Prohibition

In US history, the period 1920–33 when the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was in force, and the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol was illegal. This led to bootlegging (the illegal distribution of liquor, often illicitly distilled), to the financial advantage of organized crime.

The Eighteenth Amendment, ratified in 1919, was enforced by the Volstead Act of 1919. It represented the culmination of a long campaign by church and women's organizations, Populists (the Populist movement arose in the late 19th century as a protest by farmers against economic hardship), progressives, temperance societies, and the Anti-Saloon League, who believed that alcohol was a moral and social ill. Although Prohibition did greatly reduce overall alcohol consumption, the result was widespread disdain for the law. Speakeasies for illicit drinking sprang up, and organized crime activity increased, especially in Chicago and towns near the Canadian border, led by notorious gangsters such as Al Capone. Public opinion led to the repeal of the law in 1933 with the Twenty-First Amendment.

Early impetus In 1846, Maine became the first state to pass a prohibition law. By 1855, various full or partial prohibition laws had been adopted by all the New England states, as well as by some of the northern and Midwestern states. But in some states the courts declared the laws unconstitutional, and in others they were not strictly enforced. The movement revived in the 1880s, and in 1893 the Anti-Saloon League was founded.

Prohibitionists now demanded prohibition amendments in the states' constitutions, so that state courts would not be able to declare the prohibition laws illegal. Many states which declined to pass state-wide prohibition laws adopted a different form of local control, whereby an individual city or town could vote itself dry.

The impact of wartime The entry of the USA into World War I gave the dry movement enormous impetus. In order to save cereals that could be used for food, Congress enacted laws prohibiting first the manufacturing of spirits and, later, of beers and wines. These laws were intended only for the duration of the war. But the reformers said that what was good for war was good for peace. Congress quickly responded to this sentiment, and by December 1917 had passed a proposed prohibition amendment to the Constitution.

By the time the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect in January 1920, 33 states already had prohibition laws. The Twenty-First Amendment, which ended prohibition in 1933, protected the states' right to enact their own dry laws by prohibiting the transport of alcohol between states.