Temperance: National Prohibition

Temperance activists gained increased public support in 1917 with the outbreak of World War I. They used anti-German sentiment to fight the major brewing companies, which were largely owned by German American families. Combining anger against German interests with a demand that grain supplies be directed at the war effort rather than the manufacture of alcohol, the temperance movement linked its cause to American patriotism. Congress responded in late 1917 by passing legislation that called for national prohibition. Thirty-six states ratified the Eighteenth Amendment, which mandated the prohibition of alcohol in the United States. In 1919 the National Prohibition Act, popularly called the Volstead Act, specified enforcement measures. When the law went into effect on 29 January 1920, the United States entered the dry thirteen-year period known as Prohibition.