Prohibition and Organized Crime

1. Prohibition and Organized Crime Essential Questions: Why was prohibition started and why did it ultimately fail? How were speakeasies and bootleggers related to the prohibition movement? Who was Al Capone and why was he important? How is organized crime of the 1920s tied to prohibition?

2. Prohibition Experiment • Small-town & big-city America began to clash in the 1920s • 18th amendment went into effect • Launched the era of prohibition • Manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages were prohibited • Reformers long considered alcohol prime cause of corruption • Thought too much drinking led to crime, wife and child abuse, accidents on the job

3. Prohibition: How and why? • Support for Prohibition: • Rural South and West • Areas with native-born Protestants • Woman’s Christian Temperance Union • Considered drinking a sin • At first the Prohibition was enforced • But after WWI many Americans were tired of making sacrifices • Many did not consider drinking a sin but as a way to socialize

4. Speakeasies and Bootleggers • Drinkers went underground to hidden saloons • Known as speakeasies • When inside, one spoke quietly or “easily” to avoid detection • To enter one had to present a card or use a password • Inside one would find a mix of middle-class and upper-class men and women • Over time people learned to distill their own alcohol and bought it from smugglers

5. Organized Crime • Prohibition generated a disrespect for law and contributed to crime • Chicago became home to Al Capone • Gangster whose bootlegger empire netted over $60 million a year • Took control of Chicago liquor business by killing competitors • Mid 1920s 19% of U.S. supported it • 81% felt it should be repealed • Ultimately Prohibition failed • Government did not provide enough money to enforce the law

6. Prohibition Causes Effects • Religious groups thought drinking alcohol was sinful • Reformers believed government should protect the public’s health • Reformers believed alcohol led to crime, wife and child abuse, and accidents on the job • During WWI, Americans developed a hostility to German-American brewers and toward immigrant groups that used alcohol • Consumption of alcohol declined • Disrespect of the law developed • An increase in lawlessness, such as smuggling and bootlegging was evident • Criminals found a new source of income • Organized crime grew