Alcohol has occupied a place in human culture since at least the late Stone Age. In fact, some form of fermented beverage (beer) was made for nearly 4000 years before wine entered the picture. Ancient Egyptians made both wine and beer. And alcohol played a significant role in Mediterranean commerce.

In the 7th Century, the Prophet Muhammad banned alcohol for all Muslims, effectively creating the first prohibition. This would remain the only large-scale edict concerning alcohol until the United States created the Wartime Prohibition Act in 1918. The Eighteenth Amendment would be ratified in 1919, as would the attendant Volstead Act (aka the National Prohibition Act), establishing the legal definition of intoxicating liquors as well as penalties for producing them, despite President Woodrow Wilson’s veto.

Early U.S. moderation efforts can be traced back to American Independence. And temperance movements began springing up around the country as early as 1789. The American Temperance Society itself was founded in 1826, and by 1835 it had grown to 1.5 million members. Maine entirely banned the manufacture and sale of alcohol in 1851. Twelve other states would follow suit. But people lost the taste for prohibition during The Civil War. In 1869, the Prohibition Party revived the dry crusade. And in 1873, the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement actively used temperance as a way of entering politics, despite the fact that women still weren’t permitted to vote. Methodists, Northern Baptists, Southern Baptists, New School Presbyterians, Disciples of Christ, Congregationalists, Quakers, and Scandinavian Lutherans, as well as the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America and the Latter-day Saints all actively advocated for Prohibition through the early 20th century. The religionists claimed that it was a moral cause.