An economic study analyzing US states that adopted suffrage at different times found government spending roughly doubled within ten years of women getting the right to vote. This suggests a strong correlation between female voting patterns and the expansion of the welfare state.

Contrary to its traditionalist image, the Klan actively recruited women, with about half a million joining. It supported women's right to vote and work, viewing female voters as key to advancing its white Protestant agenda. Women became crucial organizers, planners, and activists for the movement.

While public support is vital, movements don't just happen. They require specific individuals who act as catalysts. The British abolitionist movement, for example, is inseparable from Thomas Clarkson, who was the first person to envision a national public campaign and dedicate his life to it, turning a latent issue into a powerful political force.

The Washingtonian Society, a popular 1840s sobriety group with a model similar to AA, ultimately failed after its mission became entangled with divisive political causes like abolition and feminism. AA later learned from this, adopting a strictly apolitical, single-purpose focus.

Brady's Chris Brown notes successful public health movements, like anti-drunk driving campaigns, first changed social norms with slogans like "designated driver." This cultural shift made subsequent policy changes and enforcement easier to implement.

Social movements build on one another. The campaign against slavery was not an isolated event; it directly inspired and provided the organizational template for the 19th-century women's rights movement. Similarly, the US Civil Rights movement created the model and momentum for the gay rights movement, showing how progress on one issue makes progress on others more likely.

Contrary to the era's repressive goals, illegal speakeasies often became more progressive than the saloons they replaced. Many were racially integrated decades before desegregation and provided spaces where women could socialize, drink, and explore newfound freedoms alongside men.

The KKK positioned itself as the moral authority violently enforcing Prohibition, a task federal and local authorities struggled with. This resonated with temperance-supporting Protestants and provided a pretext for vigilantism against immigrant communities, particularly Catholics.

Contrary to popular belief, Franklin D. Roosevelt's landslide victory in 1932 was not primarily due to the economy. Polling from the era reveals the key issue for voters was repealing Prohibition, suggesting the public had not yet fully blamed the Hoover administration for the crash's delayed fallout.