This draconian and stunning measure was ultimately only the culmination of a campaign for temperance that had lasted more than a century. By early 1919, several states had already banned alcohol; a "prohibition party had just been founded and women participated in the battle for the dry regime with all the ardor of their sex.
This is how Carry Nation regularly hit the headlines by carrying out forays into Kansas saloons. Armed with a hatchet, she split the barrels of beer, broke the bottles and demolished the counters of these honorable establishments. The Women's Christian Temperance Union was a force to be reckoned with, and women only voted for candidates who displayed hostility to drinking places.
However, the phenomenon had deeper roots. It was the last attempt by traditional rural America, huddled around its Puritan churches, to oppose the growing power of the cities. The "anti-saloon" league hailed prohibition as the dawn of an "age of clear thinking and clean living." Moreover, his propaganda found an echo in the climate of chauvinism which reigned in America since the entry into the war in 1917.
Finally, prohibition acquired the force of law in October 1919 by the Volstead Act. To celebrate the event, the "anti-saloon league" distributed greeting cards profusely, wishing all Americans, men, women, and children, a "Happy Dry Year." As for Herbert Hoover, he welcomed this “gigantic economic and social experiment”.