![Detroit police prohibition1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Detroit_police_prohibition1.jpg)
In the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
from 1920 to 1933, a
nationwide constitutional law prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of
alcoholic beverage
An alcoholic beverage (also called an alcoholic drink, adult beverage, or a drink) is a drink that contains ethanol, a type of alcohol that acts as a drug and is produced by fermentation of grains, fruits, or other sources of sugar. The c ...
s. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures, and finally ended nationwide under the
Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Eighteenth Amendment (Amendment XVIII) of the United States Constitution established the prohibition of alcohol in the United States. The amendment was proposed by Congress on December 18, 1917, and was ratified by the requisite number of ...
, ratified on January 16, 1919. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the
Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933.
Led by
pietistic Protestants
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
, prohibitionists first attempted to end the trade in alcoholic drinks during the 19th century. They aimed to heal what they saw as an ill society beset by alcohol-related problems such as
alcoholism
Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol (drug), alcohol that results in significant Mental health, mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognize ...
,
family violence
Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or family violence) is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. ''Domestic violence'' is often used as a synonym for ''intimate partner v ...
, and
saloon-based
political corruption
Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials or their network contacts for illegitimate private gain.
Forms of corruption vary, but can include bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, in ...
. Many communities introduced alcohol bans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and enforcement of these new prohibition laws became a topic of debate. Prohibition supporters, called "drys", presented it as a battle for
public morals
Public morality refers to moral and ethical standards enforced in a society, by law or police work or social pressure, and applied to public life, to the content of the media, and to conduct in public places. A famous remark of Mrs Patrick C ...
and health. The movement was taken up by
progressives
Progressivism holds that it is possible to improve human societies through political action. As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, techno ...
in the
Prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...
,
Democratic and
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
parties, and gained a national grassroots base through the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization, originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program th ...
. After 1900, it was coordinated by the
Anti-Saloon League
The Anti-Saloon League (now known as the ''American Council on Addiction and Alcohol Problems'') is an organization of the temperance movement that lobbied for prohibition in the United States in the early 20th century.
Founded in 1893 in Oberl ...
. Opposition from the beer industry mobilized "wet" supporters from the wealthy
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
and German
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
communities, but the influence of these groups receded from 1917 following the entry of the U.S. into the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
against Germany.
The Eighteenth amendment passed in 1919 "with a 68 percent
supermajority
A supermajority, supra-majority, qualified majority, or special majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of more than one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority ru ...
in the House of Representatives and 76 percent support in the Senate" and was
ratified
Ratification is a principal's approval of an act of its agent that lacked the authority to bind the principal legally. Ratification defines the international act in which a state indicates its consent to be bound to a treaty if the parties inte ...
by 46 out of 48 states.
Enabling legislation, known as the
Volstead Act
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was an act of the 66th United States Congress, designed to carry out the intent of the 18th Amendment (ratified January 1919), which established the prohibition of alcoholic d ...
, set down the rules for enforcing the federal ban and defined the types of alcoholic beverages that were prohibited. Not all alcohol was banned; for example,
religious use of wine was permitted. Private ownership and consumption of alcohol were not made illegal under federal law, but local laws were stricter in many areas, some states banning possession outright.
Following the ban, criminal gangs gained control of the beer and liquor supply in many cities. By the late 1920s, a new opposition to Prohibition emerged nationwide. Critics attacked the policy as causing crime, lowering local revenues, and imposing "rural" Protestant religious values on "urban" America. The Twenty-first Amendment ended Prohibition, though it continued in some states. To date, this is the only time in American history in which a constitutional amendment was passed for the purpose of repealing another.
Some research indicates that alcohol consumption declined substantially due to Prohibition.
Rates of
liver cirrhosis
Cirrhosis, also known as liver cirrhosis or hepatic cirrhosis, and end-stage liver disease, is the impaired liver function caused by the formation of scar tissue known as fibrosis due to damage caused by liver disease. Damage causes tissue repai ...
,
alcoholic psychosis, and
infant mortality
Infant mortality is the death of young children under the age of 1. This death toll is measured by the infant mortality rate (IMR), which is the probability of deaths of children under one year of age per 1000 live births. The under-five morta ...
also declined.
Other research indicates that Prohibition did not reduce alcohol consumption in the long-term.
Prohibition's effect on rates of crime and violence is disputed.
Prohibition lost supporters every year it was in action, and lowered government tax revenues at a critical time before and during the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
.
History
![Womans-Holy-War](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Womans-Holy-War.jpg)
On November 18, 1918, prior to ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment, the U.S. Congress passed the temporary Wartime Prohibition Act, which banned the sale of alcoholic beverages having an alcohol content of greater than 1.28%. This act, which had been intended to save grain for the war effort, was passed after the
armistice
An armistice is a formal agreement of warring parties to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, as it may constitute only a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace. It is derived from the La ...
ending
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
was signed on November 11, 1918. The Wartime Prohibition Act took effect June 30, 1919, with July 1 becoming known as the "Thirsty First".
The
U.S. Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and powe ...
proposed the
Eighteenth Amendment on December 18, 1917. Upon being approved by a 36th state on January 16, 1919, the amendment was ratified as a part of the Constitution. By the terms of the amendment, the country went dry one year later, on January 17, 1920.
On October 28, 1919,
Congress
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...
passed the
Volstead Act
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was an act of the 66th United States Congress, designed to carry out the intent of the 18th Amendment (ratified January 1919), which established the prohibition of alcoholic d ...
, the popular name for the National Prohibition Act, over President
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
's
veto
A veto is a legal power to unilaterally stop an official action. In the most typical case, a president or monarch vetoes a bill to stop it from becoming law. In many countries, veto powers are established in the country's constitution. Veto ...
. The act established the legal definition of intoxicating liquors as well as penalties for producing them.
Although the Volstead Act prohibited the sale of alcohol, the federal government lacked resources to enforce it.
Prohibition was successful in reducing the amount of liquor consumed, cirrhosis death rates, admissions to state mental hospitals for alcoholic psychosis, arrests for public drunkenness, and rates of absenteeism.
While many state that Prohibition stimulated the proliferation of rampant underground, organized and widespread
criminal activity
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...
,
Kenneth D. Rose and Georges-Franck Pinard maintain that there was no increase in crime during the Prohibition era and that such claims are "rooted in the impressionistic rather than the factual."
By 1925, there were anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000
speakeasy
A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, is an illicit establishment that sells alcoholic beverages, or a retro style bar that replicates aspects of historical speakeasies.
Speakeasy bars came into prominence in the United States d ...
clubs in New York City alone. Wet opposition talked of personal liberty, new tax revenues from legal beer and liquor, and the scourge of organized crime.
On March 22, 1933, President
Franklin Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
signed into law the
Cullen–Harrison Act
The Cullen–Harrison Act, named for its sponsors, Senator Pat Harrison and Representative Thomas H. Cullen, enacted by the United States Congress on March 21, 1933, and signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt the following day, legalized the ...
, legalizing beer with an alcohol content of 3.2% (by weight) and wine of a similarly low alcohol content. Subsequently on December 5, ratification of the
Twenty-first Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment. However, United States federal law still prohibits the manufacture of
distilled spirits
Liquor (or a spirit) is an alcoholic drink produced by distillation of grains, fruits, vegetables, or sugar, that have already gone through alcoholic fermentation. Other terms for liquor include: spirit drink, distilled beverage or hard li ...
without meeting numerous licensing requirements that make it impractical to produce spirits for personal beverage use.
Origins
![The Drunkard's Progress - Color](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/The_Drunkard%27s_Progress_-_Color.jpg)
Consumption of alcoholic beverages has been a contentious topic in America since the
colonial period. In May 1657, the
General Court of Massachusetts
The Massachusetts General Court (formally styled the General Court of Massachusetts) is the state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name "General Court" is a hold-over from the earliest days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, ...
made the sale of strong liquor "whether known by the name of rum, whisky, wine, brandy, etc." to the Native Americans illegal.
