The Anti-Saloon League Is Founded

On May 24, 1893, a new temperance organization was formed in Oberlin, Ohio, under the leadership of minister Howard Hyde Russell. Initially organized as an Ohio movement, the Anti-Saloon League sought to unite churches, temperance groups, and individual supporters around the single political objective of suppressing the legal alcohol trade. The organization expanded nationally in 1895 and developed into one of the most powerful lobbying groups in American politics. Rather than acting as a conventional political party, it supported or opposed candidates according to their position on prohibition and used coordinated campaigning, publications, church networks, and legislative pressure to advance its goals. Its political influence played an important role in the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment and the establishment of national Prohibition.