One of the biggest advocators against women's suffrage was alcohol producers. Alcohol companies knew that if women had the right to vote, they would vote in favor of Prohibition, because they didn't drink themselves, and were hurt by their husbands who did. These liquor companies did everything they could to stop the efforts of women's suffrage activists, and were very successful, up until the early 20th century. Despite the efforts of these companies, the Prohibition movement passed anyway, and the companies lost almost all of their power. They were no longer able to, or even cared about, stopping the women's suffrage movement. .
The Prohibition acted as enough of a political uproar to allow the women's suffrage movement to pass. Historically, the countries that grant women the right to vote, do so during a time of political uproar. Women's suffrage movements call for changes that shake the very foundations of any patriarchal society, but political uproars act as an even more revolutionary cause, making other movements seem less terrifying by comparison. The pre-Prohibition temperance movement acted as just such an uproar, and its sweeping political changes helped normalize those being proposed by the advocators of the women's suffrage movement. For some, they were simply too focused on the Prohibition, and the ensuing gang warfare, to pay much heed to the other movement. For others, when faced with such controversy as was brought by the prohibition, the women's suffrage movement seemed tame by comparison.
The Prohibition movement emphasized the moral purity of women, and this positive attention put them at an ideal place to begin asking for the vote. Women didn't drink, primarily because it considered unfit for the innocence of the women, but also because saloons were political gathering places, and politics were the work of men. An English traveler to America in 1839 wrote about the importance of liquor to American men saying, "If you close a bargain, you drink.
