Prohibition is the act of a government banning the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic drinks. This was the case in the United States during the time of 1920 to 1933.

Alcohol was already in America for a very long time. When Puritans first arrived on the shores of America from 1630-1640, they brought barrels of beer with them. Although at the time, it was British colonies, beer in America still stayed in society even after the revelution. It is even said that during the Revelutionary War of American Independence, General George Washington provided his men with a daily cup of whisky. My point is that alcohol in America was a hidden enemy that caused domestic violence and political corruption. It was everywhere and it was a problem. Before Prohibition, an average American drank 6-7 gallons per year and in the 21st century, we drink an average of 2 gallons per year. Even doctors prescribed patients whiskey with illnesses and it was common for Americans to have alcohol for breakfast in the Prohibition era. People drank at Baptism, Churches, Public Hangings and even at work.

Now, people started wondering if this was all necessary. One group in particular that had a hatred for Alcohol were Woman and Wives. They started to try to convince people to stop drinking as much as the burdens of alcohol were starting to go onto them. Men were spending their whole paycheck on booze and alcohol. Husbands came home drunk and Domestic Violence grew dramatically. As the problem grew, women thought they only had one option. This was going to be unprecedented and would change history for women rights. They were going to protest. Starting in Ohio and later nationwide, Women started to protest against the use of alcohol and what is now known as the Women's Crusade from 1873-4 and they did not stop there. They formed the WCTU which stands for the Women's Christian Temperance Union in 1874. Their goals wasn't to ban alcohol but was no make people more sober and healthy. They sent up walk-in home where people can come and try to get help from their addiction of alcohol. They installed water-fountains in public parks. They wrote somewhat controversial and somewhat propaganda filled textbooks where children would learn that alcohol would lead to homelessness and death. All of their hard work started to pay off. Drug stores stopped prescribing alcohol. More men and women dedicated themselves to stop drinking. Some saloon owners even permanently closed.

A handful of states have already used a form of prohibition called "dry walls". This essentially banned the sale and use of alcohol but citizens could always go pass their state borders to drink somewhere else. It want nationwide prohibition but it was a start. One of those states was Kansas where alcohol was outlawed since 1881. Despite this, many illegal saloons in the state remained open and authorities did nothing to stop it. One women name Carrie Nation was horrified by the illegal saloons and alcohol that she took matters in her own hands. Armed with her miniature hammer, she went to illegal saloons across the state and started destroying it. She destroyed doors, bottles of booze and much more. She was arrested a few times but ultimately let go or escaped prison. Carrie thought and hoped that her methods was to spread nationwide but she was wrong and the many of the women's movements eventually slowed down. Why? Mostly because while off protesting, no-one was there to help feed the children back home. The fathers were so ill-prepared to help and manage kids that some fathers could not even make food to feed. Many women had to stop protesting to go back to the duties back at home.

While the WCTU started and got to movement moving, they were not able to make a impact legally and federally and if they wanted prohibition, the movement had to get down to Washington D.C and one group in particular was just about to do that. I'm talking about the Anti-Saloon League. The Ant-Saloon League was a Political Pressure group run by a man named Wayne Wheeler. The women's issues were not only focused on alcohol. They were focused in a variety of issues including International Peace, Labor Laws, Alcohol, Public Health, Child Welfare, Sanitation, Prison Reform and Women's Suffrage. However, the Anti-Saloon League only cared about Alcohol and as a result, they were very effective. The strategy they used was to exploit the fears of many American's. Workers were told alcohol was a capitalist plot to keep them subjugated by the factory owners. At the same time, factory owners were told that alcohol was making their workers lazy. The Black community was told that alcohol was hindering its progress while racist were warned that Alcohol would turn black men into brutes. The Anti-Saloon League used a series of propaganda and dishonest lies to convince Americans that Alcohol was the Antagonist to all their problems.

This all exploded when America joined the First Word War. American sentiment towards Germans in America grew and Wayne saw an opportunity. He started a series of propaganda post to turn to American hatred of Germans to Alcohol.

Now that almost all of Americans were in favor of prohibition, now all was left to do was make it law. The only problem is that alcohol made up nearly 40% of the US Government Federal Annual Revenue. Congress wasn't about to give all that revenue away so Wayne came up with a solution. He made a new federal income tax on the American People and just like that, the country wasn't dependent on Alcohol. Prohibition was finally introduced to Congress in 1913, but not just as a law but as a constitutional Amendment. The Amendment passed Congress easily with 282-128 from the House of Representative and 47-8 in the Senate.

Although this was a major victory for some, problems quickly emerged. Alcohol production was at the time America's 5th largest industry and many immigrants coming the the US depended on jobs like in Alcohol producing factories to make a living. All of the factories were shut down leaves 10s of 1000s of people homeless in the following years.

Although many Americans supported prohibition, once the new law when into place, it seemed just as many people were willing to break the new law and they would find some interesting methods to get alcohol. As the law banned the production and transportation, it was legal to drink the alcohol you had before the law. The law also had many loopholes. They banned any alcohol over 0.5%. So if you really wanted to drink, you can have some weak liquor that was below the 0.5 mark of the law. You could also use alcohol for medical purposes as people found more loopholes.

Enforcement

If you pass a new law but no person is there to enforce it, is it really a law. The Conservative government was willing to pass a law to enforce but not willing to pay for the enforcement. Many police saw illegal drinking but did nothing because they did not get anything in return. The new Bureau of Prohibition was a new federal agency but only have 1500 agent to cover the whole country. That is only 1 agent to make sure that 70,666 Americans did not drink. Since it was a federal law, the federal government had to pay for the enforcement and since the economy was somewhat bad since the Great Depression, they were not willing to hire many people. Many people even started making their own alcohol.

Corruption

Many government officials were corrupts taking bribes. Corruption started leading to the downfall of Prohibition.

Mafia groups were hired to steal alcohol and sell it to illegal saloons. Finally in 1933, Congress voted to abolish the 18th Amendment and Prohibition finally stopped.

Thank you very much from my sources for making this article possible.

"Prohibition in the United States". Wikipedia. March 2, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States. March 6, 2021

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Oversimplified. "Prohibition - Oversimplified". YouTube. 15 December, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAGIi62-sAU&t=1290s. 3/8/2021.