In general, informal social controls in the home and community helped maintain the expectation that the abuse of alcohol was unacceptable: "Drunkenness was condemned and punished, but only as an abuse of a God-given gift. Drink itself was not looked upon as culpable, any more than food deserved blame for the sin of
gluttony
Gluttony ( la, gula, derived from the Latin ''gluttire'' meaning "to gulp down or swallow") means over-indulgence and over-consumption of food, drink, or wealth items, particularly as status symbols.
In Christianity, it is considered a sin if ...
. Excess was a personal indiscretion."
When informal controls failed, there were legal options.
Shortly after the United States obtained independence, the
Whiskey Rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion (also known as the Whiskey Insurrection) was a violent tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791 and ending in 1794 during the presidency of George Washington. The so-called "whiskey tax" was the first tax impo ...
took place in
western Pennsylvania
Western Pennsylvania is a region in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, covering the western third of the state. Pittsburgh is the region's principal city, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic ...
in protest of government-imposed taxes on
whiskey
Whisky or whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash. Various grains (which may be malted) are used for different varieties, including barley, corn, rye, and wheat. Whisky is typically aged in wooden cask ...
. Although the taxes were primarily levied to help pay down the newly formed
national debt
A country's gross government debt (also called public debt, or sovereign debt) is the financial liabilities of the government sector. Changes in government debt over time reflect primarily borrowing due to past government deficits. A deficit oc ...
, it also received support from some social reformers, who hoped a "
sin tax
A sin tax is an excise tax specifically levied on certain goods deemed harmful to society and individuals, such as alcohol, tobacco, drugs, candies, soft drinks, fast foods, coffee, sugar, gambling, and pornography. In contrast to Pigovian tax ...
" would raise public awareness about the harmful effects of alcohol. The whiskey tax was repealed after
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
's
Democratic-Republican Party
The Democratic-Republican Party, known at the time as the Republican Party and also referred to as the Jeffersonian Republican Party among other names, was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early ...
, which opposed the
Federalist Party
The Federalist Party was a Conservatism in the United States, conservative political party which was the first political party in the United States. As such, under Alexander Hamilton, it dominated the national government from 1789 to 1801.
De ...
of
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first United States secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795.
Born out of wedlock in Charlest ...
, came to power in 1800.
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Rush (April 19, 1813) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father of the United States who signed the United States Declaration of Independence, and a civic leader in Philadelphia, where he was a physician, politician, ...
, one of the foremost physicians of the late 18th century, believed in moderation rather than prohibition. In his treatise, "The Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits upon the Human Body and Mind" (1784), Rush argued that the excessive use of alcohol was injurious to physical and psychological health, labeling drunkenness as a disease. Apparently influenced by Rush's widely discussed belief, about 200 farmers in a
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...
community formed a
temperance
Temperance may refer to:
Moderation
*Temperance movement, movement to reduce the amount of alcohol consumed
*Temperance (virtue), habitual moderation in the indulgence of a natural appetite or passion
Culture
*Temperance (group), Canadian danc ...
association in 1789. Similar associations were formed in
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
in 1800 and
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
in 1808.
[Blocker, ''American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform'', p. 16.] Within a decade, other
temperance
Temperance may refer to:
Moderation
*Temperance movement, movement to reduce the amount of alcohol consumed
*Temperance (virtue), habitual moderation in the indulgence of a natural appetite or passion
Culture
*Temperance (group), Canadian danc ...
groups had formed in eight states, some of them being statewide organizations. The words of Rush and other early temperance reformers served to dichotomize the use of alcohol for men and women. While men enjoyed drinking and often considered it vital to their health, women who began to embrace the ideology of "true motherhood" refrained from the consumption of alcohol. Middle-class women, who were considered the moral authorities of their households, consequently rejected the drinking of alcohol, which they believed to be a threat to the home.
In 1830, on average, Americans consumed 1.7 bottles of
hard liquor
Liquor (or a spirit) is an alcoholic drink produced by distillation of grains, fruits, vegetables, or sugar, that have already gone through alcoholic fermentation. Other terms for liquor include: spirit drink, distilled beverage or hard l ...
per week, three times the amount consumed in 2010.
Development of the prohibition movement
![WeinWeibUGesang](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/WeinWeibUGesang.jpg)
The
American Temperance Society
The American Temperance Society (ATS), also known as the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance, was a society established on February 13, 1826, in Boston, Massachusetts. Within five years there were 2,220 local chapters in the U.S. wit ...
(ATS), formed in 1826, helped initiate the first temperance movement and served as a foundation for many later groups. By 1835 the ATS had reached 1.5 million members, with
women
A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or Adolescence, adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female hum ...
constituting 35% to 60% of its chapters.
The Prohibition movement, also known as the dry crusade, continued in the 1840s, spearheaded by
pietistic religious denominations, especially the
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...
s. The late 19th century saw the
temperance movement
The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emph ...
broaden its focus from abstinence to include all behavior and institutions related to alcohol consumption. Preachers such as
Reverend Mark A. Matthews linked liquor-dispensing saloons with political corruption.
Some successes for the movement were achieved in the 1850s, including the
Maine law
The Maine Law (or "Maine Liquor Law"), passed on June 2, 1851 in Maine, was the first statutory implementation of the developing temperance movement in the United States.
History
Temperance activist Neal Dow helped craft the Maine liquor law whil ...
, adopted in 1851, which banned the manufacture and sale of liquor. Before its repeal in 1856, 12 states followed the example set by Maine in total prohibition. The temperance movement lost strength and was marginalized during the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
(1861–1865). Following the war, social moralists turned to other issues, such as
Mormon polygamy
Polygamy (called plural marriage by Latter-day Saints in the 19th century or the Principle by modern fundamentalist practitioners of polygamy) was practiced by leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) for more tha ...
and the
temperance movement
The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emph ...
.
The dry crusade was revived by the national
Prohibition Party
The Prohibition Party (PRO) is a political party in the United States known for its historic opposition to the sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages and as an integral part of the temperance movement. It is the oldest existing third party ...
, founded in 1869, and the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization, originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program th ...
(WCTU), founded in 1873. The WCTU advocated the prohibition of alcohol as a method for preventing, through education, abuse from alcoholic husbands. WCTU members believed that if their organization could reach children with its message, it could create a dry sentiment leading to prohibition.
Frances Willard
Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard (September 28, 1839 – February 17, 1898) was an American educator, temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Willard became the national president of Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1879 an ...
, the second president of the WCTU, held that the aims of the organization were to create a "union of women from all denominations, for the purpose of educating the young, forming a better public sentiment, reforming the drinking classes, transforming by the power of Divine grace those who are enslaved by alcohol, and removing the
dram-shop from our streets by law". While still denied universal voting privileges, women in the WCTU followed Frances Willard's "Do Everything" doctrine and used temperance as a method of entering into politics and furthering other progressive issues such as prison reform and
labor laws
Labour laws (also known as labor laws or employment laws) are those that mediate the relationship between workers, employing entities, trade unions, and the government. Collective labour law relates to the tripartite relationship between employee, ...
.
![Woman's Christian Temperance Union Cartoon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Woman%27s_Christian_Temperance_Union_Cartoon.jpg)
In 1881
Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...
became the first state to outlaw alcoholic beverages in its
Constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When ...
. Arrested over 30 times and fined and jailed on multiple occasions, prohibition activist
Carrie Nation
Caroline Amelia Nation (November 25, 1846June 9, 1911), often referred to by Carrie, Carry Nation, Carrie A. Nation, or Hatchet Granny, was a radical member of the temperance movement, which opposed alcohol before the advent of Prohibition. Nat ...
attempted to enforce the state's ban on alcohol consumption. She walked into saloons, scolding customers, and used her hatchet to destroy bottles of liquor. Nation recruited ladies into the Carrie Nation Prohibition Group, which she also led. While Nation's vigilante techniques were rare, other activists enforced the dry cause by entering saloons, singing, praying, and urging saloonkeepers to stop selling alcohol. Other
dry state
A dry state was a state in the United States in which the manufacture, distribution, importation, and sale of alcoholic beverages was prohibited or tightly restricted. Some states, such as North Dakota, entered the United States as dry states, and ...
s, especially those in the
South
South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
, enacted prohibition legislation, as did individual counties within a state.
