The Temperance Movement
The argument for an alcohol free America has been fought from colonial times until it was ultimately won with the ratification of Prohibition. The main argument was that alcohol took men away from their families creating poverty and broken families. Religious reasons were used in the argument to create a wider audience. During the Second Great Awakening over one million Americans, mostly evangelical Christians signed the "Temperance Pledge." A pledge to abstain from alcohol completely.
The purpose of the pledge was to keep images like this from recreating themselves in every alley in America.
The Temperance movement failed so many times because the people of America, whether of Irish, German, Czech or English descent, used alcohol in many of their cultural traditions. It was part the American identity. As public drunkenness became more prevalent and the Second Great Awakening gained more followers the strength of the Temperance Movement grew. Many Americans still viewed brewed beverages as a safer alternative to water, this made it difficult for people to join the movement without a safe alternative to water. The proponents of prohibition of alcohol realized this and focused their efforts on banning high alcohol content beverages such as fermented wines, whisky and other spirits, beer was acceptable to imbibe until 1914.
The start of World War I changed the opinion of beer as a wholesome drink to a beverage equally as destructive as distilled spirits due to beer's humble beginnings in Bavaria. The major breweries of America were almost exclusively owned and operated by German-American Companies. Anti-German sentiment soared when America entered the war paving the way for the 18th Amendment to become law on January 16th 1919. Beer gardens were closed by the same day one year later, only reemerging in the 1960s.