Prohibition

Question 1

CAUSES OF PROHIBITION

Answer 1

Prohibition= against the law to make, sell or transport alcoholic drinks in the USA.
• Passed into law January 16th, 1919, called the VOLSTEAD ACT.
• The Temperance Movement (A Christian group who wanted Prohibition) and Anti-Saloon League argued that the health of children was at risk and that alcohol was destroying family life.
• This was part of the divide in American society between traditional country values and newer and progressive urban values.

Question 2

HOW WAS AMERICAN SOCIETY AFFECTED

CREATED SECRETIVE DRINKING

Answer 2

CREATED SECRETIVE DRINKING
• Alcohol consumption was reduced, but only by 30% and only in areas that had wanted the ban in the first place. In other areas, consumption increased.
• Drinking became secretive & more expensive but it didn’t stop: Rich people had booze delivered to their houses; others went to “speakeasies”- secret illegal bars.
• In New York alone there were 32,000 speakeasies, whereas before prohibition there had been only 15,000 saloons.
• Drink related crimes also went up.
• The demand for alcohol was met by brewers, bootleggers (smugglers) & sellers (often from Canada).

Question 3

HOW WAS AMERICAN SOCIETY AFFECTED

CREATED CORRUPTION

Answer 3

The government appointed enforcement officers- who had little success because demand was so high.
• Police officers and judges were bribed to look the other way- so few people went to prison because of this corruption.

Question 4

HOW WAS AMERICAN SOCIETY AFFECTED

LED TO ORGANIZED CRIME

Answer 4

• Rival gangs ran this illegal but profitable trade. Gang warfare was common- in 1926-27 there were 130 murders in Chicago alone, yet no one went to prison for these crimes because of corruption.
• Al Capone was the most famous gangster- he organized the St. Valentines Day massacre where members of a rival gang were killed.
• It seemed to many that Prohibition had caused more problems than it solved; the St. Valentine’s Day massacre was evidence of this.

Question 5

Why did prohibition fail?

Card 1

Answer 5

• Most Americans still wanted to drink- if there is demand it will be supplied.
• Corruption meant it was easy to get around the law.
• The law wasn’t taken seriously: President Harding held drinking parties in the Whitehouse in 1921, the year prohibition began. Al Capone was a celebrity despite openly breaking the law.
• The law was just too difficult to enforce.

Question 6

Why did prohibition fail?

Card 2

Answer 6

• Prohibition was now seen as the cause of society’s problems- much like why it was created in the first place.
• The Great Depression hit early 1930s: the government realized alcohol could help create jobs and prosperity by taxing alcohol consumption & stop spending money on enforcement.
• It had only created more problems.
• Roosevelt- democrat- repeals the law in 1933.