Court cases also debated the subject of prohibition. While some cases ruled in opposition, the general tendency was toward support. In ''
Mugler v. Kansas
''Mugler v. Kansas'', 123 U.S. 623 (1887), was an important United States Supreme Court case in which the 7–1 opinion of Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan and the lone partial dissent by Associate Justice Stephen Johnson Field laid the foun ...
'' (1887), Justice Harlan commented: "We cannot shut out of view the fact, within the knowledge of all, that the public health, the public morals, and the public safety, may be endangered by the general use of intoxicating drinks; nor the fact established by statistics accessible to every one, that the idleness, disorder, pauperism and crime existing in the country, are, in some degree...traceable to this evil."
In support of prohibition, ''Crowley v. Christensen'' (1890), remarked: "The statistics of every state show a greater amount of crime and misery attributable to the use of ardent spirits obtained at these retail liquor saloons than to any other source."
The proliferation of neighborhood saloons in the post-Civil War era became a phenomenon of an increasingly industrialized, urban workforce. Workingmen's bars were popular social gathering places from the workplace and home life. The brewing industry was actively involved in establishing saloons as a lucrative consumer base in their business chain. Saloons were more often than not linked to a specific brewery, where the saloonkeeper's operation was financed by a brewer and contractually obligated to sell the brewer's product to the exclusion of competing brands. A saloon's business model often included the offer of a
free lunch
A free lunch is the providing of a meal at no cost, usually as a sales enticement to attract customers and increase revenues from other business. It was once a common tradition in saloons and taverns in many places in the United States, with the ...
, where the bill of fare commonly consisted of heavily salted food meant to induce thirst and the purchase of drink. During the
Progressive Era
The Progressive Era (late 1890s – late 1910s) was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States focused on defeating corruption, monopoly, waste and inefficiency. The main themes ended during Am ...
(1890–1920), hostility toward saloons and their political influence became widespread, with the
Anti-Saloon League
The Anti-Saloon League (now known as the ''American Council on Addiction and Alcohol Problems'') is an organization of the temperance movement that lobbied for prohibition in the United States in the early 20th century.
Founded in 1893 in Oberl ...
superseding the Prohibition Party and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union as the most influential advocate of prohibition, after these latter two groups expanded their efforts to support other social reform issues, such as
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
, onto their prohibition platform.
Prohibition was an important force in state and local politics from the 1840s through the 1930s. Numerous historical studies demonstrated that the political forces involved were ethnoreligious. Prohibition was supported by the dries, primarily
pietistic Protestant denominations that included
Methodists,
Northern Baptist
The American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA) is a mainline/evangelical Baptist Christian denomination within the United States. The denomination maintains headquarters in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The organization is usually considered mainli ...
s,
Southern Baptists
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptists, Baptist denomination, and the Protestantism in the United States, largest Protestantism, Protestant and Christia ...
,
New School Presbyterians
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
,
Disciples of Christ
The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th ...
,
Congregationalists
Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...
,
Quakers
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...
, and Scandinavian
Lutherans
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched ...
, but also included the
Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America
The Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America was a Roman Catholic temperance organization active in the 19th and 20th centuries. The work of Father Mathew in promoting temperance across the U.S. led to the establishment of numerous separate and i ...
and, to a certain extent, the
Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...
. These religious groups identified saloons as politically corrupt and drinking as a personal sin. Other active organizations included the Women's Church Federation, the Women's Temperance Crusade, and the Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction. They were opposed by the wets, primarily liturgical
Protestants
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
(
Episcopalians
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
and German Lutherans) and
Roman Catholics
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, who denounced the idea that the government should define morality. Even in the wet stronghold of New York City there was an active prohibition movement, led by Norwegian church groups and
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...
labor activists who believed that prohibition would benefit workers, especially African Americans. Tea merchants and soda fountain manufacturers generally supported prohibition, believing a ban on alcohol would increase sales of their products. A particularly effective operator on the political front was
Wayne Wheeler
Wayne Bidwell Wheeler (November 10, 1869 – September 5, 1927) was an American attorney and longtime leader of the Anti-Saloon League. The leading advocate of the prohibitionist movement in the late 1800s and early 1900s, he played a major ...
of the
Anti-Saloon League
The Anti-Saloon League (now known as the ''American Council on Addiction and Alcohol Problems'') is an organization of the temperance movement that lobbied for prohibition in the United States in the early 20th century.
Founded in 1893 in Oberl ...
, who made Prohibition a
wedge issue
A wedge issue is a political or social issue, often of a controversial or divisive nature, which splits apart a demographic or population group. Wedge issues can be advertised or publicly aired in an attempt to strengthen the unity of a populatio ...
and succeeded in getting many pro-prohibition candidates elected. Coming from Ohio, his deep resentment for alcohol started at a young age. He was injured on a farm by a worker who had been drunk. This event transformed Wheeler. Starting low in the ranks, he quickly moved up due to his deep-rooted hatred of alcohol. He later realized to further the movement he would need more public approval, and fast. This was the start of his policy called 'wheelerism' where he used the media to make it seem like the general public was "in on" on a specific issue. Wheeler became known as the "dry boss" because of his influence and power.
![Indiana Goes Dry 1917](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Indiana_Goes_Dry_1917.jpg)
Prohibition represented a conflict between urban and rural values emerging in the United States. Given the mass influx of migrants to the urban centers of the United States, many individuals within the prohibition movement associated the crime and morally corrupt behavior of American cities with their large, immigrant populations. Saloons frequented by immigrants in these cities were often frequented by politicians who wanted to obtain the immigrants' votes in exchange for favors such as job offers, legal assistance, and food baskets. Thus, saloons were seen as a breeding ground for
political corruption
Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials or their network contacts for illegitimate private gain.
Forms of corruption vary, but can include bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, in ...
.
Most economists during the early 20th century were in favor of the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition).
[Coats, A. W. 1987. "Simon Newton Patten" in ''The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', edited by John Eatwell, Murray Milgate, and Peter Newman, 3: 818–819. London: Macmillan.] Simon Patten
Simon Nelson Patten (May 1, 1852 – July 24, 1922) was an economist and the chair of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Patten was one of the first economists to posit a shift from an 'economics of scarcity' to ...
, one of the leading advocates for prohibition, predicted that prohibition would eventually happen in the United States for competitive and evolutionary reasons.
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
economics professor
Irving Fisher
Irving Fisher (February 27, 1867 – April 29, 1947) was an American economist, statistician, inventor, eugenicist and progressive social campaigner. He was one of the earliest American neoclassical economists, though his later work on debt def ...
, who was a dry, wrote extensively about prohibition, including a paper that made an economic case for prohibition.
[Fisher, Irving, et al. 1927. "The Economics of Prohibition". ''American Economic Review: Supplement 17'' (March): 5–10.] Fisher is credited with supplying the criteria against which future prohibitions, such as against
marijuana
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various tra ...
, could be measured, in terms of crime, health, and productivity. For example, "
Blue Monday" referred to the
hangover
A hangover is the experience of various unpleasant physiological and psychological effects usually following the consumption of alcohol, such as wine, beer, and liquor. Hangovers can last for several hours or for more than 24 hours. Typical sympto ...
workers experienced after a weekend of
binge drinking
Binge drinking, or heavy episodic drinking, is drinking alcoholic beverages with an intention of becoming intoxicated by heavy consumption of alcohol over a short period of time, but definitions ( see below) vary considerably.
Binge drinking ...
, resulting in Mondays being a wasted productive day.
[Feldman, Herman. 1930. ''Prohibition: Its Economic and Industrial Aspects'', pp. 240–241, New York: Appleton.] But new research has discredited Fisher's research, which was based on uncontrolled experiments; regardless, his $6 billion figure for the annual gains of Prohibition to the United States continues to be cited.
