Prohibition - prevention by law of the manufacturing and sale of alcohol
Organised Crime - criminal activites that are planned and controlled by groups and carried out of a large scale
18th Amendment - change that established the ban of alcoholic beverages proposed by the US Senate in 1918, in 1920 when Congress passed the Volstead Act, it was enabled
Volstead Act - identified the affected liquors and consequences for the law's violation, passed by Congress in 1920
21st Amendment - repealed prohibition
What was prohibtion and why was it introduced?
Prohibtion was the US government's attempt to outlaw the production, sale and shipment of alcohol around the country, went into effect on January 16th 1920
Southern and rural populations believed that prohibtion would reduced the crime associated with growing amount of immigrants living in American cities
What were the effects of prohibtion?
As the Volstead Act did not prohibit the consumption of liquor, Americans drank liquor stashed before prohibition
Numerous Americans sought liquor prescriptions by their physicans as consumption for medicinal use was exempt
Numerous Americans also went to neighbouring countries to consume alcohol
How did prohibtion fuel organised crime?
Illegal production and sale of liquor developed rapidly
Bootlegging emerged during the 20s and saw alcohol smuggled into the US by criminals
The black market for alcohol soon fell under the control of gangsters such as:
Al Capone
Bugs Moran
Al Capone made millions through racketeering and by operating thousands of speakeasies and illegaly sold liquor to patrons and helped popularise jazz music
Under prohibtion laws, personal production wine and cider made from fruits was permitted
Other indiviudals tried to find alternatives:
Distilling industrial alcohol to make them drinkable
Forced the government to poison industrial alchohol to make them undrinkable
Why did prohibtion fail?
Tens of thousands were poisoned/killed during prohibition after drinking unsuitable alcohol
Caused a spike of violent crimes such as the St. Valentines massacre of 1929 when several members of Moran's mob were murdered to be suspected by Al Capone's gang
Felt prohibition was enroaching on their freedom
The disillusionment reached an all time high during The Great Depression
Led to repeal movement
First signs of success of the repeal came in 1933 where the Senate passed the Blaine Act to instigate the repeal of the 18th Amendment
Followed up by an amendment of the Volstead Act called the Cullen Harrsion Act to permit the production and sale of particular types of liquor
A few months later, the 21st amendment was enabled
Economy boosted due to alcohol brewing industry back in business