Good Time Juice
Prohibition a time where selling alcohol was highly illegal. No alcohol was to be sold but yet everyone still needed their good time juice. Times were tough from 1922-1933 no one could have any alcohol legally. So what was the plan for citizens, what would they have to do to get their liquor, and who was going to get it for them? It was a tough time to deal with being an adult at this time in history.
What started the prohibition time period? In 1917 after the United States entered World War I, President Woodrow Wilson instituted a temporary wartime prohibition in order to save grain for producing food. (Prohibition 1). In that same year congress submitted the 18th Amendment, which banned the manufacturing, transportation, and sales of intoxicating liquors, for state ratification. (Prohibition 1). People weren't too happy with that but they were still going to find a way to get their liquor.
How would people still get their liquor, and who would make and produce the liquor? During this time people couldn’t just stop drinking cold turkey. Thus leaving people with the idea of “Hey let's just make our own liquor and sell it.” And with that came bootleggers. (People making and selling alcohol illegally.) With people breaking laws came the consequences faced by those who continued to break the laws, illegally sources of production and distribution emerged quickly, and mob bosses controlled competition with guns, crime became a big business and no one was safe. (“Bootlegging”1).
With the bootleggers on the rise and liquor being illegal it quickly became a cat and mouse game. (“Lerner”). The only people that were allowed to have and give liquor was pharmacists. Only reason why they were the ones allowed to have liquor was for the patients to use to either numb or help ease their problems. (“Lerner”). With pharmacies being the only place to get liquor, multiple bootleggers saw it as the honey hole for selling liquor. Thus leading to more and more pharmacies rising up, in New York alone the number of pharmacies tripled during the prohibition era. (“Lerner”).
With the prohibition era going on, tempers flaring between gangs trying to sell liquor, to even the health concerns about liquor being consumed. It wasn’t safe being a bootlegger or anyone just wanting to get there hands on some liquor. Majority of liquor that was being produced was not even safe to drink. With the majority of the liquor containing poison. On Christmas Day 1922, five people died from drinking poisoned rum. (“Top 10”). During the prohibition era one government report said that of 480,000 gallons of liquor confiscated in New York in 1927, nearly all of the liquor contained some type of poison. (“Top 10”).
With bootleggers continuing to make illegal and unsafe liquor it all had to come to an end. On December 5th 1933 three states voted to repeal prohibition, putting the ratification of the 21st Amendment into place, and with that it ended prohibition after 13 years, 10 months, and 19 days after it began. (“Laston”).
Prohibition not only changed the lives of people who lived during that time but it also made an impact on United States history as well. It changed it by not only causing a ruckus with gangs but it also killed people. From drinking poisoned liquor, being in gangs of bootleggers, to bringing up pharmacies just to sell liquor illegally. Prohibition changed everything for that span of thirteen years. Could you imagine how life would be if we had to go through another prohibition? How would people react to not having liquor, people would lose jobs, and businesses would be shut down. Prohibition not only changed the way life was lived back in the 1930’s but also how it affected the people that had to live with that. Prohibition not only changed American history and will go down as a big moment in United States history.
Works Cited
“Prohibition”. History.com. A+E Networks. www.history.com/topics/prohibition. 2009. Accessed 20 Nov. 2016.
Laston, Jennifer. “ A Toast to the End of Prohibition”. Time.com. Time.com/a-toast-to-the-end-of-prohibation. 5 Dec. 2014. Accessed 20 Nov. 2016
Lerner, Michael. “Unintended Consequences”. Pbs.com. pbs.org/kenburns/prohibation/unintended-consequences/. 2011. Accessed 20 Nov. 2016.
“Bootlegging”. National Museum of American History.
americanhistory.si.edu/american-enterprise-exibition/corporate-era/bootlegging. Accessed 20 Nov. 2016
“Top 10 Prohibition Tales”. Time.com. Content.time.com/time/specials/packages/articles/. 2016. Accessed 20 Nov. 2016.