Prohibition education framing?

Hi! I have a question about how American education about the prohibition movement is typically framed in school settings. When I and my friends from other schools/states learned about prohibition (regardless of whether it was elementary school or high school), we learned that (1) it had largely religious underpinnings that focused on the moral issue of overconsumption and that (2) women spearheaded the movement because of gender norms that associated them with upholding purity. Only later in college did we learn that the underlying motivation for these women was to prevent domestic abuse and financial ruin that was associated with alcoholic husbands. I'm sure it's a "both-and" not "either-or," but why don't we learn about the domestic violence and poverty portion of the story? I feel like there's a way to teach at least high-schoolers about it in an age-appropriate way.

Posted Mar 6, 2026, 5:32 PM UTC

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