Moonshine In Southern Appalachia

“For those Americans who did not want to go to the effort of making their own liquor, an army of bootleggers, moonshiners, and rumrunners was available to supply the nation with all the booze its citizens could drink” (Hanson). Americans could just buy alcohol from bootleggers, moonshiners, and rumrunners if they did not want to make it themselves because they could find an alcohol seller anywhere. “The Eighteenth Amendment was intended to reduce drinking by abolishing the businesses that made and sold alcohol: breweries, distillers, winemakers, wholesale sellers, and retail establishments such as saloons” (Hanson). The Eighteenth Amendment was made to stop alcohol from getting on the streets but it did no use so they got rid of the Eighteenth Amendment. The temperance movement and the prohibition on alcohol helped stop most of the drinking in the United States of America.

The 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act did terminate the production of alcohol, but didn’t stop many from drinking it. Bootleggers bribed many government officials to provide alcohol to the public and to preserve their multi-million dollar business. This shows how disorganized and corrupt the government was during Prohibition. The government was supposed to support the citizens and Prohibition at that time. Instead, they turned against the people of United States and joined forces with people that provided toxic alcohol to the public. Also, bootleggers produced millions of gallons of poisonous alcohol. Drinking it can cause blindness or be poisoned. When Prohibition didn’t exist, alcohol was regulated and checked if it’s toxic before being sold to the public. Even when alcohol was forbidden, people still found a way to get their hands on liquor and sold it to the public causing devastation. During Prohibition, the government ordered industrial alcohol companies to add chemicals to alcohol, fuels, and medical supplies, discouraging people from drinking it as a warning. As a result, bootleggers got access to it, offering these low quality alcohol to the public and more than 10,000 people died from drinking it. It’s critical how the government was supposed to stop people from drinking alcohol, but it actually led people to illness or

When caught bootlegging liquor you would be issued a fine, this made things alright because everyone was happy, the laws were so hard to enforce that the government was just happy collecting fine money and the bootleggers were happy cause it was a small price to pay for the amount of money they were making. The most ironic thing about prohibition is that it is the major bases for what we call organized crime.

To begin with America had decided to change their mind because of the increase in crime. Which is evident in document A “we began to now see the people going by the term bootleggers who would be illegally transporting these alcoholic beverages”. This correlates back to why they repealed prohibtion because of these bootleggers doing this job which was illegal in the first place so America was not able to tax this money. In shown in document A “gansters had

This was a controversial move for the Congress to make, it certainly did not go off without consequences. The Volstead Act, even as concrete as its rules seem, had many loopholes that the American people could abuse. One of the largest and most obvious loopholes was that medicinal alcohol could still be prescribed by physicians. Many people would feign sickness in order to obtain whisky legally and reliably. This caused the sale of medical alcohol to insanely spike in sales, but even with the obvious implications these stats held, the government did not remove whisky as a prescribed medicine. Many farmers would also profit off of alcohol made of grapes and other juices. Since the government couldn’t ban fruit juices, they would mix those fruits with a certain dry fruit used to create alcohol. Supplies in which you could easily brew your own alcohol could also be found in common groceries. People even went as far as to joining the congregation to obtain sacramental wine. If one wanted to enjoy their drinking with others, they could just enter one of the many “Speakeasies,” popping up underground. These secret bars had secret entrances, which could only be accessed with a spoken password. It was said that ‘with every legitimate bar closed, six speakeasies would take it’s place.’ While some made the use of legal loopholes to get their alcohol fix, many turned to crime and subterfuge. People who didn’t want to directly get their hands dirty called upon the

As the new amendment came into effect, the liquor did not disappear, but still trickled in and out of saloons and cities. Gangsters rose to power almost overnight as their attention turned to the profitable business of bootlegging (Internet site on Al

In document 4 it states, “As far as this decrease might be applicable to distilled spirits, it would encourage the substitution of cyder and malt liquors, benefit agriculture, and open a new and productive source of revenue” (Document 4). Hamilton acknowledged that drinking was very cheap. He believed that putting the tax on whiskey would improve not only the attitude of people, but other drink industries, and agriculture. Jefferson strongly disagreed with Hamilton. Putting a tax on whiskey would hurt many farmers that grew grain to make it. Jefferson, being from the South, therefore he saw what would happen if the tax was put into place. He believed that the unfair tax would break up the nation. This soon resulted in the Whiskey

Before the prohibition of alcohol existed in the United States people freely drank alcohol, mainly beer, some responsibly and some irresponsibly. The government was able to collect quite a substantial amount of tax revenue for the manufacture, transportation, sales, and consumption of

Until the Civil War, those in Appalachia enjoyed largely self-reliant existence. At this time, railroads and coalmines invaded Appalachia, forcing many mountain people to abandon farming and go to work for the railroad or coal mines to feed their families. To this day, most still have some connection to the mines (Innes, 2012). However; you still had to have somewhat of an education in order to work in the coal mines or on the railroads. When families were looking for a means of income and this was not a viable solution for them, many turned to moonshine. These ingenious individuals did not have to pay taxes on their moonshine and were able to come up with imaginative ways to distill and distribute their products, while evading law enforcement (also known as revenuers). In fact, one of America’s favorite pastimes, NASCAR, was born of the need for moonshiners to out run the revenuers (Wachyter, 2011).

