Prohibition And Prohibition

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The Prohibition Era, the time in American history in which the American government made the manufacture, transfer, or sale of intoxicating liquors illegal, lasted from January 16th, 1920 to 1933. The idea was that if alcohol was taken away that crime associated with drinking would diminish, this was not the case. Prohibition was not the original idea, governments originally pushed for drinking in moderation. (Thinkquest.org) After the Revolutionary War drinking was starting to become popular, to stop this from becoming a problem areas would push citizens to drink the many forms of liquor in moderation. After a many decades the movements didn’t want to push moderation anymore and started to work for the total prohibition of alcohol. Temperance, the act of removing all alcohol, movements came to blame alcohol for a lot of society’s problems such as murder, muggings, and fights. Saloons, a place to enjoy alcoholic beverages normally quiet and cigar filled, were seen by many and especially women as a bad place to be and to some, evil. (Rosenberg) (Blumenthal) In 1919 the 18th amendment came to be a part of the American Constitution, this prohibited selling and/or making alcohol. The amendment was to take action in 1920, so people began buying tons of hard liquor with which they would use during the up and coming prohibition. Prohibition was not only a public protest, but people moving for prohibition were going into the schools and publically denouncing alcohol and saying things to suggest that drinking was to consent sin. But, at this point there were other people though, the gangsters, thugs, and bandits who would continue to move the liquor, which so many people demanded, and did so at high prices. To counteract this underground dr... ... middle of paper ... ...tes they would pay the gangsters to “insure” that they won. Socially we were heavily affected because many people had been a part of the movements and children that had the classes to teach them how alcohol was bad were never going to just “un-learn” it all. The prohibition was a huge failure but it did prove some of the dangers to come with hard liquors and it also made the government put laws in place to insure that Americans would drink in moderation. These are things like no drinking and driving, also there is a limit on how much alcohol you can have in you, and certain places are dry (no alcohol). Also, because the movement did not completely dry America as a whole the alcohol industry has boomed. If you watch TV, liquor commercials are everywhere and Prohibition in itself may have had something to do with the escalation of media display of alcoholic beverages.

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