Ratification of the 18th Amendment, which instituted Prohibition (1919-1933), was supported by many proponents of temperance, including religious fundamentalists and women battling domestic violence. But anti-immigrant racism was also a major factor, fueled by the so-called second Ku Klux Klan, which warned against the “foreign invasion of undeveloped races” whose members, stereotyped as saloon-drinking brawlers, “threatened the white Protestant American way of life.” Catholics, African-Americans, and Jews (who ironically rarely drank outside the home) were major targets of anti-drinking crusades, which often turned violent. The reign of terror drove many working-class families toward the Democratic Party, which opposed Prohibition. The legislation also gave the U.S. government an unprecedented role in law enforcement, which continues to this day. Read more about this era and anti-immigrant discrimination in On the Shore (see NOVELS).
