The Negative Impact of American Prohibition

Prohibition in the United States was an extent intended to decrease drinking by removing the businesses that produced, dispersed, and retailed alcoholic beverages. The 18 Amendment made an approval to the United States Constitution that bared the production, transference and trade of hallucinogenic liquors. Conversely, this piloted a historical Crusades recognized as the Prohibition movement (Asbury, 1950). At that time the well-known temperance movement was demanding and had little or no affect even though the legislation was behind them. This was during the 20th century when they were recognized as the Volstead Act. Unfortunately, this sparked the illegal surge and fabrication of the distribution of liquor (referred as bootlegging), which created alternative areas the initiated gang fierceness and numerous crime activity that conquering of the Prohibition movement that terminated at the end of the 20’s (Levinthal, 2016). Unfortunately, the United States realized that the prohibition was very draining and costly and looked for other substitutions and approaches. Eventually, the nation surge of alcohol prohibition changed to local procedures of regulation.

The late comedian W.C jokingly said,” Once, during the Prohibition, I was forced to live on for days on nothing but food and water. Even Though, he said this as a joke it was true for majority of the public. The days before the 18th amendment was passed many depended upon liquor. At one point the use of alcohol became abuse. Then on January 16, 1919 the 18th Amendment was ratified so alcohol could not take over the life of Americans, but it didn't go quite as planned. The Prohibition banned the manufacturing, sale, and transportation of alcohol and the desperate ones found loopholes in this simple amendment. The Eighteenth Amendment was ultimately passed to keep a healthy working society and it was repealed because of the increasing organized crime and illegal activities all over the country.

Although the temperance movement was concerned with the habitual drunk, its primary goal was total abstinence and the elimination of liquor. With the ratification of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, the well-organized and powerful political organizations, utilizing no holds barred political tactics, successfully accomplished their goal. Prohibition became the law of the land on January 16, 1920; the manufacturing, importation, and sale of alcohol was no longer legal in the United States. Through prohibition, America embarked on what became labeled “the Nobel Experiment.” However, instead of having social redeeming values as ordained, prohibition had the opposite effect of its intended purpose, becoming a catastrophic failure.

The 1920’s of America was a time of many dramatic social and political changes. New fads arose, the economy changed, and thousands of people were transitioning from rural to urban areas. During this time, new amendments emerged, like the 18th amendment. The 18th amendment, prohibition, may have seemed like a positive thing at the time, but it caused countless problems like increased crime rates, the court system and law enforcement became corrupted, and the making of homemade alcohol increased.

When the Prohibition era in the United States began on January 19, 1920, a few sage observers predicted it would not go well. Certainly, previous attempts to outlaw the use of alcohol in American history had fared poorly. When a Massachusetts town banned the sale of alcohol in 1844, an enterprising tavern owner took to charging patrons for the price of seeing a striped pig—the drinks came free with the price of admission. When Maine passed a strict prohibition law in 1851, the result was not temperance, but resentment among the city's working class and Irish immigrant population. A deadly riot in Portland in 1855 lead to the law's repeal. Now, Prohibition was being implemented on a national scale, and being enshrined in the Constitution no less. What followed was a litany of unintended consequences.

When people can’t have something they tend to amp up the power when they are able to get it. People began drinking harder alcohol and largely gave up on beer when prohibition happened, people figure they have to get more bang for their buck or make it worth the risk. Not only did people begin drinking more powerful drinks, the drinks became more potent overall, the moonshine that bootleggers were making was much more potent than liquor had been before it was proclaimed illegal. Moonshine to this day is still the most powerful thing you can find to drink. Sometimes the people making the illegal liquor didn’t know what they were doing and the substance could sometimes be

“For every prohibition you create, you also create an underground.” jello biafra said this referring to when every time the government tries to ban or regulate something, people are trying to get out around the law. The 18th Amendment started in January of 1920 to December of 1933 to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce tax burden created because of prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene on America. It was a miserable failure on all accounts. Prohibition had a reverse effect on the people of the U.S. due to the damage it did to the economy, the corruption of officials in the us government, and how it was one of the government's worst failures in U.S. history.

-Soon the mob and gangsters take the advantage of this new prohibition and start to smuggling and bootlegging alcohols. Alcohol are smuggled in from mainly two places Mexico and Canada, and each year Canada roughly export a million gallons of alcohol to US. Soon the mob and gangster’s little business is getting quite profitable.

During the 1920s, a national ban on alcohol was rumored to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, and improve health and hygiene in America. This era of banned alcohol, was called Prohibition. This law passed, banning all production on alcohol was enforced, leading to illegal production of alcohol, executed in many different ways. This time era and circumstances have roughly shaped America today.

Most Americans were beginning to lead a life away from religion, and often consumed alcohol they attained from “speakeasies”, or even produce their own liquor called “moonshine” or “bathtub gin”. With the growing illegal consumption of alcohol during prohibition, the crime rates sky rocketed; but law enforcement simply could not keep up with the amount of crime happening. Since police were busy with simple crimes such as one consuming alcohol illegally, there was little to no time for them to focus on keeping citizens safe. Due to this fact and the fact that the government could no longer maintain safe alcohol manufacturing, there were many dangers associated with ‘bootlegged’ alcohol. These dangers included; “blindness,” if gotten into the eyes, “paralysis and even death” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2015). With the distribution of unsafe ‘bootlegged’ alcohol, many Americans died; raising the death rate throughout the nation. While the population fell apart politically and socially with chaos and rebellion, the United States also experienced a huge economic downfall due to

During the time of Prohibition, citizen wanted to consume alcohol; furthermore; bootleggers would transport the alcohol to the illegal saloons (Dudley 94). “Prohibition has led to increased drinking of intoxicating liquor on the part of women and children” (Dudley 96). The main objective of Prohibition was to determinate the drinkage of; however, according to Mr. Stayton, Prohibition had created the opposite (Dudley 96). While Prohibition was still valid, people had still wanted to consume alcohol; moreover, there was more crime that violated the Eighteenth Amendment (Dudley 96). As a result of Prohibition, crime had increased (Dudley 96). “It being estimated by United States District Attorney buckner of New York that it would require an appropriation of at least $75,000,000 a year to restrain the commercialized

Many other rum runners were transporting alcohol across the great lakes into Detroit and Chicago up the mississippi river to new orleans and many other places.

The focus of this research will surround the Prohibition era in Illinois. Research conducted about the impact that Prohibition had in Chicago will provide a narrative about how the banning of alcohol impacted urban areas. That will then be compared to research done on the impact of Prohibition on rural Illinois in particular southwest and southern Illinois. The purpose of this research is to provide answers as to how Prohibition affected the Illinoisan’s domestic and family life, the economies in these regions, the increase of crime rate and racketeering, and the effects it had on American health and alcoholism. The American 1920s has always been one of most fascinating eras of study for me. However, the effect that the Volstead Act and Eightteenth

Prohibition in the 1920’s The 1920’s were known as the roaring 20’s for their tremendous economic growth post WW1 and the Jazz age. It was also the start of Prohibition with the 18th amendment and the Volstead act pushed by the WCTU, Anti-Saloon League, and the Prohibition Party. Both laws were to “declare the production, transport, and sale of alcohol illegal [and] methods for enforcing the eighteenth amendment.” This was also known as the Noble Experiment “undertaken to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America.”

“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,