Prohibitionin The 1920's

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Prohibition in the 1920’s

Historians often describe the 1920’s as a decade of contrasts and conflicts. Freedoms in dress, behavior, and sexual attitudes clashed with a new Puritanism. the automobile was replacing the old horse and buggy. There were conflicts between the traditional small-town way of life and a new urbanism and cosmopolitanism.
On Midnight of January 16,1920, one of the personal habits and customs of most Americans suddenly came to a halt. The Eighteenth Amendment was put into effect and all importing, exporting, transporting, selling , and manufacturing of intoxicating liquor was put to an end. Shortly following the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment, the national Prohibition Act, or the Volstead Act, as it was called because of its author , Andrew J. Volstead, was put into effect. This determined intoxicating liquor as anything having an alcoholic content of anything more than 0.5 percent, omitting alcohol used for medical and sacramental purposes. Prohibition was meant to reduce the consumption of alcohol seen by some as the devil’s advocate, and thereby reduce crime, poverty, death rates, and improve the life. The Prohibition amendment of the 1920’s was ineffective because it was unenforceable, it caused the explosive growth of crime, and it increased the amount of alcohol consumption.
After the Volstead Act was put into place to determine specific laws and methods of enforcement, the Federal Prohibition Bureau was formulated in order to see that the volstead Act was enforced. Nevertheless, these laws were flagrantly violated by bootleggers and commoners alike. Bootleggers smuggled liquor from overseas and Canada, stole it from the government warehouses, and produced their own. Many people hid their liquor in hip flasks, false books, hollow canes, and anything else they could find. There were also illegal speak easies which replaced saloons after the start of Prohibitions. By 1925, there were ...