Elizabeth Preston Anderson (front left) at the signing of the women’s suffrage bill, January 13, 1917. http://erinsgray.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-womens-temperance-movement-and.html (Institute for Regional Studies, NDSU, mss 1942-02-03)
The origins of Prohibition can be traced back to the 1800s in a movement that was propelled by two much larger and more influential national movements: the Great Awakening of the early 1800s, a religious revival and the women's movement, which united in the temperance movement, a movement that was dedicated to controlling the levels of alcohol being consumed by Americans, under the argument that drinking excess alcohol caused the drinker to abuser their spouse,
The Great Awakening a series of religious revivals beginning in the late 1700s and continuing to exist in the modern day. there 3 or 4 Great Awakenings in American history, although it is the Second Great awakening that is the most closely related to the temperance and later prohibition movements, which occurred roughly from 1800 to 1840. As with all Great Awakenings, this revival mainly affected the protestant churches, including the most notably Methodists and Baptists and saw a spike in church membership nationwide. This Great Awakening had a significant effect on the political landscape of the United States as it was common for ministers to preach on social issues such as slavery, women's rights, and temperance, where the preacher would often take progressive stances on the issues. the Great Awakening gave the temperance movement a moral edge; one of the most common arguments for prohibition was correlation between alcohol consumption and committing immoral acts such as spousal abuse and believed that prohibiting alcohol would go a long way to eliminating various social issues
The other larger narrative in the temperance movement was the women's movement, which by mid 1800s had become more mainstream. There are several incarnations of the feminist movement broken into 3 successive waves, with respect to other discussion I'll focus on 1st wave feminism which as at it's height in the 19th and early 20th century ending with the 19th amendment. First wave feminism dealt with the political status of women and had the ultimate goal of granting women's suffrage and political equality between men and women. When examining the history of temperance in America, women were among it's first and loudest supporters, as it was seen by many as a way for women to exert new influence in American politics. A perfect example of this is thw WTCU, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, one of the largest and most well-known temperance organizations in America. Although WCTU had temperance in it's name, the organization was also heavily involved in the women's suffrage movement. The North Dakota branch of the WCTU played a major role in lobbying for prohibition in North Dakota around the time prohibition was enacted at the state level was Elizabeth Preston Anderson, an Indiana native who moved to ND in her late teens, she saw the damage alcohol could do, and so she became a strong advocate for alcohol education.