This Day in History: 5 December 2019
5 December 1933
86 years ago, today, prohibition ended in the United States, due to the 21st Amendment that the US Constitution established, thus causing the 18th Amendment to be repealed. In 1920, prohibition in the US was a nationwide ban on the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages, prompted by alcoholism, family violence and political violence in the 19th century. The brewing industry was, as a result, shut down by state legislatures and nationwide under the 18th Amendment, specifically the Volstead Act. Those who wanted Prohibition the most were repressive authoritarians and a group called the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, who saw prohibition as a kind of social reform, as they thought alcohol was a deadly threat to health and the virtue of American womanhood.
Prohibition was successful in reducing the amount of liquor consumed, death rates and alcoholism. However, prohibition is seemed to have stimulated the increase of underground, organised and widespread criminal activity, as by 1925, there were around 30,000-100,000 speakeasy clubs (an establishment that illegally sold alcohol) in New York City. Prohibition represented a great business opportunity to gangsters, as they could now sell alcohol for much cheaper. One of the most well-known of these gangsters was Al Capone, who controlled much of Chicago's underground criminal activity, and was supposedly gaining $100m a year from casinos and hotels. However, in 1929, things turned sour when Capone ordered the machine-gun murders of seven Chicago rivals in the Valentine's Day Massacre and was arrested.
On this day in history, December 5, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt ratified the 21st Amendment which repealed the 18th Amendment and alcohol was allowed once more. The significance and theme of prohibition and its impact on America lives on in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1920s novel 'The Great Gatsby', published in the height of prohibition. Alcohol is seen commonly at the parties in the novel, particularly Gatsby's, showing how much social drinking was a part of life. Gatsby as well represents the prohibition of the time, as his wealth seems to have been gained through bootlegging (the illegal selling of alcohol). The character of Meyer Wolfsheim also is clearly influenced by a real gangster of the time called Arnold Rothstein, one of the supposedly first gangsters to grasp the commercial potential of prohibition. His agents had also been responsible for rigging the World Series in 1919, just like Meyer Wolfsheim is told to have been involved with.
Want to find out more about the ban on alcohol that lasted 13 years nationwide? Visithttps://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/aug/26/lawless-prohibition-gangsters-speakeasies for more details.
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