts it in 1922. Beer 2.25 percent or over is banned until 1989.
1916 − Alberta, Canada, starts Prohibition, then lifts it in 1924.
−Norway starts Prohibition, then lifts it in 1927.
1917 − The U.S. Senate and the House pass the Eighteenth Amendment, then sends it to the American states for ratification.
−Puerto Rico starts Prohibition, then lifts it in 1933.
1918 − Fueled by the temperance movement to vote for Prohibition, the United States ratifies the Nineteenth Amendment, was which allows women to vote for the first time in American history. On a global side note, New Zealand first allowed women to vote in 1893, and Saudi Arabia in 2015.
−Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, ratify the Eighteenth Amendment.
−Connecticut votes against ratification.
1919 − Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming ratify the Eighteenth Amendment.
−Rhode Island votes against ratification.
−Congress passes the Volstead Act, which helps make the Eighteenth Amendment stick. The act states three distinct purposes:
1.To prohibit intoxicating beverages.
2.To regulate the manufacture, sale, or transport of intoxicating liquor (but not consumption).
3.To ensure an ample supply of alcohol and promote its use in scientific research and in the development of fuel, dye, and other lawful industries and practices, such as religious rituals.
−It further stated, “no person shall manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, or furnish any intoxicating liquor except as authorized by this act.”
−Québec, Canada, starts Prohibition, then lifts it in 1920.
−Finland starts Prohibition, then lifts it in 1932.
1920 − Prohibition begins in America on January 17, one minute past midnight.
−The U.S. Virgin Islands start Prohibition, then lift it in 1933.
Customers at a bar in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, after Prohibition’s end in December 1933. © Everett Historical / Shutterstock
1933 − The Twenty-First Amendment is passed on December 5 at 3:32 p.m. and the Eighteenth Amendment is repealed.
1934 − In the United States, twenty-one is set as the legal age for drinking, purchasing, and possessing alcohol.
1949 − The American drinking age is set at twenty-one for liquor
