Throughout the history of America, many would argue that the 1920’s were the craziest and wildest times in our history. The world had just gotten out of the First World War, and as Americans, we were done with hard times and were itching to have a good time. Americans were ready for a good time and a good party, but right before this could happen a law was passed that dramatically changed the course of history. The law was the national “dry” laws which would prohibit the production, distribution, and possession of alcohol. “Dry” laws had been passed in some states, but it did not go into effect nationally until January 17, 1920. Although many people, mostly Protestants, supported the new laws at the beginning. After a few years many people started to think that the law was not working. The thought was that it had led to things worse than drunkenness and alcohol. It had led to a rise in organized crime and homemade whiskey. People like Al Capone gained power and ordinary people who wanted a piece of the fortune started to make and sell their own whiskey. The demand for alcohol was up and the supply was down. People wanted alcohol, and since there was no one to sell it, organized crime soon revolved around the idea of importing alcohol. The problem was that getting any alcohol on shore was not an easy task. Since getting alcohol into the United States was so difficult, the easier way was just to make it in America. The people of the Appalachian Mountains had been making their own moonshine and whiskey since people got to America. Even though most of the moonshining occurred in the Appalachian Mountains, there were stills all over the country and especially in cities with powerful crime organizations. The general idea that many had a...
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...was also about the thrill of outrunning the revenuers. Being a bootlegger and having the fastest car was many peoples claim to fame during this time. Junior Johnson, a moonshiner and NASCAR racer, said, “I think the exposure of you being a good moonshiner and having the fast car of any body . It was sort of a glorified thing.” Having a fast car was the way to get the thrills during the prime time of moonshine. Lastly, just like most things moonshine was a tradition that was passed down from generation to generation. Grandfathers would teach their grandsons how to make the perfect still and how to make the secret family recipe. This aided in the fact that drinking alcohol became an American tradition. It caused the moonshiners to back the American population and supply them with enough moonshine to keep them from being thirsty during the “dry” years of prohibition.
Enacting prohibition in a culture so immersed in alcohol as America was not easy. American had long been a nation of strong social drinkers with a strong feeling towards personal freedom. As Okrent remarks, “George Washington had a still on his farm. James Madison downed a pint of whiskey a day”. This was an era when drinking liquor on ships was far safer than the stale scummy water aboard, and it was common fo...
Nascar…. When you think of moonshine you think of the hillbillies in overalls fireing up grand daddys still in the b ack forty. It may come to a shock to you when you learn that nascars the billion dollor enterprise with 100,000 cars that are engineered to be as fast as they can be. Its hard to belive it all started from shine runners. During the great depression millions of gallons of shine were in need of distribution. This is where the ridge runners came into play. The shiners needed a way to get there shine from the stills to the stash houses…. The cops at the time had stock cars and if you could out run them then you wre free. You can only get in trouble if you are caught in the act….. the backwoods shiners started to build cars that would out run the cops. This was the beginning of nascar…..
In 1920 following the ratification of the 18th amendment the country became dry. The 18th amendment made it illegal to manufacture, sell, import, or export drinking alcohol. It would stay this way for a little more than a decade, which became known as the prohibition. Prohibition was a way to clean up the cities and improving the conditions of the US. Prohibition was approved because drinking was thought be a drag on the economy and the leading cause for some of the country's problems such as corruption, child abuse, crime, and unemployment. Fourteen years later in 1932 America had changed its mind and it was repealed. So what changed? The American people had changed their minds about the 18th amendment because crime had increased,
On Jan. 17, 1920, America went completely dry. The 18th Amendment of the United States Constitution had been ratified a year earlier, banning “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” within the United States and its territories. This began the era of Prohibition, a 14-year time period of law-breaking unlike any other in our country’s history fueled by bootleggers, gangs, speak easies and mafias. The 18th Amendment was a rarity in that it limited the rights of the individual rather than the activities of the government, thereby guaranteeing an unfavorable reception and reaction. “Last Call” The Rise and Fall of Prohibition was written by Daniel Okrent and published in May 2010 and is a historical explanation of the Prohibition era. Prohibition through the 18th Amendment holds the distinction of being the only constitutional amendment ever to be repealed. This fact leads one to ask: How did this even occur? Why would Americans sacrifice their precious right to drink?
