14. The Fight Against Alcohol Birthed the Fight for Women’s Rights
In the 1840s, women began to play a prominent role in an organized effort to address America’s booze problem. It made sense that women would lead that fight, considering how much they suffered from the country’s alcohol epidemic – and they were not even the ones who got to enjoy the drinking. A drunk husband or father was cause for enough misery. Alcoholic male bread winners often squandered their incomes in the emerging saloons, or neglected their work and lost out on income because of the bottle.
Then there was the “syphilis of the innocent“: an epidemic of STDs caught by hubbies in seedy saloons, where clients could find more than just booze, that was then passed on to their wives. It is thus unsurprising that America’s women featured prominently in the ranks of those who most detested alcohol, and deeply loathed not just the drink, but its makers and sellers as well. The fight for suffrage and women’s rights in America began as an offshoot of the fight against alcohol, and many early suffragettes first became politically active in that struggle.