Religious Communities and The Consumption of Alcohol

During prohibition many bad things were happening to America’s society. Prohibition led to so many bad things in the country like bootleggers or racketeer, gangsters, and dope sellers. The government did not want people to continue these actions. There was so much smuggling of alcohol that the government could not stop it all. Crime rate and murders went way up in the country during prohibition, but when prohibition was repealed the homicide rates went down. It might have had to do with alcohol, it may not have, but no one knows. People would smuggle alcohol into the country so the country wasn’t really considered to be “dry.” No matter how hard our country tries, it is impossible to stop all the crime and our country knew that, so the bootleggers continued to smuggle alcohol across borders know the government can not stop every little thing. Even during this time period of prohibition Government Officials decided to drink alcohol against their own laws. It says in Document D in the second paragraph

The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition is a very interesting book written by W.J. Rorabaugh which anlyze the high prevalence of alcohol consumption in United States during the early 19th century. When he explains how he started writing the book, he said that when he was looking for a long essay in a particular subject he came across a lot of temperance pamphlets from the 1820’s and 30’s. That is the starting point of writing the book for him. He has stated in the preface Ix that Americans drank more alcoholic beverages percapita than ever before or since between 1790 and 1830. He has mentioned

The desire to control alcohol consumption, or advocate temperance, has been a goal of humanity throughout countless periods of history. Many countries have had organized temperance movements, including Australia, Canada, Britain, Denmark, Poland, and of course, the United States. The American temperance movement was the most widespread reform movement of the 19th century, culminating in laws that completely banned the sale of all alcoholic beverages. The movement progressed from its humble local roots to nationwide organizations with millions of members and large amounts of political power. The growth of the temperance movement resulted from the changes in society between the original American settlers and the post-Revolutionary War

Prohibition was undertaken to reduce crime, reduce corruption, and solve social problems in America but it failed on all accounts. Prohibition had the exact opposite effect on people than its original purpose was. Instead of removing alcohol from society, Prohibition actually instigated a national drinking spree that held constant until Prohibition was repealed. Felix Von Luckner said, “My observations have convinced me that many fewer would drink were it not illegal” (Von Luckner, 2). He believed that the law against alcohol manufacturing just instigated more drinking. The people during this period in time were so rebellious that they would do the opposite of anything that they were told to do. This had a huge contribution to the failure of Prohibition. Due to the failure of Prohibition, America’s society had fallen spiral to a drinking spree (Batchelor, 1). Many believed that the main cause of the failure of Prohibition was the breakdown of the enforcement agencies. In Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia said, “The Prohibition Enforcement Unit has entirely broken down. It is discredited; it has become a joke…” (La Guardia, 2). The Roaring Twenties’ prosperity was lost due to the failure of the Prohibition Enforcement Unit. If the law was stronger and better enforced, Prohibition could have succeeded. This was very detrimental to society because it showed the

In his book, The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition, William J. Rorabaugh makes the argument that early American society was a place where alcohol flowed freely through every level of society. Americans in the late eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century partook in so widely it was one of the defining characteristics of the culture of the early United States. Using data collected from censuses, surveys, and reports from those who traveled across the country in its early years, Rorabaugh concludes that the drinking in the United States found no barriers with age, sex, race, class, or location. But his assumptions and conclusion are not proved strongly enough by hard evidence and data to be considered a reliable narrative of the early America.

Prohibition was the eighteenth amendment. It prohibited the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages. People would have never thought of "excoriating" alcohol until the 19th century (Tyrrell 16). During this time widespread crime and dismay arose. Some beneficial things did come out of this period of chaos such as women were able to prove themselves as people their temperance movements. During this time many things happened that led to Prohibition's strongest point and to its fall. Prohibition proved to be a failure from the start,. Prohibition was scarcely adhered to and also widely defied but out of this women had a chance to voice their opinions and prove themselves.

With industrialization, big businesses thrived off of the underclass and left a trail of social consequences for their actions. “Poverty, crime, slavery, prostitution, and alcoholism were seen as blights on the face of a young nation, and the middle classes were keen to define a morality and sense of society that they felt could be described as American.” The emerging industrialist and financial aristocracy lived in palatial homes while the rest fought and worked hard to survive everyday. Epidemics of destructive drinking has historically been analyzed to occur when one wants to relieve stress. Families were destroyed as men would rather stay in saloons than go home. Supporters of Prohibition believed alcohol was a nations curse and banning it would lessen crime, strengthen families, and generally improve national character. “Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.” The 18th amendment did not ban the consumption of alcohol rather the manufacture and distribution. People bought more bootlegged alcohol, illegal liquor, which was lesser quality and potentially dangerous. “One thousand Americans died every year during the

The Prohibition Era of the 1920’s was an infamous time for the United States. However, despite the roar and boom or the twenties, prohibition did little to benefit Americans or the country itself. The ban of the make, transportation, and sale of alcohol only caused an increase in crime and decrease in public health and safety with practically no economic benefit.

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 introduction of prohibition in 1919 created numerous opinions and issues in American society. Prohibition had been a long standing issue in America, with temperance

Evidently prohibition had created a new set of evils possibly worse than the old and far worse than the pros of prohibition. Not only did it impact certain people, but the entire U.S. as

“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,

Prohibition, “The Noble Experiment,” was a great and genius idea on paper, but did not go as planned. With illegal activities still increasing and bootlegging at its all time high, it was no wonder the idea crumbled. Could they have revised the law to make it more effective? If so, would the law be in place today, and how would that have changed our lives today? Although it was brief, Prohibition will remain a huge part of America’s history. Completely illegalizing the production and consumption of alcohol was a great plan that ended up being a great failure.

“Second Great Awakening was not focused simply on promotion individual conversions; it was also intended to reform human society, which was said by Lyman Beecher a champion of evangelic Christian revivalism” (Tindall and Shi 508). The United States, which was known for a nation of separation and church and state was swept with religious revivals during 1790 to 1830s known as the Second Great Awakening. From the Second Great Awakening in 1842, the United States was filled with different reform movement which was led by dreamers and activists who saw social injustice or immorality in the American society and wanted to fight to correct the sinful events that 's been happening (Tindall and Shin 528-529). One of the most widespread from all the reform movement that spread around the 19th and 20th century was the temperance movement due it being the common social problem in the United States. The Temperance movement “was an organized effort to encourage moderation in the consumption of intoxicating liquors or press for complete abstinence”(Chancellor). The temperance movement establishes due to the amount of alcohol an individual was consuming, it also brought different society and organization to help spread the word about the evil in consuming alcohol which was mainly established by women 's, which gave a rise to women 's rights by them expressing theirs considers on alcohol. It also gives a perspective how alcohol was affecting the

The policy aimed at reducing alcohol consumption and eventually eliminates crimes and other vices associated with it. Thinking how did such a noble policy backfire? Reality is that it did and the result was so devastating that America ended up taking back the policy. As a result of this prohibition, criminal gangs cropped up in every nook and corner of the country poisoning and smuggling streets of America, killing thousands of innocent civilians. Crime rate reached new heights and corruption was unfathomable. This led to the end of