The Prohibition Era In American History

Explores the impact on American society and history of the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act, which prohibited any use of alcohol except for religious or medicinal purposes.

Discusses the prohibition era of early twentieth-century America, including temperance movements, the prohibition amendment, alcoholic beverage profiteers, and the repeal of prohibition.

Although Americans have always been a hard-drinking people, voters used the democratic process to ban alcohol from 1920 to 1933. This bizarre episode, which uniquely involved two constitutional amendments, has often been humorously recalled, frequently satirized, and usually condemned. Themore interesting questions, however, are how and why Prohibition came about, how Prohibition worked (and failed to work), and how Prohibition gave way to strict governmental regulation of alcohol. This book answers these questions, presenting a brief and elegant overview of the Prohibition era.During the 1920s alcohol prices rose, quality declined, and consumption dropped. Since beer was too bulky to hide and largely disappeared, drinkers swallowed mixed drinks made with moonshine or mediocre imported liquor. The all-male saloon gave way to the speakeasy, where men and women drank, ate,and danced to jazz.This book illustrates how public support for prohibition collapsed due to gangster violence and the need for local, state, and federal government alcohol revenue during the Great Depression. As public opinion turned against prohibition, Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised to repeal prohibition in1932. Legal, taxed beer came in April 1933, and the Twenty-first Amendment was ratified in December 1933. After 1933, state alcohol control boards adopted strong regulations, whose legacies continue to influence American drinking habits.With his unparalleled historical knowledge and expertise in American drinking patterns, W. J. Rorabaugh provides an elegant and accessible synthesis of one of the most important topics in US history, showing how a powerful socio-political movement can shift emphasis over time.

“An excellent and honest book.”—The New York Times Book Review

Prohibition in the United States For thirteen years, from 1920 to 1933, the transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages were prohibited in America. This "Noble Experiment" was undertaken because its supporters believed that alcohol was the single major cause of both crime and poverty. They believed that prohibiting alcohol would lead to the end of poverty and slum housing in the United States and that prisons and jails would no longer be needed. However, the precise opposite proved to be true. Prohibition led directly to rising crime rates, widespread illegal behavior among ordinary Americans, and a loss of respect for laws, law enforcement, and for the apparatus of government. How could something based on such good intentions go so disastrously wrong? Inside you will read about... ✓ Alcohol in Colonial America ✓ Prohibition Propaganda ✓ The Noble Experiment ✓ Life under Prohibition ✓ Organized Crime and Corruption ✓ Repeal Day And much more! This book tells the story of the temperance movement in America, of its rise over a period of one hundred years to encompass the growing women's movement, and how it eventually attained its goal in 1920. It tells the story of Prohibition itself, of how people exploited loopholes in the law to continue drinking legally, and of how they simply ignored the law and drank illegally. It tells the story of the bootleggers and corrupt officials who made fortunes from Prohibition and the politicians who supported and attacked it. This is the story of a bold experiment undertaken for the very best of reasons which led to the worst of outcomes.

On Jan. 16, 1920, at the stroke of midnight, America went dry. For the next 13 years, no U.S. citizen had the right to buy or sell alcoholic drink. However, instead of eliminating the source of the ÔDevil's Brew', this period of supposed abstinence was to incite Americans -- even law-abiding citizens -- to bend or break the law by every possible means. Far from eliminating alcohol, the laws of Prohibition encouraged more drinking (albeit illegally) than ever before. Behr traces the rise of the Temperance movement from its colonial roots to the Jazz Age. The shocking and compelling stories found here challenge conventional perceptions of the Prohibition era and of how it shaped modern-day America.

*Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits." - Mark Twain The Prohibition Era in the United States ran between 1920 and 1933, but its background and legacy are so massive and wide-ranging it may be affirmed that the subject is adhered to the countrys history, from its first years until the modern era. In this 13-year period, the entire nation was forcibly converted to a society of non-drinkers. The movement formed slowly, exploding in 1920. Once it had passed, its effects continued to be felt through the rest of the 20th century. To this day, it can be said that Prohibition teaches an important lesson. The 18th Amendment making Prohibition constitutional and the Volstead Act detailing its enforcement did not come out of the blue-it was neither an electoral occurrence, nor was it a quick and surprising attack by a one interest group taking another unprepared. It was actually the result of a long period of indoctrination, a century of struggles between two political, and above all, moral positions: those who supported Prohibition-the so-called "drys," and those who opposed it, partly because they thought it should not be a government prerogative to control individual freedoms, also known as "the wets." The first group believed Prohibition of liquor, intoxicants, and saloons was a necessary measure to eradicate the great evils that were a part of the nation's life: drunken and violent husbands, labor accidents due to alcoholism, shattered homes, battered wives, and the familys patrimony lost in a single day. The wets defended a legitimate industry that produced jobs and taxes. They spoke of economic interests that would be damaged and of respect for sacrosanct individual freedom. Above all, the wets argued how strange it was that a government dedicated to liberty and equality would regulate an individual's private behavior, determining what he could or could not ingest. Since the beginning, wine had been an inseparable part of American culture, from the saloons of the Wild West, the grape fields of the California valleys, the tables of homes throughout the territory, to the clubs of the big cities where the working class met to talk about politics. This in addition to other areas in which wine culture was an essential feature, such as social cohesion, the economy, and in the arts-especially where music and literature was concerned. What no one could ignore was that since the beginning of the 19th century, the United States had a serious problem with the bottle. The nation of Washington, Adams, and Franklin, for example, had one of the highest consumption rates in the world and thus had the highest rates of alcohol-related diseases and family violence. When women, the principal group affected, decided it was the moment to raise their voices en masse, alcohol became a political topic that polarized the country. In favor of moderation were the eminently rural white people of the inner country with an Anglo-Saxon background. At the other extreme was the urban, cosmopolitan population, close to the coasts and therefore, with a better perspective where the rest of the world was concerned. There were two visions, two different sets of morals, and two ways of understanding the role of government. However, the dividing line between the drys and wets cannot be so clearly marked, even today. There were both progressive and retrograde persons on either side. On the drys side -whom we might be tempted to caricature as moralistic and uneducated-were, for example, the suffragists, the brave women who fought for the right to vote, social justice, and a place in the politics of their country. On the wets side, those against Prohibition, were moralistic institutions, such as the Catholic Church and the Jewish rabbinic community.