Prohibition

The sun was just setting and the last of the evening light illuminated the Manahattan skyline, a soft wind swept
through the streets rustling street litter from the white collar worker.

A mysterious figure strolled around the corner, time told that it was a well built young man in a grey overcoat
and sharp shoes. He paused on the corner for what seemed like an eternity, reaching into his coat and bringing
out a small case. ‘Click’ as he opened it and pulled a cigarette from the silver box engraved read the words
‘Lower east side Toy Company’.

The flame from his match flowed in the breeze and rose to light his cigarette, he quick look around and he
crossed the street entering a dark alley. A trip down an inconspicuous set of steps winding into another alley,
past the fire exits of adjacent buildings and up another short flight to an unmarked door. The stentch of cigarette
smoke and stale alcohol filled the air as he approached.A single dim light hung over the doorway, a sharp look
over his shoulder and a sequence of knocks on the solid oak then silence.

The sound of several locks echoed and the door swung open, a well dressed man stood in the doorway.
Towering a cool 6ft 2in and the physique of a boxer, he looked the guy up and down before a nod and escorting
him inside, with another scout of the area the door closed and the alley brought a erry silence to it.

Inside both men found themselves in a room with one window up him, letting what was left of the natural light
an outline of boxes and machinery could just be made out. Weaving through the machinery and through another
door. Inside was a desk littered with paperwork from the day before and along the West wall a large bookcase
stood. A library of books filled the shelves, out of the shadows another boxer type stepped into the light, with a
strong America accent he politely asked’ Password please’.

The man tipped his hat and replied ‘ juice joint’, The boxer turned to the bookshelf, running his callesed fingers
across a series of dusty red books, he stopped and with a glance over his shoulder pulled one of the books. The
middle of the book shelf slid back and a bright light filled the room, the man entered and smiled as he entered
his final destination.

Filled with smoke and the sound of laughter filled the room, walking to the back of the room brought him to a
dark stained bar flood lit in red lights. A young girl with bob haircut and short white dress, swining a pearl
necklace in one hand and holding a cigarette in the other approached our man asking to take his coat. As he
unbuttoned his grey overcoat he revelied a sharp black pinstripe suit with a glimering red tie, the east corner of
the room started girls secretly whishpering amongst themselves.

Leaning up against the bar, the tender approached ‘giggle water sir’, the man nodded. The tender proceded to
mix an arey of spirits, juice and sugar then firmly shake it before pouring into a tea cup.

Paying the tender and leaving the change as a tip he turned and leaned on the nbar absorbing his surrounding.
Low tables were spread thoughout the establishment with an obsence amount of young women dressed to
impress, men of all ages in sharp suits entertaining the young women.

Another corner brought a band belowing out Jazz with a small dancefloor filled with young couples enjoying
the freedom of youth. A futher look saw a smaller room with an orgy of white fleshed girls and older business
men engaging in sexual details.

This is the 1920’s, this is a Speakeasy and this is Prohibition!

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The Prohibition era (The Noble Experiment) in 1920 – 1933 is not only one of the most famous events in history
but also had the greatest influence on mankind’s development into the modern world.

The intention was to reduce the consumption of alcohol by eliminating businesses that manufactured, distributed
and sold it. Considered by many as a failed social and political experiment, the era changed the way many
Americans view alcoholic beverages, enhancing the realization that federal government control cannot always
take the place of personal responsibility.

We associate the era with gangsters, bootleggers, speakeasies, rum-runners and an overall chaotic situation in
respect to the social network of Americans.

What wasn’t expected was the mass influence and boost to so many other industries

Many temparance movements had been in the political cirlces long before prohibition, the major player at the
time were the womens Christian temperance union (EST 1874) and the Prohibition Party (EST 1869). Come
1893 the anti-saloon league was established and between the three groups they influenced political parties into
the eventual passage of the 18th amendant.

IN 1879 John st. John was elected governor of Kansa’s and four years later he succeeded in banniing alcohol in
the state of Kansas. In the eyes of the temeprance movement govenor st. John was a hero and by 1884 he was
chosen by the party to be the presidential canadiate.

Even though he didn’t win, he helped grover cleaveland (Democratic Party) to win the presidential election.
This was a big win for the temperance movement and the influence they now had would put ideas into motion.

By World War 1 it was considered unpatriotic to use grain for the use of alcohol and most distilleries at the time
were owned by German-Americans. John d. rockafellar a well established business man donated $350,000 to the
anti-saloon league. This gave the party the financial backing to purse there campagin. By January 1919 75% of
the states in America had actioned the 18th amendant banning the sale and transport of intoxicating liquours.

In December 1917 President Woodrow Wilson issued a partial prohibition to consrve the grain during war time
and beer was limited to 2.75% alcohol content. The anti-saloon league launched a attack on German owned
milwaukee brewers ‘the worst of all our german breweries’, dubbing there beer ‘Kaiser beer’.

At midnight January 16th 1920 the prohibition act was admitted and the US went dry, forcing all distilleries,
breweries and saloons to close.

