Abstract

Religious women were large proponents of the Eighteenth Amendment, which banned the sale and consumption of alcohol in the United States. Often lost in the complex history of the era is discussion on what factors motivated these women, specifically those in the Methodist Church, one of the largest American denominations, to advocate for Prohibition from a theological perspective and, in turn, how theology changed to fit these new perceptions. Conversely, primary sources follow the factors that led many of these same Methodist women to rebel against their former advocacy in order to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment. This caused a rift within the denomination and theology within the Methodist church as a result of changing social and political dynamics. Scholars have analyzed the period of Prohibition from many angles, discussing the theological basis for the church's desire to ban alcohol, to the religious division that some think prompted Protestant support of the ban. However, often overlooked is the role of Methodism as a single denomination, instead grouping together all Protestant affiliations and disregarding the individual changes of each congregation to suit the new social order. Similarly, there is little research on the religiosity of those women who did advocate for Prohibition reform and their motivations behind such. Analyzing Methodist church records and doctrine highlights these shifts in theology in accordance with the findings that women used their new social and religious rights to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment that they once fought to put in place, and that which played a role in their initial acquisition of rights.

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