Prohibition

Early in the years following the American Revolution (1775–83), alcohol consumption in the United States increased dramatically. Saloons were built in every city and village and provided a setting for illegal activities such as prostitution (the selling of sex), which led to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, and gambling. Domestic violence became more commonplace as men spent the family money on too much alcohol, leaving wives and children with little or nothing to eat.

Reformers (people working for change) saw a problem and took measures to correct it. At first, they encouraged people to cut down on the amount of drinking, but eventually they called for total abstinence (no drinking at all). In their eyes, drinking was a sin that led to disease, crime, and the ruin of family relationships. In 1836, those advocating temperance (avoiding excess) formed the American Temperance Union and called for an end to all alcohol consumption.

The temperance movement took hold of government and politics, and by 1855 thirteen states had banned the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages. By the end of the American Civil War (1861–65), most of these laws had been repealed, but six states were still dry (without the legal manufacturing and sale of alcohol).

Reformers and the Eighteenth Amendment

There were still many saloons throughout American cities in the early 1900s. But medical research was providing evidence of the negative effects of alcohol consumption. Americans were also concerned about the power that breweries and distilling companies held. These companies

owned many of the saloons, and they made high profits from the sale of their product.

More groups concerned about alcohol consumption formed, including the Prohibition Party in 1872. This political party sponsored presidential candidates who opposed alcohol. Although men were included in prohibition activities, women, considered the moral guardians of society, primarily headed the movement. Women also had a special interest in seeing alcohol consumption outlawed, as they often suffered the most from their husbands’ or fathers’ drinking habits.

Drinking became a major issue in the Progressive Era (roughly 1900–13), a time of major reform. Prohibition came to be seen as a way to help the poor and protect the young. During World War I (1914–18), Prohibition became a patriotic issue because several of the largest breweries were owned by immigrants from Germany, the United States's enemy in the war.

In 1919, Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution , outlawing the manufacturing and sale of alcohol nationwide. Passage of the Volstead Act immediately followed, outlawing even those beverages containing as little as 0.5 percent alcohol (beer and wine). Although many Americans initially were in favor of Prohibition, they thought that only hard liquor, like whiskey, would be outlawed. They were not in favor of banning the consumption of beer and wine, and thus the Volstead Act prompted many to withdraw their support of Prohibition.

The nation divides

Prohibition divided the nation into two distinct groups. The Drys supported the law, whereas the Wets urged an end to the total ban. Immigrant groups found Prohibition particularly difficult, as they came from societies in which the consumption of alcohol was acceptable. In addition, the saloons had become gathering places for the various ethnic groups and provided them with a place to go to hold meetings and social events. Without the saloons, they had nowhere to meet.

People continued to drink throughout Prohibition despite the fact that it was a crime. Bootleggers (those who manufactured alcohol illegally) continued to sell their liquor at a profit. Those who could not afford it simply made their own—often in bathtubs. Bathtub gin, as it was called, was not always safe, and was responsible for causing blindness and even death. The danger lay in the distillation process required to turn medical-grade alcohol into a drink that would not taste horrible. People who had no idea what they were doing often made bathtub gin, and their incompetence put drinkers at risk of consuming unsafe concentrations of wood, or denatured, alcohol.

Fun at the speakeasy

Prohibition gave rise to the speakeasy, an unofficial drinking establishment that was either glamorous or seedy, depending on its location. New York City alone boasted about thirty thousand speakeasies in the 1920s, according to the police commissioner. Another type of “secret” drinking establishment, called a blind pig, was disguised to look like a legitimate business from the front and inside. But deeper into the building, in back rooms, were bars. To get into either a speakeasy or a blind pig, visitors usually had to know a secret password. Bootleggers provided the liquor sold in speakeasies and blind pigs, and they got their supplies from rumrunners who brought the liquor into the country either by ship or over the Canadian border.

Everyone knew of the existence of speakeasies and blind pigs. Local police departments—underfunded, understaffed, and underpaid—were not equipped to handle the enforcing of Prohibition laws. The federal government was not much help, either. It provided just fifteen hundred agents to implement Prohibition across the entire nation. The U.S. Department of Justice eventually established a special force known as the Untouchables, headed by agent Eliot Ness (1902–1957), to crack down on illegal Prohibition activity, but even they were largely ineffective.

Organized crime increases

Organized crime was a new concept in the 1920s. But when mobsters and mob bosses saw an opportunity to make huge profits from the manufacturing and sale of alcohol throughout Prohibition, they took advantage of it. As various gangs competed, violence increased. One of the most violent mob bosses was “Scarface” Al Capone (1899–1947).

Capone was a native New Yorker who moved to Chicago, Illinois , in 1919. He had already established himself as a mobster before escaping a murder charge by moving west. By 1925, he was in control of Chicago's illegal liquor operations. Within four years, Capone had amassed $50 million, had more than seven hundred men working for him, and controlled more than ten thousand speakeasies.

Capone's success was won through brutality, and upon his death he was suspected of involvement in as many as two hundred deaths of rival gang members. It was not until 1931 that the government could charge the mob boss with anything that would hold up in court. Ironically, it was not murder that sent Capone to prison, but tax evasion (failing to pay income taxes). Capone served an eleven-year jail sentence, which ended his criminal career. He died in 1947.

The end of Prohibition

Prohibition was never enforceable. The American public simply did not consider moderate drinking a sinful activity and refused to have its morality policed by the government. Prohibition was finally overturned in 1933 with the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment .