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Women's History
The United States Grows
(1865-1900)
 Prohibition in Kansas

Prohibition in Kansas
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 6 to 8
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   9.17

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    statewide, liquor, further, medicinal, smashers, alcoholic, destruction, prohibition, alcohol, armed, manufacture, illegal, debate, personally, direct, destructive
     content words:    United States, Carrie Nation, Christian Temperance Union, Medicine Lodge, Temperance Union, Eighteenth Amendment, US Constitution, Twenty-first Amendment

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Prohibition in Kansas
By Sharon Fabian 		  
1     Nowhere was the temperance movement more important than in Kansas. Kansas had statewide prohibition long before the United States as a whole did. Prohibition in Kansas lasted long after national prohibition was repealed. Carrie Nation, the famous temperance crusader, also conducted much of her crusade against the evils of alcohol in Kansas.
 
2     In 1880, voters in Kansas approved an amendment to their state constitution that made the manufacture and sale of alcoholic drinks illegal. It went into effect on January 1st of the following year, making Kansas the first state with a prohibition amendment in its constitution.
 
3     Prohibition in Kansas proved hard to enforce. In some areas it seemed to be mainly ignored, and bars and breweries found ways to stay open. Some people began to produce alcohol in their homes. Others found an interesting loophole in the law. This loophole allowed druggists to sell alcohol for medicinal purposes. Many patients discovered a need for medicinal alcohol during the years of prohibition.
 
4     While some Kansas citizens happily ignored prohibition, others were angry that the prohibition laws were not being enforced effectively. In particular, the women of the Women's Christian Temperance Union saw it as a big problem. They regarded alcoholic drink as an evil that had destroyed many families, and they wanted to get rid of it.
 
5     No one took the problem more seriously than Carrie Nation. Carrie had personally experienced the problems that drinking could cause for a family. Her first husband was described as an alcoholic, and he and Carrie separated before her first child was born. As a single mom in the 1800s, she struggled to make ends meet.

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