Maine Was First      
   

   Almost 70 years before national prohibition, Maine became the first state to ban alcohol sales in 1851. 

   The same force that powered local temperance movements, rural, Protestant, middle class people were alarmed by drinking habits. As the U.S. expanded west in the 1820s, farmers found it more profitable to ship their grain east in the form of whiskey.

   In 1930, the average American - even counting children and the elderly - was drinking five gallons of hard liquor a year. Middle-class evangelicals, wishing to curb drinking, drove the Maine effort.

   Ohio and Illinois also shared anti-drinking sentiment.

Source: Smithsonian magazine