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The Temperance Movement: Feminism, Nativism, Religious Identity, And Race, Castor Kent

Relics, Remnants, and Religion: An Undergraduate Journal in Religious Studies

Over the course of the nineteenth century, an anti-alcohol movement known as the Temperance movement, supported mainly by Protestant women, grew in America. Despite being unable to vote, many of these women were hugely influential in politics, creating the foundation for the Prohibition movement. The ways in which drunkards were discussed and depicted was often as racialized Irish and Italian Catholics: both European groups were not considered “White” at the time, and many of the men came from Catholic countries, which was viewed as a threat by American Protestants. Depicting non-white people as agents of both violence and uncontrollable sexuality …