Comprehensive Study Guide on Prohibition and the Eighteenth Amendment

19th-Century Background and Moral Foundations of Temperance

  • The Second Great Awakening:

    • Emerged in the 19th century as a Protestant religious revival movement aimed at remaking society in God's image.
    • Instigated broad civic action, directly inspiring the formation of thousands of temperance societies across the United States.
    • Successfully encouraged voluntary reductions in individual alcohol consumption and pressured state legislatures to enact stricter liquor regulations.

  • Lyman Beecher:

    • Prominent 19th-century social activist and Presbyterian minister who heavily criticized alcohol consumption.
    • Warned of the destructive effects of alcohol on physical health, moral character, domestic stability, and civic virtue.

Portrait of Lyman Beecher

  • Visual Ideology of the 1850s:
    • "The Drunkard's Home" (1850 engraving designed by T.H. Matteson, engraved by G.S. Rae):
    • Depicts a squalid, impoverished home where a cowering family (mother and frightened children) suffers under the whims of a violent, drunken patriarch brandishing a bottle.
    • "The Temperance Home" (1850 engraving designed by T.H. Matteson, engraved by G.S. Rae):
    • Depicts an opposing scene of domestic order, affection, material comfort, and moral harmony, showing a sober family gathered peacefully around a table reading books and scriptures.

The Drunkard's Home

The Temperance Home

  • Symbolic Imagery of 1855:

    • "Tree of Temperance" vs. "Tree of Intemperance":
    • Dual illustrations contrasted the spiritual, physical, and social fruits of sobriety (e.g., health, prosperity, peace, virtue) against the destructive fruits of alcohol abuse (e.g., poverty, crime, disease, ruin).

  • Early Advocacy Groups:

    • Washington Temperance Society ("The Washingtonians"):
    • Praised by public figures such as Abraham Lincoln for its highly effective, empathetic, peer-to-peer reformed-drinker outreach, which proved more persuasive than traditional moralizing from elite preachers and lawyers.

Major Reform Organizations and Anti-Alcohol Activists

  • Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU):
    • Founded in 1874 to fight alcohol consumption and advocate for progressive social reforms.
    • Frances Willard served as national president from 1879 to 1898, broadening the organization's agenda to include:
    • Women's suffrage.
    • The 8-hour workday.
    • Prison reform.
    • The Social Gospel movement.
    • WCTU Abstinence Pledge:
    • Members signed formal cards declaring: "I hereby solemnly promise, God helping me, to abstain from all distilled, fermented and malt liquors, including wine, beer and cider; and to employ all proper means to discourage the use of and traffic in the same."

WCTU Pledge Card signed by Mrs. Agnes Cole on August 17, 1917

  • The Anti-Saloon League:
    • Established with a single-minded focus exclusively on achieving national legal prohibition of alcoholic beverages.
    • Developed modern political lobbying techniques:
    • Distributed massive quantities of anti-drinking literature and brochures.
    • Mobilized church congregations into direct voting blocs.
    • Pressure-lobbied political candidates, lawmakers, and corporate executives.

Members of the Anti-Saloon League meeting in Chicago

  • Carrie Nation ("The Saloon Smasher"):
    • Radical WCTU member famous for direct action raids on illegal saloons.
    • Marched into drinking establishments wielding a hatchet or hammer to smash liquor bottles, kegs, and bar fixtures.
    • Arrested approximately 30 times between 1900 and 1910 for public disruption and destruction of property.
    • Managed commercially by James E. Furlong under posters labeling her "The Famous and Original Bar Room Smasher."

Poster for Carrie Nation managed by James E. Furlong

  • Religious Evangelism and the "Sawdust Trail":
    • William Ashley "Billy" Sunday:
    • Major League Baseball player turned popular Christian evangelist.
    • Acclaimed as "God's Instrument in Combatting the Evils of Our Day."
    • Delivered fiery, theatrical anti-alcohol sermons (most notably his famous "Booze Sermon").
    • Converted over 200,000 people to Christianity who walked down church aisles ("hitting the sawdust trail").

Constitutional Passage and Enforcement: The 18th Amendment and Volstead Act

  • Pre-Prohibition Demographics and Context:

    • Before constitutional prohibition, 75% of Americans lived in dry counties or areas due to local and state blue laws, driven primarily by rural populations.
    • World War I Influence:
    • Drinking was criticized as unpatriotic.
    • Grains (such as wheat and barley) needed to be conserved for military rations rather than alcohol production.
    • Anti-German sentiment targeted major American breweries owned by German-American families.

  • The Eighteenth Amendment:

    • Passed by Congress and officially ratified in 1919; went into effect nationwide in 1920.
    • Outlawed the manufacture, sale, transportation, import, and export of intoxicating liquors within the United States.

  • The Volstead Act (National Prohibition Act):

    • Sponsored and drafted by Minnesota Senator Andrew Volstead to establish legal machinery and specific definitions for enforcing the 18th Amendment.
    • Executive Veto: President Woodrow Wilson vetoed the Volstead Act on constitutional grounds, but Congress overrode his veto.
    • Legal Exceptions:
    • Allowed industrial alcohol production.
    • Permitted sacramental wine for legitimate religious services.
    • Allowed doctors to prescribe official medicinal liquor (e.g., Spiritus Frumenti / whiskey) using special U.S. Treasury Department prescription forms issued by the Bureau of Industrial Alcohol.

