From the 1850’s through the late 1890’s, the popularity of prohibition laws rose.  This was due in large part to organizations that were fighting for prohibition.  These were the Prohibition Party, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League.  In the early twentieth century many states adopted prohibition, but the per capita consumption of alcohol rose during the same time because of the new popularity of beer instead of distilled liquor.  On January 16, 1920, the national Prohibition went into effect and the Eighteenth Amendment was enacted.  The Eighteenth Amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale, transportation, importation and exportation of certain alcohol with a specific alcohol content.  The ban was against intoxicating beverages and the Volstead Act defined these intoxicating beverages as beverages that had one-half of one percent alcohol by volume. 

 

Enforcement of prohibition created several problems politically and socially.  When they enforced it they overloaded the courts and the jails with the offenders.  The federal government did not do enough to support local agencies trying to enforce the national prohibition laws.  When they didn’t enforce it well, the speakeasies replaced the prior legal drinking saloons and people were just illegally drinking behind closed doors instead of openly drinking and showing public drunkenness.  Speakeasies were illegal drinking establishments that were secreted away from law enforcement.  Bootlegging, the illegal manufacturing and transportation of liquor, also ran rampant.  People began to make their own alcohol at home in order to make money on the sale of the banned beverage, and they called this potent homemade alcohol “moonshine” or “bathtub gin.”  Bootlegging was very profitable and the money motivated many to break the law for this lucrative business.

 

Speakeasies.  Law enforcement was unable to control the speakeasies.  As soon as they closed one down another would open.  These were businesses that pretended on the front to be a legitimate business but in the back they operated a club where alcohol was served.  These business fronts were barber shops, bakeries, hardware stores, tool manufactures, or lamp shops.  It is reported that you could find up to a dozen speakeasies in just a few city blocks.  Alcohol was smuggled in from Canada through the Great Lakes and by land and law enforcement was losing the battle. 

 

Bootlegging.  In addition to causing criminal activity, the bootlegging of alcohol also caused a serious side effect of alcohol poisoning.  Homemade alcohol was not made in clean distilleries and there was no way to ensure the quality or check the content of this alcohol.  Some makers put harmful chemicals in their moonshine to make it seem more potent, and some alcohol was made in unsanitary conditions.  Many people were blinded and poisoned by wood alcohol which isn’t burned off by the body like grain alcohol is.  People were dying because there was no oversight on the production of what could be a very deadly beverage.

 

Criminal Activity and Violence.  Since alcohol was illegal, those who decided to profit from the manufacture and sale of this outlawed substance were criminals.  The most famous outlaw who made millions from bootlegging was Al Capone. He was the Chicago gangster who was thought to have made $60 million dollars per year on illegal alcohol production and distribution and his huge criminal empire was said to have been built on his proceeds from illegal alcohol. Violent crime associated with illegal alcohol operations was out of control during this time.   Gangsters and gangs controlled the transportation of outlawed alcohol, and violent confrontations between these gangsters themselves and between gangsters and law enforcement became a huge problem.