Explore Prohibition History at the Anti-Saloon League Museum

Walk into the Westerville History Museum, and you step into the story of how Ohio helped bring forth the United States’ ban on alcohol, which lasted from 1920 to 1933. The museum’s collection includes items from the Anti-Saloon League, a single-issue organization that helped push the country toward Prohibition.

Founded by the Rev. Howard Hyde Russell, who was moved by the toll alcohol took on families, the Anti-Saloon League began in Oberlin in 1893. Unlike other reform groups of the time, the organization focused entirely on restricting alcohol, avoiding broader social issues. By the early 1900s, the League was looking for a new home, and Westerville had a reputation as a fiercely dry town.

“If you were looking for a place to work on fighting alcohol in America at that time, where’s the one place in America you might think would be really welcoming? Westerville had established this reputation as being viciously, vehemently dry,” says museum manager Jackie Barton.

In the late 1800s, local saloons faced threats as residents fought to keep alcohol off their streets. The Anti-Saloon League, which arrived in town in 1910, sent an estimated 40 tons of mail each month, spreading its message across the nation to shape public opinion. 

Visitors to the Westerville History Museum, located inside the Westerville Public Library, can see posters, broadsides and other artifacts that illustrate how the organization combined science, patriotism and morality to convince people to support temperance. Many posters highlight physical health, family life and patriotic duty. The messages were often aimed at men, while women were depicted as victims of alcohol.

“We are hoping that people will take what the Anti-Saloon League was doing and gain an understanding of it, but also gain some understanding of how American culture works today …” Barton says, “[and] maybe leave with a more nuanced understanding of their own culture, their own American culture.” 126 S. State St., Westerville 43081, 614/882-7277, westervillelibrary.org/museum

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