The 18th Amendment of the Constitution which prohibited the sell of alcohol was first proposed in 1917, and then would get approved 2 years later in 1919. One year later on January 17, 1920 the Amendment would start to be in effect. Even before it was passed over half of the country had already banned it. Publically many had denounced it yet privately almost everyone thought the decision would be one they would soon end up regretting. With this law now in effect, there ended up being a rise in crime due to a rise in bootlegging which is the transportation of alcoholic beverages. The government was starting to face a dilemma because there was still a demand to drink, but people had no other option aside from obtaining it illegally.

After the Volstead Act was passed, bootlegging and gangsterism became very popular. Bootleggers first began to import alcohol from Canada and Mexico, but soon began importing from the Bahamas, Cuba, and the French islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, off the southern coast of Newfoundland. (Britannica). As time went on, the citizens of the United States became more daring and began making their own alcohol and created “underground” bars called speakeasies. One of the most famous bootleggers of this time was Al Capone. New York Times called him,”"The symbol of a shameful era, the monstrous symptom of a disease which was eating into the conscience of America.” Not only were these bootleggers transporting and selling alcohol in speakeasies, but now doctors pushed prescription alcohol to “cure” illnesses. Once Prohibition took effect, many doctors championed alcohol as medicine. "I have always maintained that every family ought to have an alcoholic stimulant in the house all the time," one physician told the New York Times. "There is nothing more valuable in emergency." The doctor himself always took a drink at the end of the day—"It braces me up," he explained—and often prescribed it for patients stricken with "nerves." For pneumonia, he

There were organizations in place in the 1800’s to prohibit alcohol in the United States (Levinthal, C.F., 2012, 56). With drinking on the rise, these organizations attempted to make drinking to be done in moderation. Later the organizations changed direction to prohibiting drinking all together. The organization blamed alcohol on the crimes that were being committed. Women were not allowed in places that sold alcohol, so they felt if it was prohibited it would make the men spend more time at home. Disband of alcohol would allow more income for the family, cut down on the one who would drink during lunch. The purpose for prohibition was to cut down on crimes that were supposed to be caused by alcohol drinking. But stopping the sale of alcohol

Alcohol has widely been used in America since its creation and arrived well before the 20th century. In the early 1800’s there was a big push to limit the consumption of alcohol called the temperance movement. Many states in the Union were dealing with issues that stemmed from the overuse of alcohol, so they established laws to help curb the consumption. Massachusetts was the first state to pass a law in 1838, which banned the sale of alcohol in quantities less than 15 gallons.

Alcoholism is defined as the addiction to consumption of alcohol to a point where individuals become unable to live a normal and healthy live. “Excessive alcohol consumption is a leading preventable cause of death in the United States and has a greater health impact on American Indians and Alaska Native than on other racial groups” (Landen, M., Roeber, J., Naimi, T., Nielsen, L., & Sewell, M., 2014). American Indians and Alaska Natives have the “highest rate of binge drinking (30.2%) and heavy alcohol use (8.5%) of all racial groups in the United States” (Rieckmann, 2016). To fight high rates of alcoholism, federal law was implemented for prohibition of alcohol on Indian Reservations in 1974. Alcohol abuse on the reservation is cause for much of the social and economic woes that plague this sovereign nation. It is so drastic, that Navajo Nation and United States Department of Health and Human Services have dispatched programs to combat the alarming rates of fetal alcohol syndrome and binge drinking.

Unlike other cultures that have had thousands of years of getting use to the ingestion of alcohol, the relationship between Native Americans and alcohol is fairly new to their culture. Native Americans have had less time with developing the genetic tolerance of alcohol that exist among other ethnic groups. The combination of living in poverty, being in an ongoing state of oppression, and alcohol use is a recipe for disaster for many Native Americans. In comparison to the U.S. population in particular, the Native American populations are at higher risk of death caused by alcoholism diseases, domestic violence, and fetal alcohol syndrome. Interventions within the Native American communities have seen a decrease is some of the challenges they face regarding alcoholism.