The United States and our government has been shaped entirely from its past. We have learned right from wrong, what has worked and what has failed. The 1920s was a time in our country where the government created a law that upset the people. This decade is often referred to as The Roaring 20’s, The Jazz Age, The Prohibition Era, The Cocktail Era, etc. All these names perfectly describe this time, but it was also a time to learn from the mistake of creating a law that prohibited alcohol. This law played such a huge role in the decade, and has been forever remembered. The Great Gatsby is a romance novel that also hints on the time of prohibition. F. Scott Fitzgerald talked greatly about alcohol and the part it took in The Roaring 20 's. Though
Both Prohibition and NASCAR came about as a means to solve certain issues affecting society. Prohibition was the result of the tireless effort of the temperance movement continuously advocating against the use of alcohol and other intoxicating substances in American society. The stock car came along as a reactionary measure to counteract the ban on alcohol and liquor. At its inception, stock car racing’s intended audience included individuals who were connected to the underworld, as these are the groups that would be present when competitions took place. With its advent rise in popularity and the legalization of the sport, NASCAR presently holds the enviable title of being the most watched spectator sport in the United States.5 ______________________________________________________________________________
After World War I ,the generation of young Americans who had fought the war became intensely disillusioned, as the brutal carnage that had just faced made the Victorian social morality of early-twentieth-century America like stuffy. The dizzying rise of the social market in the aftermath of the war led to a sudden, sustained increase in the national wealth and a newfound materialism, as people began to spend and consume at unprecedented levels. A person from any social background could, Potentially, make a fortune, but the American aristocracy-families with old wealth-scorned the newly rich industrialists and speculators. Additionally, the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919,which banned the sale of alcohol, created a thriving underworld designed to satisfy the massive demand of bootleg liquor among rich and poor alike.
Moonshiners were around before the 1920s, mostly in Tennessee and more southern states, however they were not as popular until Prohibition became in effect (Saloon). The people making the alcohol used to worry about the quality of the alcohol, however onc...
Big time Mobsters began setting up some big ideas for big business. Mob bosses, gangs, small time thugs, smugglers and just about anyone who did not mind sneaking around the law had their hands dipped into the moonshine business. The moonshine business was a basic manufacture, sell and repeat business; Prohibition had people thinking about making a pretty good profit from doing it. While this was happening, big time mobsters began digging into deeper ways of making money. Labor racketeering, selling of drugs and even prostitution really come into play during this time (Hales).
The public demand for alcohol led to a soaring business for bootleggers. When prohibition began, people immediately wanted a way to drink. Therefore, the profitable bootlegging business was born. Before Prohibition gangs existed, but had little influence. Now, they had gained tremendous power almost overnight. Bootlegging was easy; some gangs even paid hundreds of poor immigrants to maintain stills in their apartments. Common citizens, once law abiding, now became criminals by making their own alcohol. However, this forced risks for those who made their own. The less fortunate Americans consumed homemade alcoholic beverages that were sometimes made with wood alcohol. In return, many died due to alcohol poisoning.
The illegal liquor business, caused by Prohibition, was the start of organized crime in the USA. Many politicians and other officials in all positions became corrupt and criminal. This state remained even after the repeal of the liquor law for a long time.
People turned more and more towards criminal activity, organized criminals such as the American mobsters and European crime syndicates thrived, most common people looked upon these organizations as heros. Criminals like Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger were headliners of the era. Jobs were scarce and people needed to provide for their families, gangsterism was dangerous but provided an easy way to make money. When the American government passed the eighteenth Amendments outlawing alcohol, people who enjoyed a drink became criminal for doing so. It was organized criminals who supplied the booze. In January of 1920 the American government banned the sale and supply of alcohol, the government thought that this would curb crime and violence, prohibition did not achieve its goals, leading more toward higher crime rates and excessive violence. Alcohol was seen as the devil's advocate and banning the substance would help improve the quality of American lives. It caused an explosive growth in crime with more than double the amount of illegal bars and saloons operating than before prohibition. The government set up the “Federal Prohibition Bureau” to police prohibition, this did not deter people and organized crime continued to be the main supplier of booze. With a large coastline it was almost impossible to police with only five percent of alcohol ever being confiscated. Bribing government officials was common, and people were increasingly crafty in the way they
In the year 1920, Prohibition was established. It was came with the 18th amendment. This banned the distribution of alcoholic beverages. Criminals saw this as an opportunity. It was a way to make easy cash. Criminals would import it, manufacture it, steal the product, and then sell it for a lot of profit. Alcohol was extremely popular, and there was a lot of business to be made. Especially since there was no legal competition since it was now banned, there would be no tax on the product and merely all the money made was for the person to keep. Bootlegging was the name given to this criminal behavior. Criminals and gangsters were flourishing with all the profits that were being made from bootlegging alcohol.
The criminal justice system is an example of a social institutions in which society trusted to deliver justice to the country. During the period of the 1920s Alcohol was viewed my society as a problem that greatly affected social stability. Crime as a ripple effect of society during that time because restrictions drove people to take extra ordinary actions to obtain alcohol. Trending was that alcohol such as moonshine was made in southern states and most of the time those who made it happened to be competing to make the best moonshine. During the earliest time in which prohibition had begun to pick up steam started prior to the 1920s dating back as far as the early 1900s. The thinking of this time was summarized at best by Brown who stated, “The American saloon as an institution has shown itself to be an obstacle to the way of the moral and civic development of the people.”3
Moonshine was originally a slang term for high-proof distilled spirits usually produced illicitly, without government authorization. In recent years, however, moonshine has been legalized in various countries and has become a commercial product. Legal in the united states since 2010, moonshine is defined as “ clear, ungaged whiskey”, typically made with corn mash as its main ingredient.