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What was Prohibition Introduced? In the 1920 s American politics was dominated by democracy and the idea of isolationism to keep America prosperous was incredibly apparent. However in 1919, President Wilson passed the 18 th Amendment to the American Constitution prohibiting the manufacture, distribution and consumption of alcoholic drinks (any drink containing over 0. 5 % alcohol). Prohibition was not just a novel American idea, at the turn of the Twentieth Century, other countries were also experimenting with limiting or totally banning the production, distribution and consumption of alcoholic drinks the primary origins can be found all over the world.
However, to find the origins for the American Prohibition we must look back to rural America in the Nineteenth Century. Wilson was also pressured into passing the Prohibition Act by the powerful temperance movement during the Great War, claiming that alcohol was unpatriotic as it was made by Americans from German descent. Even though he tried to veto the amendment, he was overturned by Congress and reluctantly passed the legislation. The law itself was amazingly ambitious as alcohol was the seventh largest industry in a nation which was ruled by big business and was an established and respected as part of the businesses which provided the wealth of America. Although the technical reason as to why the Prohibition Law was passed was because 66 % of the Constitution voted for it, one of the main reasons why Prohibition happened was because of its mass support.
By 1920, thirty-three out of forty-eight states had passed Prohibition laws, making approximately 63 % of the total population of America dry. The main support for Prohibition came from moral crusaders in the South who were very anti-urbanisation like the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance in Boston and the Washington Temperance Society, whose groups grew in number between the 1820 s and the 1840 s. These groups campaigned against the effects of drinking liquor. Often this excessive drinking was blamed on the industrialisation of the rural areas in many counties as a result of social and economic change at this time. There were some protesters like the Irish Catholics who apparently were against prohibition because of their love of gin (! ) as well as the congressmen of Massachusetts who famously said that, the better the county the higher the alcohol content. Still this was the beginning of the battle where it appeared that it was a case of cornell over conveyor belt.
Supporters claimed that alcohol deprived families of money for clothing and food as well as encouraging domestic violence and street crime and reduced efficiency in the workplace. Support also came from religious groups and reformed alcoholics who had seen the light, encouraged by current temperance literature. By 1885, many of the eastern states in America had already passed legislation controlling or prohibiting the consumption of alcoholic drink. In the 1850 s pressure increased for the Prohibition Act to be passed and employers who had joined the American Anti-Saloon League joined forces with religious groups such as the Methodists and Episcopal Churches. Together with the female action of the Womens Christian Temperance Union (founded by Frances Willard in 1874), the pressure was mounting.
Unfortunately so was the number of saloons and drunken violent acts. Prohibition also had support from middle class, white Protestants as a crusade for moral decadence as well as many Industrialists who hoped for a boost in work efficiency as a result of a ban on alcoholic consumption. There was also a racist angle on this matter as some Southern Americans wanted to deprive their African-American neighbours of alcoholic drink and it was also supported by Catholics who associated the consumption of alcohol with their European counterparts in an effort to enforce conformity of the immigrant population. In the western states, the women and their families were the most influential, empowered by the fact that they could now vote (unlike women in other areas of America) organised the Womens War (where they walked to saloons to make examples of them) and encouraged female candidates to run for official positions, which injury provided a chance to pass their beliefs through the system to Congress.
In the short term, the Prohibition Act could be a result of The Great War. By the time the First World War had broken out, nineteen states had passed the Prohibition legislation. The World War provided another platform for protesters to argue from, stating that in war-time it would be necessary to conserve all of the grain and that alcohol manufacture would be a waste of valuable food supplies. They also pointed out that many alcohol brewers were from German descent with names such as Pabst, Schultz and Anheuser-Busch and so they harnessed all the anti-German war-time hostility in the name of patriotism. Prohibition also came at a time when it was seen as the government as responsibility to solve all social problems, such as prostitution and child labour. Prohibition was seen as another social issue because of its link with domestic violence.
In conclusion, Prohibition was passed in 1919, not only because of its mass support but also due to Americas huge religious community, Wilsons government and its reaction to the First World War, its belief that it should be representing Progressivism by solving social problems, and Americas industrial concerns and racial issues. It was indeed a noble experiment but it was surely a bit naive and small minded to expect all of Americas social and economic programs to disappear along with the breweries. What were the effects of Prohibition? When the Prohibition Act was passed its supporters thought that the effects would be less domestic violence, better efficiency at work, more grain for the war-time effort and a social push towards isolationism and patriotism.
The actual effects of the Eighteenth Amendment were somewhat different. Evasion of this law seemed to be so easy. Now that alcohol was illegal people seemed to need it more than ever, even those who were not keen on drinking before suddenly made it a regular pastime, illegal liquor was now risqu and as a result trendy. It became increasingly easy to get hold of illegal booze There were three main ways to get hold of alcohol. Firstly, you could make and distribute your own alcohol. This was known as bootlegging, with the name originating in the Seventeenth Century, when the British Empire owned thirteen states in America.
The smugglers at this time where known to wear knee high leather boots which they smuggled bottles of alcohol in, hence the name bootleg. This bootlegged alcohol was given a name, moonshine. This deceivingly innocent title did not inform the people how potentially lethal this drink was, with many of its customers suffering from negative mental and physical effects from this inexpertly distilled alcohol. Some of these effects included paralysis and blindness as well as death in extreme cases.
Arrests for disorderly drunkenness rose 600 % over the next few years. The supplying part of bootlegging was to provide a huge part in crime later. Many farmers at this time were suffering enormously from the Depression and as there grain was almost worthless when they tried to sell it to make flour, it seemed much more appealing to sell it to bootleggers for a much higher price (which they could well demand as alcohol was illegal and so the bootleggers were forced to pay high amounts in order to keep their punters happy. Certain allowances had to be complied to however, such as Malt Whiskeys being made rather than proper whiskeys because of the short supply compared to the now huge demand. Secondly you could obtain alcohol from speakeasies.
These places were bars, shops or dancing clubs which sold liquor, calling themselves speakeasies because you had to be careful not to speak about them outside (you were supposed to speakeasy about them. ). These places were also homes for gamblers, drug takers and prostitution. These speakeasies multiplied rapidly in the larger cities with Chicago top of the list, with reports of it having over 10, 000 speakeasies at the height of Prohibition. There was a certain glamour attached to speakeasies with its blue piano music, relaxed jazz clubs and smoky badly lit rooms, making it even more attractive to drink, and because there were so many of these elite clubs it was a horrifically difficult to shut them down. Finally if you had the right connections you could obtain alcohol through gangsters.
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