Newport Saloon Owners Ban Women from Barrooms
In a move to curb 'trouble,' local saloon operators agree to prohibit women from entering bars to solicit drinks or loiter.
One of the features complained of by a majority of the people in connection with the operation of the saloons has been removed. The saloon men have all agreed that, in the future, women will not be allowed to enter the bar rooms and solicit drinks from the customers nor loiter therein. This feature of the business over here has caused considerable trouble in the past, but hereafter conditions will be entirely different, the saloon men promise.
“This feature of the business over here has caused considerable trouble in the past, but hereafter conditions will be entirely different.”
This policy reflects the intense social pressure exerted by the temperance movement in early 20th-century Washington. It highlights how gendered spaces were strictly policed long before the state went dry in 1916.
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