Case Analysis on Prohibition

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Case Analysis on Prohibition The 18th Amendment, better known as The Volstead Act, which was the outlawing the selling and manufacturing of alcohol in the United States, was put into law in 1920. The groups who were pushing for this amendment for years on the grounds of religious and moral reasons were The Anti Saloon League and the Woman’s Temperance Union had their own agenda, but others also for it for growing resentment of new immigrants who were calling America home at that time. The white Protestants who for years were entrenched in the power structure of the country saw the immigrants as a threat to their way of life. The Irish Catholics and their large families were considered drunks and poor. The German people were looked at suspiciously because America had just fought them in WWI could not be trusted and the Eastern Europeans who had a sizable Jewish population were all people who did not fit what they saw as Americans profile. Boyer pg.217 English pg109 Alcohol whether for social or religious reasons, was something the new immigrants used in their native countries and enjoyed brought these traditions with them to enjoy in America. These new immigrants were looked down on and what Casey 2 Better way to control them by forbidding something they might enjoy. So the people who made up the Temperance movement sought to ban alcohol in the United States. Okrent pg 237 The only thing The Volstead Act did in making alcohol illegal was creating a new criminal element in towns and cities across America. Instead of decreasi... ... middle of paper ... ...idered criminals if the law would not enforce it. She also saw how people were actually drinking more as well as women socially drinking with men in speakeasies and this was result of prohibition. Cashman pg.160 Work Cited English,T.J Paddy Whacked, New York, Harper Collins. 2005. Print Cashman,Sean Denis, Prohibition, the lie of the land. New York Macmillian Publishing Co.1981. Print. Okrent,Daniel, Last Call, the rise and fall of prohibiton, New York ,Simon and Schuster Inc. 2010 Boyer,Paul S. Editor, the Oxford Guide to United States History, New York Oxford University Press, 2001 . Pilisuk, Marc. “[CN]Chapter 5: [CN] Networks of Power.” Who Benefits from Global Violence and War: Uncovering a Destructive System. With Jennifer Achord Rountree. Westport: Praeger Security International, an imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., 2008. Print.

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