Prohibition

The 18th Amendment

What was ‘Prohibition’?

• A law called the Volstead Act introduced in the USA in January 1920.

• It banned the manufacture, sale and transport of alcohol.

• The federal government had the power to enforce this law.

• It theory the USA became ‘dry’. • It has since become known as the ‘noble

experiment’.

Why was prohibition introduced?

1. It already existed in many states

2. Moral reasons

3. Campaigners like the Anti-Saloon League of America

4. The First World War

What is the message of this cartoon? (6)

What is the message of this cartoon? (6)

What is the message of this cartoon? (6)

What is the message of this cartoon? (6)

What were the effects of prohibition?

1. Speakeasies

2. Moonshine

3. Smuggling

4. Organised crime

Speakeasies• Secret saloon bars opened

up in cellars and back rooms.

• They had names like the ‘Dizzy Club’ and drinkers had to give a password or knock at the door in code to be let in.

• Speakeasies sold ‘bootleg’ alcohol, smuggled into America from abroad.

• Before Prohibition there were 15,000 bars in New York. By 1926 there were 30,000 speakeasies!

Moonshine

• A spirit made secretly in home made stills.

• Several hundred people a year died from this during the 1920s.

• In 1929 it is estimated that 700 million gallons of beer were produced in American homes.

‘Bootleggers’• Smugglers called

‘Bootleggers’ made thousands of dollars bringing in illegal alcohol to America.

• America has thousands of miles of frontiers so it proved easy.

• Famous smugglers like William McCoy made fortunes by bringing alcohol from the West Indies and Canada.

Organised Crime

• The enormous profits to be made attracted gangsters who started to take control of many cities.

• They bribed the police, judges and politicians.

• They controlled the speakeasies and the distilleries, and ruthlessly exterminated their rivals.

Al Capone• By 1927 he was earning

some $60 million a year from bootlegging.

• His gang was like a private army. He had 700 men under his control.

• He was responsible for over 500 murders.

• On 14th February 1929, Capone’s men dressed as police officers murdered 7 members of a rival gang. This became known as the ‘Valentine’s Day Massacre.’