This act was considered a huge success for the temeprance movement but under the woodwork new
developments were emerging organised crime. The enforcement of Prohibition was a difficult one to monitor
and the growth in ilegal drinking was on the rise. The distillation of alcohol was a profitable business and
moonshiners as they were called, say an opportunity to profit from this act. Employing bootlegger who delate
with the delivery of the hooch, hiding it in obscure places.

For instance, a spare tire could be filled with substances other than air, that one must not look too deeply into
certain binoculars, and that the Teddy Bears that suddenly acquired tremendous popularity among the ladies
very often had hollow metal stomachs.

A large part of the population has become accustomed to disregard and to violate the law without thinking., the
taste for alcohol has spread ever more widely among the youth.

By 1923 Cleveland alone had 3,000 illegal speakeasies, 10,000 stills and an estimated 30,000 residence sold
liquour and a further 100,000 nade bathtub gin or homebrew for themselves.

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Corruption was on the rise and politicians like Harry Daughtery (attorney general) ws accepting bribes from
bootleggers. One of the most famous bootleggers was George Remus who boasted a woping thousand sales men
on his payroll, many police officers.

Moonshiners became heroes and the thought of a Flapper dancing the Charleston and swiging on a hip flask
was a common thing.

The downside to all this organised crime was an increase in homicides and drunken deaths, prohibition as an
idea had tried to stop a bad habit but only made it more addictive, attractive and profitable

The most famous of all the gangsters was Al Capone. He had moved to Chicago in 1920 where he worked for
Johnny Torrio the city's leading figure in the underworld. Capone was given the task of intimidating Torrio's
rivals within the city so that they would give up and hand over to Torrio their territory. He also had to convince
speakeasy operators to buy illegal alcohol from Torrio.

Torrio was nearly killed by a rival gang and he decided to get out of the criminal world while he was still alive,
handing his empire over to Capone.

He wasted no time in building what was soon to be the inspiration behind Hollywood films like Little Ceasar
and Sacrface, projecting a dangerous but unforgetable high life of crime.

Within 2 years, Capone was earning $60 million a year bribing both the police and the important politicians of
Chicago. He spent $75 million on such ventures but considered it a good investment of his huge fortune. His
armed thugs patrolled election booths to ensure that Capone's politicians were returned to office. The city's
mayor after 1927 was Big Bill Thompson - one of Capone's men. Thompson said

In 1931, the law finally caught up with Capone and he was charged with tax evasion. He got 11 years in jail. In
prison, his health went and when he was released, he retired to his Florida mansion no longer the feared man he
was from 1925 to 1931.

The term “The Real McCoy” was attributed to Captain William S. McCoy who was the mos famous rum
runners using ships to bring liquour from the Carrabiean during prohibition, McCoy would never water down
his imports, making his the “real” thing.

McCoy, a non-drinker himself, began running rum from the Caribbean into Florida shortly after the beginning
of prohibition. McCoy set up a network of smal ships that would meet his boat just outside U.S. waters and
carry his supplies into the country.

Of all the new appliances to enter the nation's homes during the 1920s, none had a more revolutionary impact
than the radio. The first commercial radio station began broadcasting in 1919, and during the 1920s, the nation's
airwaves were filled with musical variety shows and comedies.

Radio drew the nation together by bringing news, entertainment, and advertisements to more than 10 million
households by 1929. Radio blunted regional differences and imposed similar tastes and lifestyles. No other
media had the power to create heroes and villains so quickly. When Charles Lindbergh became the first person
to fly nonstop across the Atlantic from New York to Paris in 1928, the radio brought this incredible feat into
American homes, transforming him into a celebrity overnight.

The nation's most popular radio show, "Amos 'n Andy," which first aired in 1926 on Chicago's WMAQ, spread
vicious racial stereotypes into homes whose white occupants knew little about African Americans. Other
minorities fared no better. The Italian gangster and the tightfisted Jew became stock characters in radio
programming.

The phonograph was not far behind the radio in importance. The 1920s saw the record player enter American
life in full force. The popularity of jazz, blues, and "hillbilly" music fueled the phonograph boom. The novelist
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F. Scott Fitzgerald called the 1920s the "Jazz Age"--and the decade was truly jazz's golden age. Duke Ellington
wrote the first extended jazz compositions; Louis Armstrong popularized "scat" (singing of nonsense syllables);
Fletcher Henderson pioneered big band jazz; and trumpeter Jimmy McPartland and clarinetist Benny Goodman
popularized the Chicago school of improvisation.

The blues craze erupted in 1920 when a black singer named Mamie Smith released a recording called "Crazy
Blues." The record became a sensation, selling 75,000 copies in a month and a million copies in seven months.
Recordings by Ma Rainey, the "Mother of the Blues," and Bessie Smith, the "Empress of the Blues," brought
the blues, with their poignant and defiant reaction to life's sorrows, to a vast audience.

"Hillbilly" music broke into mass culture in 1923 when a Georgia singer named "Fiddlin' John" Carson sold
500,000 copies of his recordings. Another country artist, Vernon Dalhart, sold 7 million copies of a recording of
"The Wreck of Old 97." "Country" music's appeal was not limited to the rural South or West; city folk, too,
listened to country songs, reflecting a deep nostalgia for a simpler past.

