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The American Issue, in Westerville, Ohio, and based in Chicago, Illinois, was a large publishing outlet for prohibition advocacy. They aimed at convincing voters to support a dry country by passing the 18th Amendment. They mainly used illustrations depicting the emotional impact of alcohol on families and children were central to the movement’s messaging strategy and its eventual success to bring Prohibition to the United States. In January 19, 1906 the edition of The Illinois Issue explains that “Our purpose is to set before the people of this state, in a plain way, plain facts in regard to the greatest enemy of the home, the church and the state, and the greatest lawbreaker in civilization—the organized liquor traffic.” The American Issue vividly illustrate how alcohol strained the American domestic life by displaying how money was wasted at saloons instead of the household. Some cartoons implied or directly depicted domestic violence and family suffering. Others exploited anxieties surrounding degeneracy, disability, mental illness, and death, often relying on pseudoscientific claims to bolster their arguments. Importantly, some of those images were circulated internationally, helping to promote prohibition efforts beyond the U.S. While prohibition is often viewed through an American lens, it was in fact a global phenomenon. Examining its visual rhetoric in a broader context reveals how shared societal fears were manufactured to drive support for moral reform across cultures. In conclusion The American Issue and other prohibition papers used common fears, and shame to enforce good moral citizenship. Those that did drink were portrayed as abusive, and could pass down their bad traits. Drinking became a moral issue that could only be fixed by outlawing or society as a whole would suffer.