Negative Effects Of The Progressive Era

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The Progressive Era brought a lot of changes to the United States, some were good and made a positive impact, others negative. Prohibition is one of the things that came from the Progressive Era that was in the middle and could be positive or negative. How you feel about it really depends on your personal feeling towards alcohol and the effects of drunkenness on society. For me I feel like there were other ways to cut back on the drunkenness of that time. I understand that the reasoning for attempting to outlaw the production, distribution and sale in alcohol but at the end the people still found way to get there hands on it.
The first hint of prohibition happened in Maine after a few groups convinced the state to outlaw the sale of alcohol …show more content…

The distribution and sale of alcohol often referred to as “bootlegging” was still going on throughout the country. One of the most famous of the bootleggers in the time was the Chicago gangster Al Capone. Al Capone also famous for his involvement of the St. Valentine's Day massacre made over 60 million dollars in the bootlegging business. Another way people got there there fix was gaining access to nightclubs or stores that sold alcohol called “speakeasies”. The most dangerous way of getting some alcohol was making it at home and smuggling it across state lines. The most famous of these homemade brews still in manufacture today in a large part of the country was “moonshine”. Moonshine is made the same way whiskey but was not aged in barrels. The most legal of all was to have a doctor prescribe you whiskey for your toothache with orders from the doctor to “take three ounces every hour for stimulant until stimulated”. Speakeasies soon took on the look of pharmacies to further their business.
The economy began to suffer shortly after prohibition was put into effect because the cost of the bootlegged alcohol was so expensive people began to spend less money on other goods and the government was not making any money from the taxation of the alcohol. The government was also encouraging a lot of financial issues because it was becoming very expensive to enforce the laws and put the law breakers behind bars. (Pun intended). This paired with the people that were put out of work because of the closure of the breweries and distilleries caused a severe downturn and added to the Great

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