During the late teens and 1920s, the film industry took on its modern form. In cinema's earliest days, the film
industry was based in the nation's theatrical center--New York. By the 1920s, the industry had relocated to
Hollywood, drawn by its cheap land and labor, the varied scenery that was readily accessible, and a suitable
climate ideal for year-round filming, Hollywood released nearly 700 movies, dominating worldwide film
production.

A small group of companies consolidated their control over the film industry and created the "studio system"
that would dominate film production for the next 30 years. Paramount, 20th Century Fox, MGM, and other
studios owned their own production facilities, ran their own worldwide distribution networks, and controlled
theater chains committed to showing their companies' products.

The popularity of the movies soared as films increasingly featured glamour, sophistication, and sex appeal. New
kinds of movie stars appeared: the mysterious sex goddess, personified by Greta Garbo and the flapper, with her
bobbed hair and skimpy skirts. Comedies, such as the slapstick masterpieces starring Charlie Chaplin and Buster
Keaton, enjoyed great popularity.

Like radio, movies created a new popular culture with common speech, dress, behavior, and heroes. Like radio,
Hollywood did its share to reinforce racial stereotypes by denigrating minority groups. The radio, the electric
phonograph, and the silver screen both molded and mirrored mass culture.

Prior to prohibition women drank very little, just six months later after 72 years of battling women got the right
to vote, and coming into their own, they quickly "loosened” up, tossed their corsets, and enjoyed their newfound
freedoms. The "Jazz Age” quickly signified a loosening up of morals, the exact opposite of what had been
intended, and in came the "flapper.” With short skirts and bobbed hair, they flooded into speakeasys, daring to
smoke cigarettes and drink cocktails. Dancing to the jazz tunes of such soon to be famous jazz greats as Louis
Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Bojangles Robinson, and Ethel Waters, their powdered faces, bright red lips, and
bare arms and legs advertised a never before seen American women. Prohibition and jazz music was blamed for
this sacraregious act, young people were attracted to the glamour of speakeasys and began to drink in large
numbers. The new era was described by songwriter Hoagy Carmichael as: it came in "with a bang of bad booze,
flappers with bare legs, jangled morals and wild weekends."

No longer did free flowing liquor carry its former names of White Lightning, Tanglefoot, and Firewater; alcohol
now carried the new era of the devil’s candy, bathtub gin, booze, and hooch. Where beer and wine had
previously been the drinks of choice, now alcohol was drank much more frequently, as it was easier to transport
and took up less space, making it cheaper for patrons. It was at this time that the "cocktail” was born, which had
virtually been non-existent prior. In the old days most men drank either beer or straight shots of
liquor. However, during this new era that welcomed women, alcohol began to be mixed with soft drinks, sugar-
water and fruit juices. Making the bootlegged liquor much more palatable, millions of people who didn't like the
taste of beer, wine, or hard liquors found cocktails irresistible, turning men and women alike, into "criminals”
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by the thousands. While often having their cocktails in teacups in case of a raid, old social barriers were broken,
as the rich and powerful began to rub shoulders with ordinary folks. From housewives, to large business owners,
blue collar workers, corrupted police chiefs and mayors, these many patrons befriended each other in their quest
of the same goals – drinking and avoiding the law.

Increasingly, it began to be fashionable to flout the Prohibition laws and the hip flask became a symbol of
rebellion, seen everywhere – at theatres, festivals, and sporting events.

Speakeasies began breeding in numbers. As quickly as a padlock could be fastened on a saloon five
underground speakeasies would become fully functional. In 1925 there were reported to be 100,000 speakeasies
in New York City alone. It was common knowledge that between 45th and 52nd street on 5th and 6th avenues
one could stroll casually into almost any building and purchase a glass of liquor. The police couldn't keep up.
Raids became a daily federal pastime. But this was anticipated and even intercepted by clubs owners. Elaborate
drop-shelves, which would dump bottles into secret compartments, and electrical switches, which would
automatically short circuit from the push of a button. Manhattan's "21" club was equipped with four separate
buttons so that if the bartender near the rear entrance was prevented from reaching one of them, the doorman
would go for another.

The Cotton Club was a famous night club in Harlem, NY that operated during Prohibition that included jazz
music. While the club featured many of the greatest African American entertainers of the era, such as Fletcher
Henderson, Duke Ellington, , Ella Fitzgerald, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong,, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday
and Ethel Waters, it generally denied admission to blacks.

Owney Madden a bootlegger and gangster took over the club in 1923 while imprisoned. It closed in 1925 but
reopened shortly without any trouble from the police.

The club imposed a more subtle color bar on the chorus girls whom the club presented in skimpy outfits: they
were expected to be "tall, tan, and terrific," which meant that they had to be at least 5 feet 6 inches tall, light
skinned, and under twenty-one years of age.

Although there was good and bad times in Prohibition but all good things must come to an end and on
December 5th 1933 Presedent Roosevelt was one of the first to have a beer legally.