In a backlash to the emerging reality of a changing American demographic, many prohibitionists subscribed to the doctrine of
nativism, in which they endorsed the notion that the success of America was a result of its white Anglo-Saxon ancestry. This belief fostered distrust of immigrant communities that fostered saloons and incorporated drinking in their popular culture.
Two other amendments to the Constitution were championed by dry crusaders to help their cause. One was granted in the
Sixteenth Amendment (1913), which replaced alcohol taxes that funded the federal government with a federal income tax.
The other was women's suffrage, which was granted after the passage of the
Nineteenth Amendment in 1920; since women tended to support prohibition, temperance organizations tended to support women's suffrage.
In the
presidential election of 1916, the Democratic incumbent,
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
, and the Republican candidate,
Charles Evans Hughes
Charles Evans Hughes Sr. (April 11, 1862 – August 27, 1948) was an American statesman, politician and jurist who served as the 11th Chief Justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941. A member of the Republican Party, he previously was the ...
, ignored the prohibition issue, as did both parties' political platforms. Democrats and Republicans had strong wet and dry factions, and the election was expected to be close, with neither candidate wanting to alienate any part of his political base.
When the 65th Congress convened in March 1917, the dries outnumbered the wets by 140 to 64 in the Democratic Party and 138 to 62 among Republicans. With America's declaration of war against Germany in April,
German American
German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unite ...
s, a major force against prohibition, were sidelined and their protests subsequently ignored. In addition, a new justification for prohibition arose: prohibiting the production of alcoholic beverages would allow more resources—especially grain that would otherwise be used to make alcohol—to be devoted to the war effort. While wartime prohibition was a spark for the movement, World War I ended before nationwide Prohibition was enacted.
A resolution calling for a
Constitutional amendment
A constitutional amendment is a modification of the constitution of a polity, organization or other type of entity. Amendments are often interwoven into the relevant sections of an existing constitution, directly altering the text. Conversely, t ...
to accomplish nationwide Prohibition was introduced in Congress and passed by both houses in December 1917. By January 16, 1919, the Amendment had been ratified by 36 of the 48 states, making it law. Eventually, only two states—
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...
and
Rhode Island
Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...
—opted out of ratifying it. On October 28, 1919, Congress passed enabling legislation, known as the
Volstead Act
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was an act of the 66th United States Congress, designed to carry out the intent of the 18th Amendment (ratified January 1919), which established the prohibition of alcoholic d ...
, to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment when it went into effect in 1920.
Start of national prohibition (January 1920)
![19190117 Prohibition - Eighteenth Amendment - The New York Times](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/19190117_Prohibition_-_Eighteenth_Amendment_-_The_New_York_Times.jpg)
Prohibition began on January 17, 1920, when the Volstead Act went into effect. A total of 1,520 Federal Prohibition agents (police) were tasked with enforcement.
Supporters of the Amendment soon became confident that it would not be repealed. One of its creators, Senator
Morris Sheppard
John Morris Sheppard (May 28, 1875April 9, 1941) was a Democratic United States Congressman and United States Senator from Texas. He authored the Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition) and introduced it in the Senate, and is referred to as "the fa ...
, joked that "there is as much chance of repealing the Eighteenth Amendment as there is for a humming-bird to fly to the planet Mars with the
Washington Monument
The Washington Monument is an obelisk shaped building within the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to commemorate George Washington, once commander-in-chief of the Continental Army (1775–1784) in the American Revolutionary War and the ...
tied to its tail."
At the same time, songs emerged decrying the act. After
Edward, Prince of Wales, returned to the United Kingdom following his tour of Canada in 1919, he recounted to his father, King
George V
George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until Death and state funeral of George V, his death in 1936.
Born duri ...
, a ditty he had heard at a border town:
Prohibition became highly controversial among medical professionals because alcohol was widely prescribed by the era's physicians for therapeutic purposes. Congress held hearings on the medicinal value of beer in 1921. Subsequently, physicians across the country lobbied for the repeal of Prohibition as it applied to medicinal liquors. From 1921 to 1930, doctors earned about $40 million for whiskey prescriptions.
![Prescriptions for Medicinal Spirits - 1922](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Prescriptions_for_Medicinal_Spirits_-_1922.jpg)
While the manufacture, importation, sale, and transport of alcohol was illegal in the United States, Section 29 of the Volstead Act allowed wine and cider to be made from fruit at home, but not beer. Up to 200 gallons of wine and
cider
Cider ( ) is an alcoholic beverage made from the fermented juice of apples. Cider is widely available in the United Kingdom (particularly in the West Country) and the Republic of Ireland. The UK has the world's highest per capita consumption, ...
per year could be made, and some
vineyard
A vineyard (; also ) is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice. The science, practice and study of vineyard production is known as viticulture. Vineyards ...
s grew grapes for home use. The Act did not prohibit the consumption of alcohol. Many people stockpiled wines and liquors for their personal use in the latter part of 1919 before sales of alcoholic beverages became illegal in January 1920.
Since alcohol was legal in neighboring countries, distilleries and breweries in Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean flourished as their products were either consumed by visiting Americans or smuggled into the United States illegally. The
Detroit River
The Detroit River flows west and south for from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie as a strait in the Great Lakes system. The river divides the metropolitan areas of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, Windsor, Ontario—an area collectively refe ...
, which forms part of the U.S. border with Canada, was notoriously difficult to control, especially
rum-running in Windsor
Rum-running in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, was a major activity in the early part of the 20th century. In 1916, the State of Michigan, in the United States, banned the sale of alcohol, three years before prohibition became the national law in 1919 ...
, Canada. When the U.S. government complained to the British that American law was being undermined by officials in
Nassau
Nassau may refer to:
Places Bahamas
*Nassau, Bahamas, capital city of the Bahamas, on the island of New Providence
Canada
*Nassau District, renamed Home District, regional division in Upper Canada from 1788 to 1792
*Nassau Street (Winnipeg), ...
,
Bahamas
The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...
, the head of the
British Colonial Office
The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created to deal with the colonial affairs of British North America but required also to oversee the increasing number of col ...
refused to intervene.
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
believed that Prohibition was "an affront to the whole history of mankind".
Three federal agencies were assigned the task of enforcing the Volstead Act: the
U.S. Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mul ...
Office of Law Enforcement, the
U.S. Treasury
The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and t ...
's IRS Bureau of Prohibition, and the
U.S. Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...
Bureau of Prohibition.
Bootlegging and hoarding old supplies
![Policeman and wrecked car and cases of moonshine](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Policeman_and_wrecked_car_and_cases_of_moonshine.jpg)
As early as 1925, journalist
H. L. Mencken
Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, ...
believed that Prohibition was not working. Historian
David Oshinsky
David M. Oshinsky (born 1944) is an American historian. He is the director of the Division of Medical Humanities at NYU School of Medicine and a professor in the Department of History at New York University.
Background
Oshinsky graduated from C ...
, summarizing the work of
Daniel Okrent
Daniel Okrent (born April 2, 1948) is an American writer and editing, editor. He is best known for having served as the first public editor of ''The New York Times'' newspaper, inventing Rotisserie League Baseball, and for writing several books ( ...
, wrote that "Prohibition worked best when directed at its primary target: the working-class poor." Historian
Lizabeth Cohen
Lizabeth Cohen is the current Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies in the History Department at Harvard University, as well as a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor. From 2011-2018 she served as the Dean of Harvard's ...
writes: "A rich family could have a cellar-full of liquor and get by, it seemed, but if a poor family had one bottle of home-brew, there would be trouble."
Working-class people were inflamed by the fact that their employers could dip into a private cache while they, the employees, could not. Within a week after Prohibition went into effect, small portable stills were on sale throughout the country.
Before the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect in January 1920, many of the upper classes stockpiled alcohol for legal home consumption after Prohibition began. They bought the inventories of liquor retailers and wholesalers, emptying out their warehouses, saloons, and club storerooms. President
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
moved his own supply of alcoholic beverages to his Washington residence after his term of office ended. His successor,
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents. A ...
