Prohibition

September 19, 2007

Bell Ringer…

How did the Great Trek North affect your personal history? How did it affect the history of Chicago?

What is Prohibition?

Working with the person next to you, come up with a definition of what you think prohibition is?

Prohibition

Prohibition was the process of making the selling, and consumption of alcohol illegal.

Why?

American law makers felt that prohibition would less:

• Combat Crimes• Family Violence• Poverty

18th Amendment

Prohibited the sale, manufacturing, and transportation of alcohol

Ratified January 1919October brought the Volstead

Act

Enforcement

Some regions took the 18th amendment very seriously, and consumption declined.

In many other areas Prohibition was unpopular and ignored.

Living above the Law…

Speakeasies• Bought and sold smuggled booze• Made their own “bath tub gin”• Bootlegging

Al Capone• Ruled Chicago with an army of mobsters• Used violence to control the underworld• Peaked St. Valentine’s day Massacre: 1929

Living above the Law…

Untouchables: Army organized by Elliot Ness to take down prohibition law makers

Prohibition turned formerly law abiding citizens into criminals.

Out with the old in with the New… 1933: The 21st amendment repealed

Prohibition and made alcohol sales, manufacturing, and transportation legal again.