Prescription form for medicinal liquor issued under the National Prohibition Act

The Debate: "Drys" vs. "Wets"

  • Arguments of the "Drys" (Pro-Prohibition):
    • Banning alcohol improves individual character and productivity.
    • Strengthens family life and protects women and children from domestic neglect and financial ruin.
    • Eliminates moral corruption and reduces violent crime and disease in society.
    • Propaganda Examples:
    • Poem Poster: "Daddy's in There---" featuring the poem "Wanted--A Father; A Little Boy's Plea" by Julia H. Johnson (Series G. No. 23, published by The American Issue Publishing Co., Westerville, Ohio). Depicts a destitute child outside a saloon pleading for his father to bring his wages home for food and clothes.
    • Political Cartoon: "The Downward Path" by Frank Beard. Illustrates a slippery slope beginning at "Home" with modest messages ("A glass of wine is not a sin", "Be moderate", "Take a little for your stomach's sake", "You can stop when you please", "Go slow and there is no danger"), progressing down to the "Social Club" and "Saloon", and ending in violent tumble into crime, poverty, and death at "Stop Here".

The Downward Path cartoon by Frank Beard

  • Arguments of the "Wets" (Anti-Prohibition):
    • Government bans do not prevent Americans from drinking; prohibition is unenforceable.
    • Turns millions of ordinary, law-abiding citizens into federal criminals overnight.
    • Deprives the government of essential tax revenues and destroys legitimate manufacturing and hospitality jobs.
    • Creates massive underground illicit networks, funding violent organized crime syndicates and public corruption.

Unintended Consequences: Speakeasies, Moonshine, and Bootlegging

  • Speakeasies:
    • Secret, illegal underground bars that replaced licensed saloons.
    • Required secret passwords, special knocks, or membership cards for entry (e.g., the "Green Mill").
    • Prior to Prohibition, New York City had roughly 15,000 legal bars; by 1926, New York contained over 30,000 illegal speakeasies.

A speakeasy scene during the 1920s

  • Moonshine:
    • Illicit liquor distilled secretly in rural or home stills.
    • Lack of quality control resulted in toxic contaminants (e.g., lead, methanol), causing blindness, paralysis, and several hundred deaths annually in the 1920s.
    • Domestic brewing grew rapidly: in 1929 alone, an estimated 700 million gallons of beer were produced illegally in American homes.

Police officers inspecting confiscated moonshine stills and glass jugs

  • Bootlegging:

    • Illegal production, transport, and smuggling of liquor across international borders or state lines.
    • William "Real McCoy" McCoy:
    • Famous ocean bootlegger who built a fortune smuggling unadulterated, high-quality liquor on ships anchored in international waters off the East Coast from Canada and the West Indies.

  • Cultural Impact & Pop Culture Reaction:

    • Prohibition inspired popular songs and sheet music poking fun at alcohol hoarding and illegal drinking, such as "Everybody Wants a Key to My Cellar" (1919) by Ed Rose, Billy Baskette, and Lew Pollack (published by McCarthy & Fisher Inc., New York).

Sheet music cover for Everybody Wants a Key to My Cellar

Organized Crime, Gangster Era, and Public Corruption

  • Rise of Organized Crime Syndicates:
    • Massive black-market profit margins attracted criminal rackets, turning regional gangs into powerful, corporate-style syndicates.
    • Gangsters took control of urban territories, owning illegal supply lines, distilleries, speakeasies, and protection rackets.
    • Systematically bribed police officers, prohibition agents, court judges, and municipal politicians to avoid prosecution.

Political cartoon depicting prohibition agents, police, politicians, and judges lined up to take bribes

  • Al Capone ("Scarface"):
    • Crime boss who commanded the Italian-American Chicago Outfit, controlling the South Side of Chicago.
    • Generated approximately $60 million per year from bootlegging and gambling operations by 1927.
    • Maintained a private criminal army of over 700 armed men.
    • Personally linked to or directly responsible for over 500 gangland homicides.

Mugshot of Al Capone

  • George "Bugs" Moran:

    • Boss of the Irish-American North Side Gang in Chicago, serving as Capone's chief territorial rival.

  • The St. Valentine's Day Massacre:

    • Date: February 14, 1929.
    • Location: SMC Cartage Co. garage/warehouse at 2122 N. Clark Street on Chicago's North Side.
    • Event: Capone's gunmen, disguised as police officers carrying submachine guns, ambushed 7 members and associates of Bugs Moran's gang inside the warehouse.
    • Outcome: Moran's men were lined up against a brick wall and executed simultaneously in a single lethal volley. The brutal massacre shocked the nation and highlighted the lawlessness of the Prohibition era.

Victims of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre lying on the garage floor

Economic Shift and Repeal: The 21st Amendment

  • Factors Leading to Failure:

    • Total law enforcement failure due to widespread public non-compliance, border smuggling, and systemic police bribery.
    • Escalating violence, gang warfare, and public safety crises caused by gang turf wars.
    • Health catastrophes caused by poisoned home-brewed methyl alcohol.

  • Impact of the Great Depression (1929–1933):

    • Economic collapse changed public and political priorities.
    • Legalizing alcohol offered clear economic benefits:
    • Immediate creation of thousands of legitimate agricultural, distilling, brewing, and service jobs.
    • Generating millions of dollars in federal and state excise tax revenues to fund government operations without raising income taxes.

  • Anti-Prohibition Mobilization:

    • Public advocacy organizations, such as "The Crusaders", campaigned aggressively for repeal with the slogan "Repeal the 18th Amendment".

Woman supporting the Crusaders campaign to Repeal the 18th Amendment

  • The Twenty-First Amendment:
    • Ratified in December 1933.
    • Officially repealed the 18th Amendment, bringing an end to the 13-year "Noble Experiment" of national alcohol prohibition.