, relocated his own large supply into the White House.
![5 Prohibition Disposal(9) (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/5_Prohibition_Disposal%289%29_%28cropped%29.jpg)
After the Eighteenth Amendment became law,
bootlegging became widespread. In the first six months of 1920, the federal government opened 7,291 cases for Volstead Act violations. In the first complete fiscal year of 1921, the number of cases violating the Volstead Act jumped to 29,114 violations and would rise dramatically over the next thirteen years.
Grape juice was not restricted by Prohibition, even though if it was allowed to sit for sixty days it would ferment and turn to wine with a twelve percent alcohol content. Many people took advantage of this as grape juice output quadrupled during the Prohibition era.
Vine-Glo
Vine-Glo was a grape concentrate brick product sold in the United States during Prohibition by Fruit Industries Ltd, a front for the California Vineyardist Association (CVA), from 1929. It was sold as a grape concentrate to make grape juice from ...
was sold for this purpose and included a specific warning telling people how to make wine from it.
To prevent bootleggers from using industrial
ethyl alcohol
Ethanol (abbr. EtOH; also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound. It is an alcohol with the chemical formula . Its formula can be also written as or (an ethyl group linked to a hyd ...
to produce illegal beverages, the federal government ordered the
denaturation of industrial alcohols, meaning they must include additives to make them unpalatable or poisonous. In response, bootleggers hired chemists who successfully removed the additives from the alcohol to make it drinkable. As a response, the Treasury Department required manufacturers to add more deadly poisons, including the particularly deadly combination known as
methyl alcohol
Methanol (also called methyl alcohol and wood spirit, amongst other names) is an organic chemical and the simplest aliphatic alcohol, with the formula C H3 O H (a methyl group linked to a hydroxyl group, often abbreviated as MeOH). It is a lig ...
: 4 parts methanol, 2.25 parts
pyridine
Pyridine is a basic heterocyclic organic compound with the chemical formula . It is structurally related to benzene, with one methine group replaced by a nitrogen atom. It is a highly flammable, weakly alkaline, water-miscible liquid with a d ...
base, and 0.5 parts
benzene
Benzene is an organic chemical compound with the molecular formula C6H6. The benzene molecule is composed of six carbon atoms joined in a planar ring with one hydrogen atom attached to each. Because it contains only carbon and hydrogen atoms, ...
per 100 parts ethyl alcohol. New York City medical examiners prominently opposed these policies because of the danger to human life. As many as 10,000 people died from drinking denatured alcohol before Prohibition ended.
New York City medical examiner
Charles Norris believed the government took responsibility for murder when they knew the poison was not deterring consumption and they continued to poison industrial alcohol (which would be used in drinking alcohol) anyway. Norris remarked: "The government knows it is not stopping drinking by putting poison in alcohol ...
t it continues its poisoning processes, heedless of the fact that people determined to drink are daily absorbing that poison. Knowing this to be true, the United States government must be charged with the moral responsibility for the deaths that poisoned liquor causes, although it cannot be held legally responsible."
[
Another lethal substance that was often substituted for alcohol was ]Sterno
Sterno is a brand of jellied, denatured alcohol sold in a can and meant to be burned directly in its can. Its primary uses are in food service for buffet heating, in the home for fondue, and as a chafing fuel for heating chafing dishes. Other ...
, a fuel commonly known as "canned heat." Forcing the substance through a makeshift filter, such as a handkerchief, created a rough liquor substitute; however, the result was poisonous, though not often lethal.
Making alcohol at home was common among some families with wet sympathies during Prohibition. Stores sold grape concentrate with warning labels that listed the steps that should be avoided to prevent the juice from fermenting into wine. Some drugstores sold "medical wine" with around a 22% alcohol content. In order to justify the sale, the wine was given a medicinal taste. Home-distilled hard liquor was called bathtub gin
Bathtub gin refers to any style of homemade spirit made in amateur conditions. The term first appeared in 1920, in the Prohibition, prohibition-era United States, in reference to the poor-quality alcohol that was being made.
As gin was the predom ...
in northern cities, and moonshine
Moonshine is high-proof liquor that is usually produced illegally. The name was derived from a tradition of creating the alcohol during the nighttime, thereby avoiding detection. In the first decades of the 21st century, commercial dist ...
in rural areas of Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
, Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...
, North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
, South Carolina
)''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no)
, anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind"
, Former = Province of South Carolina
, seat = Columbia
, LargestCity = Charleston
, LargestMetro = ...
, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, West Virginia and Tennessee. Homebrewing good hard liquor was easier than brewing good beer. Since selling privately distilled alcohol was illegal and bypassed government taxation, law enforcement officers relentlessly pursued manufacturers. In response, bootleggers modified their cars and trucks by enhancing the engines and suspensions to make faster vehicles that, they assumed, would improve their chances of outrunning and escaping agents of the Bureau of Prohibition, commonly called "revenue agents" or "revenuers". These cars became known as "moonshine runners" or shine runners". Shops with wet sympathies were also known to participate in the underground liquor market, by loading their stocks with ingredients for liquors, including bénédictine, vermouth, scotch mash, and even ethyl alcohol
Ethanol (abbr. EtOH; also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound. It is an alcohol with the chemical formula . Its formula can be also written as or (an ethyl group linked to a hyd ...
; anyone could purchase these ingredients legally.
In October 1930, just two weeks before the congressional midterm elections, bootlegger George Cassiday—"the man in the green hat"—came forward and told members of Congress how he had bootlegged for ten years. One of the few bootleggers ever to tell his story, Cassiday wrote five front-page articles for ''The Washington Post'', in which he estimated that 80% of congressmen and senators drank. The Democrats in the North were mostly wets, and in the 1932 United States presidential election, 1932 election, they made major gains. The wets argued that Prohibition was not stopping crime, and was actually causing the creation of large-scale, well-funded, and well-armed criminal syndicates. As Prohibition became increasingly unpopular, especially in urban areas, its repeal was eagerly anticipated. Wets had the organization and the initiative. They pushed the argument that states and localities needed the tax money. President Herbert Hoover proposed a new constitutional amendment that was vague on particulars and satisfied neither side. Franklin Roosevelt's Democratic platform promised repeal of the 18th Amendment.
When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, many bootleggers and suppliers with wet sympathies simply moved into the legitimate liquor business. Some crime syndicates moved their efforts into expanding their protection rackets to cover legal liquor sales and other business areas.
Medical liquor
Doctors were able to prescribe medicinal alcohol for their patients. After just six months of prohibition, over 15,000 doctors and 57,000 pharmacists received licenses to prescribe or sell medicinal alcohol. According to ''Gastro Obscura'',
Enforcement
Once Prohibition came into effect, the majority of U.S. citizens obeyed it.
Some states like Maryland and New York refused Prohibition. Enforcement of the law under the Eighteenth Amendment lacked a centralized authority. Clergymen were sometimes called upon to form vigilante groups to assist in the enforcement of Prohibition. Furthermore, American geography contributed to the difficulties in enforcing Prohibition. The varied terrain of valleys, mountains, lakes, and swamps, as well as the extensive seaways, ports, and borders which the United States shared with Canada and Mexico made it exceedingly difficult for Prohibition agents to stop bootleggers given their lack of resources. Ultimately it was recognized with its repeal that the means by which the law was to be enforced were not pragmatic, and in many cases, the legislature did not match the general public opinion.
In Cicero, Illinois, Cicero, Illinois, (a suburb of Chicago) the prevalence of ethnic communities who had wet sympathies allowed prominent gang leader Al Capone to operate despite the presence of police.
The Ku Klux Klan talked a great deal about denouncing bootleggers and threatened private vigilante action against known offenders. Despite its large membership in the mid-1920s, it was poorly organized and seldom had an impact. Indeed, the KKK after 1925 helped disparage any enforcement of Prohibition.
