Name: Richard Canales

• Began in the 19th century • Precedent for a ban on alcohol was set by an 1838
• Inspired by Protestant revivalism Massachusetts law which limited the sale of spirits
• Spread by small political organizations and churches • Maine and other states began to pass prohibition
• The Anti-Saloon League strongly advocated for prohibition at the laws starting in 1846
local, state, and federal level • Wayne Wheeler, head of the Anti-Saloon League,
• Temperance was supported by many suffragists concerned for conceived the 18th Amendment
families and industrialists concerned about worker productivity • The amendment was ratified in January 1919
• Congress passed the National Prohibition Act
(Volstead Act) to enforce the new amendment
Temperance
Movement
18th Amendment

• Prohibition was contended during the 1928
presidential election
• Herbert Hoover won and supported prohibition
• The Great Depression overshadowed prohibition
as a political issue and made its enforcement
untenable
• In March 1933, FDR signed the Cullen-Harrison Act
which eased the restrictions of the Volstead Act by
allowing the sale of low-alcohol beer and wines
• On December 5, 1933 prohibition was repealed by
the ratification of the 21st Amendment
Bootlegging
Prohibition • Early bootleggers smuggled liquor from
Mexico and Canada over the borders or via
ships
• Bootleggers forged or abused prescriptions
to acquire "medicinal" whiskey from
drugstores
• Alcohol for industrial-use was instead made
for consumption
Organized Crime • Bootleggers began making their own supply
via stills that made liquor from corn

• Bootlegging became a complex process that required

Repeal organization

• Gangs controlled localized chains of bootlegging

operations from the production of liquor to its
distribution in speakeasies, restaurants, and
nightclubs

• Gangs were able to create monompolies and

network across major cities

• Their activities expanded into gambling rackets,

prostitution, labor-racketeering, loan-sharking, and
extortion