Temperance Women's Crusade photograph

Men and women gathered outside a store in Waynesville, Ohio, ca. 1873-1874. Signs indicate that the store housed a grocery and saloon. The women were participating in the Women's Temperance Crusade and protesting the sale of alcoholic beverages. The men may have gathered to support or ridicule their efforts. The Temperance movement was an organized effort during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to limit or outlaw the consumption and production of alcoholic beverages in the United States. In 1874, a group of Cleveland women established the Women's Christian Temperance Union. This organization pressured the Ohio and federal governments to implement Prohibition, which would outlaw the production, sale, and consumption of alcohol. From the mid 1870s to the early 1890s, the WCTU was the major organization within the United States seeking Prohibition. Its members utilized rather extreme tactics to convince Americans to abstain from alcohol. Members picketed bars and saloons, prayed for the souls of the bar patrons, and also tried to block the entryways of establishments that sold liquor. By the 1890s, groups such as the American Anti-Saloon League had joined the Women's Christian Temperance Union in its push for Prohibition