Digital Commons Network^™

Prohibition Among Danish American Lutherans, Nick Kofod Mogensen

The Bridge

On January 17, 1920, a major change took place in American society. The Eighteenth Amendment went into effect and started the Prohibition Era, banning the sale of alcohol in the United States from 1920 to 1933. Prohibition was not a uniquely American idea. Under pressure from temperance movements, most Nordic countries banned or severely restricted the sale of alcohol around the same time as the United States did. The Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norway, and Finland all banned alcohol during the first few decades of the twentieth century. Although a narrow majority of the Swedish people refused an outright ban in …