Prohibition was a major blow to the alcoholic beverage industry and its repeal was a step toward the amelioration of one sector of the economy. An example of this is the case of St. Louis, one of the most important alcohol producers before prohibition started, which was ready to resume its position in the industry as soon as possible. Its major brewery had "50,000 barrels" of beer ready for distribution from March 22, 1933, and was the first alcohol producer to resupply the market; others soon followed. After repeal, stores obtained liquor licenses and restocked for business. After beer production resumed, thousands of workers found jobs in the industry again.
Prohibition created a black market that competed with the formal economy, which came under pressure when the Great Depression struck in 1929. State governments of the United States, State governments urgently needed the tax revenue alcohol sales had generated. Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932 based in part on his promise to end prohibition, which influenced his support for ratifying the Twenty-first Amendment to repeal Prohibition.
Repeal
Naval Captain William H. Stayton was a prominent figure in the anti-prohibition fight, founding the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment in 1918. The AAPA was the largest of the nearly forty organizations that fought to end Prohibition. Economic urgency played a large part in accelerating the advocacy for repeal. The number of conservatives who pushed for prohibition in the beginning decreased. Many farmers who fought for prohibition now fought for repeal because of the negative effects it had on the agriculture business.[Gitlin, Marty. The Prohibition Era. Edina, MN: ABDO Publishing, 2011.] Prior to the 1920 implementation of the Volstead Act, approximately 14% of federal, state, and local tax revenues were derived from alcohol commerce. When the Great Depression hit and tax revenues plunged, the governments needed this revenue stream. Millions could be made by taxing beer. There was controversy on whether the repeal should be a state or nationwide decision. On March 22, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
signed an amendment to the Volstead Act, known as the Cullen–Harrison Act
The Cullen–Harrison Act, named for its sponsors, Senator Pat Harrison and Representative Thomas H. Cullen, enacted by the United States Congress on March 21, 1933, and signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt the following day, legalized the ...
, allowing the manufacture and sale of 3.2% beer (3.2% alcohol by weight, approximately 4% alcohol by volume) and light wines. The Volstead Act previously defined an intoxicating beverage as one with greater than 0.5% alcohol. Upon signing the Cullen–Harrison Act, Roosevelt remarked: "I think this would be a good time for a beer." According to a 2017 study in the journal ''Public Choice (journal), Public Choice'', representatives from traditional beer-producing states, as well as Democratic politicians, were most in favor of the bill, but politicians from many Southern states were most strongly opposed to the legislation.
The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed on December 5, 1933, with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution, Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Despite the efforts of Heber J. Grant, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the 21 Utah members of the constitutional convention voted unanimously on that day to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment, making Utah the 36th state to do so, and putting the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment over the top in needed voting.
In the late 1930s, after its repeal, two fifths of Americans wished to reinstate national Prohibition.
Post-repeal
The Twenty-first Amendment does not prevent states from restricting or banning alcohol; instead, it prohibits the "transportation or importation" of alcohol "into any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States" "in violation of the laws thereof", thus allowing state and local control of alcohol. There are still numerous dry county, dry counties and municipalities in the United States that restrict or prohibit liquor sales.
Additionally, many tribal governments prohibit alcohol on Indian reservations. Federal law also prohibits alcohol on Indian reservations, although this law is currently only enforced when there is a concomitant violation of local tribal liquor laws.
After its repeal, some former supporters openly admitted failure. For example, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., explained his view in a 1932 letter:
It is not clear whether Prohibition reduced per-capita consumption of alcohol. Some historians claim that alcohol consumption in the United States did not exceed pre-Prohibition levels until the 1960s; others claim that alcohol consumption reached the pre-Prohibition levels several years after its enactment, and has continued to rise. Cirrhosis of the liver, a symptom of alcoholism, declined nearly two-thirds during Prohibition. In the decades after Prohibition, any stigma that had been associated with alcohol consumption was erased; according to a Gallup Poll survey conducted almost every year since 1939, two-thirds of American adults age 18 and older drink alcohol.
Shortly after World War II, a national opinion survey found that "About one-third of the people of the United States favor national prohibition." Upon repeal of national prohibition, 18 states continued prohibition at the state level. The last state, Mississippi, finally ended it in 1966. Almost two-thirds of all states adopted some form of local option which enabled residents in political subdivisions to vote for or against local prohibition. Therefore, despite the repeal of prohibition at the national level, 38% of the nation's population lived in areas with state or local prohibition.
In 2014, a CNN nationwide poll found that 18% of Americans "believed that drinking should be illegal".
Christian views
Prohibition in the early to mid-20th century was mostly fueled by the Protestant denominations in the Southern United States, a region dominated by socially conservative evangelical Protestantism with a very high Christian church attendance. Generally, Evangelical Protestant denominations encouraged prohibition, while the Mainline Protestant denominations disapproved of its introduction. However, there were exceptions to this, such as the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (German Confessional Lutherans), which is typically considered to be in scope of evangelical Protestantism. Pietism, Pietistic churches in the United States (especially Baptist churches, Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and others in the evangelical tradition) sought to end drinking and the saloon culture during the Third Party System. Christian liturgy, Liturgical ("high") churches (Catholic Church, Roman Catholic, Episcopal Church (United States), Episcopal, German Lutheranism, Lutheran and others in the mainline tradition) opposed prohibition laws because they did not want the government to reduce the definition of morality to a narrow standard or to criminalize the common liturgical practice of using wine.
Christian revival, Revivalism during the Second Great Awakening and the Third Great Awakening in the mid-to-late 19th century set the stage for the bond between pietistic Protestantism and prohibition in the United States: "The greater prevalence of revival religion within a population, the greater support for the Prohibition parties within that population." Historian Nancy Koester argued that Prohibition was a "victory for progressives and social gospel activists battling poverty". Prohibition also united progressives and revivalists.
The temperance movement
The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emph ...
had popularized the belief that alcohol was the major cause of most personal and social problems and prohibition was seen as the solution to the nation's poverty, crime, violence, and other ills.
Upon ratification of the amendment, the Evangelism, evangelist Billy Sunday said that "The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs." Since alcohol was to be banned and since it was seen as the cause of most, if not all, crimes, some communities sold their jails.
Effects of prohibition
Alcohol consumption
According to a 2010 review of the academic research on Prohibition, "On balance, Prohibition probably reduced per capita alcohol use and alcohol-related harm, but these benefits eroded over time as an organized black market developed and public support for [national prohibition] declined." One study reviewing city-level drunkenness arrests concluded that prohibition had an immediate effect, but no long-term effect. And, yet another study examining "mortality, mental health and crime statistics" found that alcohol consumption fell, at first, to approximately 30 percent of its pre-Prohibition level; but, over the next several years, increased to about 60–70 percent of its pre-prohibition level. The Eighteenth Amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale and transportation of intoxicating beverages, however, it did not outlaw the possession or consumption of alcohol in the United States, which would allow legal loopholes for consumers possessing alcohol.
Health
Research indicates that rates of cirrhosis of the liver declined significantly during Prohibition and increased after Prohibition's repeal. According to the historian Jack S. Blocker, Jr., "death rates from cirrhosis and alcoholism, alcoholic psychosis hospital admissions, and drunkenness arrests all declined steeply during the latter years of the 1910s, when both the cultural and the legal climate were increasingly inhospitable to drink, and in the early years after National Prohibition went into effect." Studies examining the rates of cirrhosis deaths as a proxy for alcohol consumption estimated a decrease in consumption of 10–20%. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism studies show clear epidemiological evidence that "overall cirrhosis mortality rates declined precipitously with the introduction of Prohibition," despite widespread flouting of the law.
