Prohibition

• Causes of prohibition

  • Temperance movement:

  Women's temperance movement - campaign against the usage of alcohol.

  • Alcohol damaged society

  Big contributor to domestic violence

  led to antisocial and sinful behaviour

  linked to unemployment
• Economic causes of prohibition

  • Could weaken the economy

  Hungover/drunk workers were less productive and efficient.

  • Drinking = unpatriotic

  Vodka: Russia, Beer: Germany

  • Food production seen as more important than production of beer
• More causes of Prohibition:

  Alcohol is dangerous + there was a rising number of parents accidentally killing their kids due to them getting hold of alcohol and overdosing.

  People were wasting their wages on alcohol rather than spending money in leisure industries - not good for economy.
• In 1919: The eighteenth amendment banned manufacture, sale and transport of alcohol.

  1920: Volstead act passed to actually enforce the ban.
• Positive effects...?

  • 40% of Americans were in favour of the laws
  • Generally seemed successful

  Alcohol consumption dropped and overall health improved (generally)

  Number of deaths from liver disease also dropped

  Improved people's lives
• More positive effects of prohibition:

  There was less crime - less people under the influence

  Well received / positively enforced.
• In the 1920s, Izzy + Moe (FBI agents) seized 5 millions bottles of alcohol from civillians.
• Why did it ultimately fail?

  1. Difficult to enforce
  2. Criminal Activities
• Negative effects of Prohibition:

  Breweries (manufacturers of beer), Farmers (suppliers to the brewers), Saloons (sellers of these products) - All suffered greatly.

  • Many Americans lost their job, or a part of their income. That meant they had less money to spend on leisure activities and consumer goods (went against aim of prohibition)

  Ban also affected the government

  • Lost income tax from the alcohol - est. $11 billion loss by 1931

  Prohibition harmed US economy rather than helping it
• Prohibition also created enforcement problems, turning ordinary Americans into criminals.

  Desire for Alcohol did not go away, and people continued to purchase it illegally. They did this by:

  • Smuggling alcoholic drinks into the USA
  • Trying to turn industrial/ medicinal alcohol into something drinkable
  • Purchase illegal drinks from speakeasies - (illegal, underground bars)
  • Made their own homemade moonshine - (illegal alcohol)
• Drinking alcohol was instead turned into a criminal activity.

  It became an underground activity - allowed Americans to continue drinking.

  • They put their lives at risk from bad quality moonshine.
  • In NYC, 34 people died from wood alcohol poisoning in 4 days.
• Poor law enforcement = root of all these problems.

  • Five states refused to enforce prohibition entirely
  • American juries would often refuse to convict law breakers

  (Out of 6,904 prohibition cases between 1921 and 1924, only 20 people were convicted)

  • Prohibition was not as successful as campaign groups had assumed it would be