Prohibition, including the Eighteenth Amendment, the Volstead Act, organised crime, and repeal under the Twenty-first Amendment

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to explain why Prohibition was passed, why it failed, and what its social consequences were. Strong answers integrate the long temperance movement, the political opportunity of World War I, the Volstead Act's enforcement weaknesses, the rise of organised crime, the corruption of public life, and the politics of repeal in 1933.

The answer

The temperance movement

Temperance had been an organised American movement since the 1820s. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (founded 1874, under Frances Willard from 1879) and the Anti-Saloon League (founded 1893 in Ohio, led by Wayne Wheeler) built a powerful single-issue coalition. By 1916 around half of all Americans lived in dry states or counties.

The First World War gave the movement its national opening. German-American brewers were under suspicion; grain was rationed; the Lever Food and Fuel Control Act (10 August 1917) banned the use of foodstuffs for distilling. The Eighteenth Amendment passed Congress on 18 December 1917 and was ratified on 16 January 1919; it took effect a year later, on 17 January 1920.

The Volstead Act

The National Prohibition Act, sponsored by Representative Andrew Volstead (Republican, Minnesota), defined the prohibited "intoxicating liquor" as any beverage over 0.5 per cent alcohol by volume. It was passed over Wilson's veto on 28 October 1919.

The Act preserved several loopholes: sacramental wine for churches, medicinal whisky on prescription, near-beer (0.5 per cent or less), and home production of fruit juice (used for grape "bricks" sold with the warning that fermentation would produce wine).

Enforcement was assigned to the Treasury Department's Bureau of Prohibition with around 1,500 to 3,000 agents to police a continental country with 18,700 miles of Canadian border and 3,700 miles of Mexican border.

Bootlegging and the speakeasy

Demand for alcohol was largely unmoved by the law. Consumption fell only briefly in 1920 to 1921 before recovering. Suppliers responded.

Smuggling. Whisky moved from Canada (Windsor across the Detroit River); rum from the Bahamas, Cuba, and the British West Indies ("Rum Row" off the East Coast). Fast boats and the long coastline defeated the small Coast Guard.

Domestic production. Stills proliferated. Industrial alcohol was diverted; the Treasury responded with mandatory denaturing in 1927 that killed around 10,000 Americans by 1933.

The speakeasy. Illegal drinking establishments grew from around 15,000 saloons before Prohibition to an estimated 30,000 speakeasies in New York City alone by 1927. The Cotton Club in Harlem and the 21 Club in Manhattan became cultural fixtures.

Per capita alcohol consumption is estimated to have recovered to around 70 per cent of pre-Prohibition levels by the late 1920s.

Organised crime

Bootlegging delivered violent territorial monopolies. Chicago became the symbol.

Chicago. Big Jim Colosimo was murdered on 11 May 1920. Johnny Torrio took over and consolidated the "Chicago Outfit"; Torrio retired after being shot in January 1925 and handed control to his lieutenant Al Capone. Capone's main rival was the North Side Gang under Dion O'Banion (murdered 1924) and then Bugs Moran. The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre on 14 February 1929 killed seven of Moran's men in a garage on North Clark Street.

Capone's estimated revenue reached 60 million dollars a year by 1929 (around 1 billion in 2026 dollars). He was eventually convicted not of murder or bootlegging but of tax evasion, on 17 October 1931, and sentenced to 11 years at Atlanta and then Alcatraz.

New York. The "Five Families" took the form they would keep into the post-war era under Lucky Luciano, who eliminated Joe Masseria (15 April 1931) and Salvatore Maranzano (10 September 1931) and reorganised the Italian-American mafia around the Commission.

The Bureau of Investigation (renamed the FBI in 1935 under J. Edgar Hoover) expanded its remit through the era, with high-profile cases against John Dillinger (killed in Chicago, 22 July 1934) and others.

Corruption and the failure of enforcement

Corruption was endemic. Chicago Mayor "Big Bill" Thompson (in office 1915 to 1923 and 1927 to 1931) was a Capone ally. Around 10 per cent of Prohibition agents were dismissed for misconduct. The conviction rate for federal Prohibition cases was around 60 per cent, but penalties were small and trials were jury-nullified in the cities.

A few enforcement figures became famous. Eliot Ness led the "Untouchables" squad in Chicago against Capone from 1929. Treasury agent Izzy Einstein became famous for his Manhattan disguises.

The Wickersham Commission and the politics of repeal

Hoover appointed the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement under George W. Wickersham in May 1929. Its report (January 1931) found Prohibition unenforceable but, against the evidence, recommended its retention. The contradiction destroyed remaining respect for the law.

The Depression added the decisive argument. A re-legalised alcohol industry would generate excise revenue and jobs. Franklin Roosevelt's 1932 Democratic platform pledged repeal. The Beer Permit Act (Cullen-Harrison Act, 22 March 1933) re-legalised 3.2 per cent beer with effect from 7 April 1933 ("happy days are here again"). Full repeal followed through the Twenty-first Amendment, the only Amendment passed by state conventions rather than legislatures, ratified on 5 December 1933.

Mississippi remained dry until 1966; many counties remain dry today.

Social consequences

Public health. Alcohol-related deaths fell early but rose again as denatured industrial alcohol entered the supply. Cirrhosis deaths dropped around 30 per cent in 1920 to 1921 and recovered as supply recovered.

Tax revenue. Federal alcohol revenue (around 14 per cent of receipts before 1920) was lost, then regained after 1933.

Cultural. Drinking became socially mixed; women drank in speakeasies. Cocktails proliferated (often disguising poor-quality bootleg liquor). Jazz spread through the speakeasy circuit.

Political. The Eighteenth Amendment remains the only constitutional amendment in American history to have been repealed.

Historiography

Daniel Okrent (Last Call, 2010) is the standard modern history.

David Kyvig (Repealing National Prohibition, 1979) is the standard study of the repeal movement.

Lisa McGirr (The War on Alcohol, 2015) emphasises the federal enforcement state Prohibition built.

Frederick Lewis Allen (Only Yesterday, 1931) is the contemporary view.

Common exam traps

Dating the Eighteenth Amendment 1919. Ratification: 16 January 1919; takes effect: 17 January 1920.

Treating Capone as Prohibition's whole story. Smuggling, denatured alcohol poisoning, mass corruption, and underfunded enforcement all matter.

Forgetting the Wickersham contradiction. The Commission found Prohibition unenforceable but recommended its retention; that destroyed remaining legitimacy.

In one sentence

Prohibition (Eighteenth Amendment ratified 16 January 1919, in effect 17 January 1920; Volstead Act of 28 October 1919) failed because alcohol demand was inelastic, enforcement was understaffed, organised crime (Al Capone's 60-million-dollar-a-year Chicago Outfit, the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of 14 February 1929) supplied the market, corruption reached up to mayors, denatured industrial alcohol killed around 10,000 Americans, and the Wickersham Commission of January 1931 and the Depression revenue argument carried repeal through the Twenty-first Amendment on 5 December 1933.