Crime
It is difficult to draw conclusions about Prohibition's impact on crime at the national level, as there were no uniform national statistics gathered about crime prior to 1930. It has been argued that organized crime received a major boost from Prohibition. For example, one study found that organized crime in Chicago tripled during Prohibition. American Mafia, Mafia groups and other criminal organizations and gangs had mostly limited their activities to prostitution, Illegal gambling, gambling, and theft until 1920, when organized Rum-running, "rum-running" or bootlegging emerged in response to Prohibition. A profitable, often violent, black market for alcohol flourished. Prohibition provided a financial basis for organized crime to flourish. In one study of more than 30 major U.S. cities during the Prohibition years of 1920 and 1921, the number of crimes increased by 24%. Additionally, theft and burglaries increased by 9%, homicides by 13%, assaults and battery rose by 13%, drug addiction by 45%, and police department costs rose by 11.4%. This was largely the result of "black-market violence" and the diversion of law enforcement resources elsewhere. Despite the Prohibition movement's hope that outlawing alcohol would reduce crime, the reality was that the Volstead Act
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was an act of the 66th United States Congress, designed to carry out the intent of the 18th Amendment (ratified January 1919), which established the prohibition of alcoholic d ...
led to higher crime rates than were experienced prior to Prohibition and the establishment of a black market dominated by criminal organizations.
A 2016 NBER paper showed that South Carolina counties that enacted and enforced prohibition had homicide rates increase by about 30 to 60 percent relative to counties that did not enforce prohibition. A 2009 study found an increase in homicides in Chicago during Prohibition. However, some scholars have attributed the crime during the Prohibition era to increased urbanization, rather than to the criminalization of alcohol use. In some cities, such as New York City, crime rates decreased during the Prohibition era. Crime rates overall declined from the period of 1849 to 1951, making crime during the Prohibition period less likely to be attributed to the criminalization of alcohol alone.
Mark H. Moore states that contrary to popular opinion, "violent crime did not increase dramatically during Prohibition" and that organized crime "existed before and after" Prohibition. The historian Kenneth D. Rose corroborates historian John Burnham's assertion that during the 1920s "there is no firm evidence of this supposed upsurge in lawlessness" as "no statistics from this period dealing with crime are of any value whatsoever". California State University, Chico historian Kenneth D. Rose writes:
Along with other economic effects, the enactment and enforcement of Prohibition caused an increase in resource costs. During the 1920s the annual budget of the Bureau of Prohibition went from $4.4 million to $13.4 million. Additionally, the United States Coast Guard, U.S. Coast Guard spent an average of $13 million annually on enforcement of prohibition laws. These numbers do not take into account the costs to local and state governments.
Powers of the state
According to Harvard University historian Lisa McGirr, Prohibition led to an expansion in the powers of the federal state, as well as helped shape the penal state. According to academic Colin Agur, Prohibition specifically increased the usage of telephone wiretapping by federal agents for evidence collection.
Discrimination
According to Harvard University historian Lisa McGirr, Prohibition had a disproportionately adverse impact on African-Americans, immigrants and poor Whites, as law enforcement used alcohol prohibition against these communities.
Economy
A 2021 study in the ''Journal of Economic History'' found that counties that adopted Prohibition early subsequently had greater population growth and an increase in farm real estate values.
According to Washington State University, Prohibition had a negative impact on the American economy. Prohibition caused the loss of at least $226 million per annum in tax revenues on liquors alone; supporters of the prohibition expected an increase in the sales of non-alcoholic beverages to replace the money made from alcohol sales, but this did not happen. Furthermore, "Prohibition caused the shutdown of over 200 distilleries, a thousand breweries, and over 170,000 liquor stores". Finally, it is worth noting that "the amount of money used to enforce prohibition started at $6.3 million in 1921 and rose to $13.4 million in 1930, almost double the original amount".
A 2015 study estimated that the repeal of Prohibition had a net social benefit of "$432 million per annum in 1934–1937, about 0.33% of gross domestic product. Total benefits of $3.25 billion consist primarily of increased consumer and producer surplus, tax revenues, and reduced criminal violence costs."
When 3.2 percent alcohol beer was legalized in 1933, it created 81,000 jobs within a three-month span.
Other effects
During the Prohibition era, rates of absenteeism decreased from 10% to 3%. In Michigan, the Ford Motor Company documented "a decrease in absenteeism from 2,620 in April 1918 to 1,628 in May 1918."
As Western saloon, saloons died out, public drinking lost much of its macho connotation, resulting in increased social acceptance of women drinking in the semi-public environment of the Speakeasy, speakeasies. This new norm established women as a notable new target demographic for alcohol marketeers, who sought to expand their clientele. Women thus found their way into the bootlegging business, with some discovering that they could make a living by selling alcohol with a minimal likelihood of suspicion by law enforcement. Before prohibition, women who drank publicly in saloons or taverns, especially outside of urban centers like Chicago or New York, were seen as immoral or were likely to be prostitutes.
Heavy drinkers and alcoholics were among the most affected groups during Prohibition. Those who were determined to find liquor could still do so, but those who saw their drinking habits as destructive typically had difficulty in finding the help they sought. Self-help societies had withered away along with the alcohol industry. In 1935 a new self-help group called Alcoholics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) was founded.
Prohibition also had an effect on the Music of the United States, music industry in the United States, specifically with jazz. Speakeasy, Speakeasies became very popular, and the Great Depression, Great Depression's migratory effects led to the dispersal of jazz music, from New Orleans, Louisiana, New Orleans going north through Chicago, Illinois, Chicago and to New York. This led to the development of different styles in different cities. Due to its popularity in speakeasies and the emergence of advanced recording technology, jazz's popularity skyrocketed. It was also at the forefront of the minimal integration efforts going on at the time, as it united mostly black musicians with mostly white audiences.
Alcohol production
Making moonshine
Moonshine is high-proof liquor that is usually produced illegally. The name was derived from a tradition of creating the alcohol during the nighttime, thereby avoiding detection. In the first decades of the 21st century, commercial dist ...
was an industry in the American South before and after Prohibition. In the 1950s muscle cars became popular and various roads became known as "Thunder Road" for their use by moonshiners. A popular song was created and the legendary drivers, cars, and routes were depicted on film in ''Thunder Road (1958 film), Thunder Road''.
As a result of Prohibition, the advancements of industrialization within the alcoholic beverage industry were essentially reversed. Large-scale alcohol producers were shut down, for the most part, and some individual citizens took it upon themselves to produce alcohol illegally, essentially reversing the efficiency of mass-producing and retailing alcoholic beverages. Closing the country's manufacturing plants and taverns also resulted in an economic downturn for the industry. While the Eighteenth Amendment did not have this effect on the industry due to its failure to define an "intoxicating" beverage, the Volstead Act
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was an act of the 66th United States Congress, designed to carry out the intent of the 18th Amendment (ratified January 1919), which established the prohibition of alcoholic d ...
's definition of 0.5% or more alcohol by volume shut down the brewers, who expected to continue to produce beer of moderate strength.
In 1930 the Prohibition Commissioner estimated that in 1919, the year before the Volstead Act became law, the average drinking American spent $17 per year on alcoholic beverages. By 1930, because enforcement diminished the supply, spending had increased to $35 per year (there was no inflation in this period). The result was an illegal alcohol beverage industry that made an average of $3 billion per year in illegal untaxed income.
The Volstead Act specifically allowed individual farmers to make certain wines "on the legal fiction that it was a non-intoxicating fruit-juice for home consumption", and many did so. Enterprising grape farmers produced liquid and semi-solid grape concentrates, often called "wine bricks" or "wine blocks". This demand led California (wine), California grape growers to increase their land under cultivation by about 700% during the first five years of Prohibition. The grape concentrate was sold with a "warning": "After dissolving the brick in a gallon of water, do not place the liquid in a jug away in the cupboard for twenty days, because then it will turn into wine".
The Volstead Act allowed the sale of sacramental wine to priests and ministers and allowed rabbis to approve sales of kosher wine to individuals for Sabbath and holiday use at home. Among Jews, four rabbinical groups were approved, which led to some competition for membership, since the supervision of sacramental licenses could be used to secure donations to support a religious institution. There were known abuses in this system, with impostors or unauthorized agents using loopholes to purchase wine.
