5. Legacies

‘Legacies’ explains that the most important legacy of prohibition in the United States concerned a dramatic change in drinking habits. The raunchy all-male saloon disappeared for good and per capita consumption of alcohol was reduced for a very long time. Consumption in the 1930s was one-third lower than before prohibition because people had little money to spend on drinks during the Great Depression and because a generation that had come of age during prohibition never imbibed much alcohol. Other legacies include industry-sponsored scientific research on alcohol and alcoholism; the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous, which placed responsibility for drinking upon the individual drinker; and the 1980s designated driver scheme proposed by Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

1. Drinking and temperance

‘Drinking and temperance’ describes the history of alcohol consumption in the United States and the introduction of the temperance movement. From the earliest European settlers to the fighters of the Revolution, Americans were among the world’s heartiest drinkers, producing their own corn beer and importing rum from the West Indies. The British blockades during the war meant access to rum was lost. Americans began to distill whiskey from corn instead, which became the country’s patriotic drink. Problems associated with heavy drinking resulted in reformers creating the temperance movement, a cause that was then taken up by Protestant preachers. In the 1850s, evangelicals lobbied for statewide prohibition laws, but there was no viable system of enforcement.

4. Repeal

By the late Twenties, Americans increasingly recognized that prohibition could not work, but getting the political system to tackle the issue was hard. ‘Repeal’ explains that it would take another national crisis, the Great Depression, to end prohibition. As the economy declined in the early Thirties, government officials faced falling revenues while the demand for public services increased. This appetite for revenue, along with changing public opinion, forced reconsideration of alcohol policy. The Twenty-first Amendment was ratified in December 1933. Alcohol became widely available, but high taxes kept the price high enough to reduce consumption, state governments determined where alcohol was sold or consumed, and control boards decided the circumstances under which it was drunk.

3. Prohibition

January 16, 1920 was the last day that Americans could legally buy a drink before both the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act went into effect. Whenever a substance is banned, the price goes up and the product returns in a more concentrated form, or a replacement appears. ‘Prohibition’ explains how beer was replaced with distilled spirits; prohibition brought back the very hard liquor that the original temperance movement had despised. Bootleggers supplied imports, home distillation of moonshine increased, prices soared, and criminal gangs quickly gained control of urban distillation. Prohibition did not stop drinking, but it did promote thugs like Al Capone, who both got rich and paid no taxes.

2. The dry crusade

‘The dry crusade’ describes the increasing number of anti-liquor reformers who wanted state and national prohibition. Key groups were the Women’s Crusade and Woman’s Christian Temperance Union of Ohio and the Anti-Saloon League. Middle-class women dried up dozens of small towns, but when anti-liquor reformers in larger towns led similar movements, they met defiance and resistance. The rise of local option in the 1880s and 1890s meant smaller communities could support a ban even if votes were lacking to prohibit alcohol statewide. Without World War I, it is doubtful that prohibition would ever have passed Congress or been ratified, but enforcement turned out to be far more challenging than the dry forces ever imagined.

Introduction

From 1920 to 1933 the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution banned the production, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages. The Introduction explains that this VSI is about both prohibition and the century-long campaign that led to that result. The American dry movement was part of a global effort to ban or control alcohol and other drugs, which began with the Enlightenment, gained strength during religious-based moral uplift and industrialization in the 1800s, and peaked after 1900 amid rising concerns about public health, family problems, and the power of producers to entice overuse. How and why was prohibition adopted? What kind of alcohol policies were adopted when prohibition ended in 1933?