Essay on Prohibition in 20th Century America

On December 16, 1919, however, prohibition became the law of the land in the passing of the 18th Amendment which stated "...the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors ... for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited." (Constitution). This created a mixed bag of reactions by the citizenry.

The Prohibition Amendment took effect on January 16, 1920. The eighteenth Amendment outlawed the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol in the United States until it was repealed on December 5, 1933. The excessive amount of alcohol consumed primarily by men often resulted in violence, poor work performance, and wasteful spending of wages on alcohol, which were needed to support their families. Although the Prohibition Amendment did decrease alcohol-related felonies it created more organized crime and an increase of economic problems.

In 1919, The US ratified the 18th Amendment which is declared illegal to manufacture, transport, and sell alcoholic beverages. Between from 1920 to 1933 America has promulgated prohibition who drunk because most men drunk in most times even during break time off work. They gradually lost their control and taking abuse, crime on their children. A lot of problems happened in the family like violence, fighting, and the worse thing is the divorce. Drunken men who did not work at all would not be able to afford, provide, and care for their families. America repealed Prohibition for three main reasons during this time: the Volstead Act because it was a law, the act of Congress that helped to prevent people from selling alcohol, illegal but it failed, Progressive Movement because it showed how many serious problems happened behind drinking that affected to life, and social evils of drinking. While there are three main causes, the most significant cause the repeal of Prohibition in America was social evils or consequences of drinking because in (Doc. B) homicides increased which made crime raised and thousands of Americans killed, the scenes of the US government (Doc.D) because the governor violated the law, and depression (Doc. A) because Uncle Sam, the US government worked with gangsters, racketeer, bootlegger, and dope seller.

The Prohibition goes by several names; The Volstead Act, the Eighteenth Amendment, and Nobel Experiment. However, those names mean nothing if one does not know what the Prohibition is. The Prohibition officially put into place on January 16th 1920 one year and one day after it was ratified. According to Annenberg Classroom for the National Constitution Center, implementing this Amendment deemed “the

Prohibition had existed way before the whole country grew into chaos and terror trying to ban alcohol throughout United States. It was the act of banning the manufacture and sale of alcohol. In the early 1700s, many colonists directed Prohibition towards the Native Americans. Colonists created local laws that prevented people from selling or trading alcohol to them. They were concerned with their behavior due to alcohol. Although there were laws with the ideas of Prohibition, the laws were not enforced. This allowed liquor trade to continue and created a critical effect on the use of alcohol by Native Americans. In the 1900s, Prohibition did well trying to stop the promotion and the process of alcohol, but caused disruption, crime, and confusion

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.

“America had been awash in drink almost from the start – wading hip-deep in it, swimming in it, and at various times in its history nearly drowning in it.” 1 This quote proves to be correct, embodying American history beginning with the earliest American settlers to the present day. Keeping this fact in mind, how did the Temperance Movement gain enough strength to legally ban the manufacturing, selling, and transportation of alcohol in 1920? Through the determination and stamina of a multitude of factions throughout America from the early to mid 19th century, into the Progressive Era, federal legislation in the form of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America was passed. Beginning in the mid-1800s and

The word "Prohibition" as stated in the World Book encyclopaedia "refers to laws that are designed to prevent the drinking of alcoholic beverages." The enforcement of the Volstead Act in the United States of America (USA) saw the nationwide beginning of the prohibition on the 16th of January 1920. The Prohibition brought about a change in attitude for the people of the United States (USA). It caused an extreme rise in crime; encouraging everyday people to break the law and increased the amount of liquor that was consumed nationwide. Overall this law was a failure because a law can not be enforced on a democratic society with out the support of a majority. The effect of this mistake (prohibition) lingered on American (USA) society for many

The 18th amendment made made the manufacture, sale, distribution, and consumption of alcohol illegal. This amendment was a huge failure because it causes people to go behind the laws back and drink illegally. There was a secret drinking establishment called speakeasies and there were also people who provided alcohol illegally and they were called bootleggers. The act that enforced prohibition was the volstead act.

The alcohol prohibition also known, as the “noble experiment” was a time when the citizens of the United States were tested of their sanity, loyalty, and respect of the law and government. On January 16, 1920 alcohol was banned from the nation we live in today and all purchase and consumption of liquor was illegal. In the beginning of the Prohibition era the public had a general acceptance and by 1933 when the Prohibition ended the public was annoyed with the law, the law enforcers, and the government. The banning of alcohol throughout the nation didn’t just happen over night. For many years, dating back into the 1800’s, people were creating groups that were against alcohol.

     Prohibition had become an issue long before its eventual induction as the 18th amendment in 1920. Organizations came about for the sole purpose of an alcohol free America. In 1833, an estimated one million Americans belonged to some type of temperance association (Behr 12). Many believed the absence of alcohol would help the poor as well as big business. Lower class people would put more money into savings accounts and productivity would increase among workers (Hanson 27). More importantly the “noble experiment”—was undertaken to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, and improve the health and hygiene in America” (Thorton 1).

“Prohibition did not achieve its goals. Instead, it added to the problems it was intended to solve.” On 16th January 1920, one of the most common personal habits and customs of American society came to a halt. The eighteenth amendment was implemented, making all importing, exporting, transporting, selling and manufacturing of intoxicating liquors absolutely prohibited. This law was created in the hope of achieving the reduction of alcohol consumption, which in turn would reduce: crime, poverty,

Ratified on January 29, 1919, the 18th Amendment went into effect a year later. By that time, about thirty-three states had already enacted their own prohibition legislation. In October that same year, Congress had passed the National Prohibition Act. This provided guidelines for the federal enforcement of Prohibition. The Representative Andrew Volstead of Mississippi championed this. He was the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. The legislation was more commonly known as the Volstead Act.

There were multiple reasons for this epic move. America’s drinking habits were progressively getting worse, in the 1920’s especially. Factories started growing and people were forced to work harder and longer grueling hours just to support their families. Many people became depressed and started to drink more vigorously. Binge drinking had also become a new major trend. Due to the exhaustion of all the work people had been doing lately, many had become upset and depressed. This then led to drinking a lot more, and illegally, with the new laws being enforced. The number of alcohol related deaths and crimes were progressively growing. The anticipated conclusion of this act was to reduce drinking done by the workers in factories and all jobs. The factory owners wanted to increase the production rate. Faster production was intercepted by drunk employees. (1920’s Prohibition: Moonshine, Bootleggers, and Speakeasies).

On January 19, 1920, the 18th Amendment was instated, which legally prohibited the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors" (Document). This law shut down liquor businesses and appears to be banning alcohol in the United States under all circumstances but when analyzed closely, it failed to state that in addition to the ban on the economic side, it was also outlawing the consumption side. The government assumed that due to the widespread knowledge and awareness of the 18th Amendment and its drastic effect on a common material good in society, that the ban on the importation, transportation, and selling of alcohol would indirectly lead to the inability to consume it. This was not the case. A few people discovered the loophole and as a result, the illegal liquor business began booming because though the supply of alcohol decreased, the demand was higher than ever.