Prohibition had a notable effect on the alcohol brewing industry in the United States. Wine historians note that Prohibition destroyed what was a fledgling wine industry in the United States. Productive, wine-quality grapevines were replaced by lower-quality vines that grew thicker-skinned grapes, which could be more easily transported. Much of the institutional knowledge was also lost as winemakers either emigrated to other wine-producing countries or left the business altogether. Distilled spirits became more popular during Prohibition. Because their alcohol content was higher than that of fermented wine and beer, spirits were often diluted with non-alcoholic drinks.
See also
* Cultural and religious foundation
** Bootleggers and Baptists
** Christian views on alcohol
** Ethnocultural politics in the United States
** Moral panic
** Teetotalism
** Women's suffrage in the United States
* Controlled substances
** Beer in the United States
** Ethanol
** Moonshine
* Legal foundation
** Drug prohibition
** Dry county
** Dry state
** Webb-Kenyon Act
** Medicinal Liquor Prescriptions Act of 1933, Medicinal Liquor Prescriptions Act
** Legal drinking age
** Prohibition
** Prohibition in Canada
** Repeal of Prohibition
* Lawbreakers and illegal practices
** American gangsters during the 1920s
** Chicago Outfit
** Rum-running
** Organized crime
** The Purple Gang
* Places involved in smuggling
** Free State of Galveston
** Govenlock, Saskatchewan
** Whiskey Gap, Alberta
* Law-enforcement organizations
** Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith
** Untouchables (law enforcement), The Untouchables
** Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)
** Bureau of Prohibition
** United States Coast Guard
** United States Customs and Border Protection
** U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
* Similar policies and institutions
** War on Drugs
** Controlled Substances Act
** Drug Enforcement Administration
** Harrison Narcotics Act
** ONDCP
** OCDETF
Notes
References
*
*
* Haygood, Atticus G
Close the Saloons: A Plea for Prohibition
8th ed. Macon, GA: J.W. Burke, 1880.
* Hopkins, Richard J. "The Prohibition and Crime". ''The North American Review''. Volume: 222. Number: 828. September 1925. 40–44.
*
* Kingsdale, Jon M. "The 'Poor Man's Club': Social Functions of the Urban Working-Class Saloon," ''American Quarterly'' vol. 25 (October 1973): 472–489
in JSTOR
* Kyvig, David E. ''Law, Alcohol, and Order: Perspectives on National Prohibition'' Greenwood Press, 1985.
* Kyvig, David E. ''Repealing National Prohibition''. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979.
* Lender, Mark, ed. ''Dictionary of American Temperance Biography'' Greenwood Press, 1984.
* Lusk, Rufus S. "The Drinking Habit". ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science''. Volume: 163. Prohibition: A National Experiment. September 1932. 46–52.
* Jeffrey Miron, Miron, Jeffrey A. and Zwiebel, Jeffrey. "Alcohol Consumption During Prohibition". ''American Economic Review'' 81, no. 2 (1991): 242–247.
* Miron, Jeffrey
"Alcohol Prohibition"
EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. September 24, 2001.
* Moore, L.J. "Historical interpretation of the 1920s Klan: the traditional view and the popular revision" ''Journal of Social History'', 1990, ''24 (2)'', 341–358
in JSTOR
* Sellman, James Clyde. "Social Movements and the Symbolism of Public Demonstrations: The 1874 Women's Crusade and German Resistance in Richmond, Indiana" ''Journal of Social History''. Volume: 32. Issue: 3. 1999. pp 557+.
* Rumbarger, John J. ''Profits, Power, and Prohibition: Alcohol Reform and the Industrializing of America, 1800–1930'', State University of New York Press, 1989.
* Sinclair, Andrew. ''Prohibition: The Era of Excess'' 1962.
* Timberlake, James. ''Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900–1920'' Harvard University Press, 1963.
* Tracy, Sarah W. and Acker, Caroline J. ''Altering American Consciousness: The History of Alcohol and Drug Use in the United States, 1800–2000''. University of Massachusetts Press, 2004
* Walsh, Victor A. "'Drowning the Shamrock': Drink, Teetotalism and the Irish Catholics of Gilded-Age Pittsburgh," ''Journal of American Ethnic History'' vol. 10, no. 1–2 (Fall 1990–Winter 1991): 60–79.
* Welskopp, Thomas. "Bottom of the barrel: The US brewing industry and saloon culture before and during National Prohibition, 1900–1933". "Behemoth: A Journal on Civilisation". Volume: 6. Issue: 1. 2013. 27–54.
* Willing, Joseph K. "The Profession of Bootlegging". ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science''. Volume: 125. Modern Crime: Its Prevention and Punishment. May 1926. 40–48.
*
*
Further reading
* Behr, Edward (1996). ''Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America''. New York: Arcade Publishing. .
* Blumenthal, Karen (2011). ''Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition''. New York: Roaring Brook Press. .
* Burns, Eric (2003). ''The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol''. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. .
* Clark, Norman H. (1976). ''Deliver Us from Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition''. New York: W. W. Norton. .
* Dunn, John M. ''Prohibition''. Detroit: Lucent Books, 2010.
* Folsom, Burton W. "Tinkerers, Tipplers, and Traitors: Ethnicity and Democratic Reform in Nebraska During the Progressive Era." ''Pacific Historical Review'' (1981) 50#1 pp: 53–7
in JSTOR
* Kahn, Gordon, and Al Hirschfeld. (1932, rev. 2003). ''The Speakeasies of 1932''. New York: Glenn Young Books. .
*.
* Karson, Lawrence. ''American Smuggling as White Collar Crime.'' (New York: Routledge, 2014).
* Kavieff, Paul B. (2001). "The Violent Years: Prohibition and the Detroit Mobs". Fort Lee: Barricade Books Inc. .
* Kobler, John (1973). ''Ardent Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition''. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. .
*
* Lawson, Ellen NicKenzie (2013). ''Smugglers, Bootleggers, and Scofflaws: Prohibition and New York City''. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. .
* Lerner, Michael A. (2007). ''Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. .
* McGirr, Lisa (2015). ''The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State''. New York: W. W. Norton. .
*
* Meyer, Sabine N. (2015). ''We Are What We Drink: The Temperance Battle in Minnesota''. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. .
* Murdoch, Catherine Gilbert (1998). ''Domesticating Drink: Women, Men, and Alcohol in America, 1870–1940''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. .
* Okrent, Daniel (2010). ''Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition''. New York: Scribner. .
* Peck, Garrett (2011). ''Prohibition in Washington, D.C.: How Dry We Weren't''. Charleston, SC: The History Press. .
* Peck, Garrett (2009). ''The Prohibition Hangover: Alcohol in America from Demon Rum to Cult Cabernet''. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press. .
* Pegram, Thomas R. (1998). ''Battling Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800–1933''. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. .
* Waters, Harold (1971). ''Smugglers of Spirits: Prohibition and the Coast Guard Patrol''. New York: Hastings House. .
External links
The Effect of Alcohol Prohibition on Alcohol Consumption (PDF)
Hypertext History – U.S. Prohibition
– Alcohol and Drugs History Society
About.com: Prohibition (in the U.S.)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131229232307/http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html Policy Analysis – Alcohol Prohibition Was A Failure]
Prohibition in Appalachia: "Little Chicago" The Story of Johnson City, Tennessee
(by Harry Browne)
Historic Images of US Prohibition
Collection of newspaper articles during the Prohibition
Prohibition: How Dry We Ain't
– slideshow by ''Life magazine''
"Interview With Dr. James M. Doran".
''Popular Science Monthly'', November 1930, pp. 19–21, 146–147, interview with the Prohibition Commissioner 1930.
"How Are You Going to Wet Your Whistle?" as recorded by Billy Murray
* See more images by selecting the "Alcohol" subject [https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/browse-subject at the Persuasive Cartography, The PJ Mode Collection], Cornell University Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prohibition In The United States
Prohibition in the United States,
Progressive Era in the United States
Great Depression in the United States
Roaring Twenties
1920s in the United States
1930 in the United States
1931 in the United States
1932 in the United States
1933 in the United States
Articles containing video clips
1920 introductions
1933 endings