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Explain How Significant Was Prohibition In Changing The Lives Of American People

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How significant was Prohibition in changing the lives of the American people in 1919-1933? . “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you”. F. Scott Fitzgerald, ‘The Great Gatsby’ (1) As early as 7000 BCE, mankind was first acquainted with alcoholic beverages, became an inseparable companion of humanity throughout history, and was praised for being present during joyful and sorrowful times, neglecting the common knowledge that they give nothing but fraud, ecstasy, and illness when consumed. The Volstead Act, also known as the ban on alcohol, had a deep and far-reaching impact on American society. In this essay, how this legislation shaped the lives of Americans both during and after its application will be …show more content…

Other entertainment-related businesses thought people would seek dopamine-providing things since they would feel the need to replace the alcohol need now, and movie theatres and parks were all prepared for the flooding of customers and audiences. Moreover, all segments of businesses expected a rise in demand, which was never met. Alcoholic men resisted the temptation for the first few days, just before they started to seek the poisonous drink through every nook and corner. Desperate, they were ready to offer anything to get the brief, heavenly taste of wine and …show more content…

Farmers were also affected as the sudden drop in demand led to financial losses for them. Prohibition had a widespread impact on businesses, as many men spent their money on searching for and drinking alcohol, neglecting their responsibilities and causing further harm. The Volstead Act happened to have several loopholes to exploit as it was never examined thoroughly. It said no production, transportation, or sale of alcohol, with no mention of consumption of it. Pharmacies were allowed to prescript whiskey, and wines were allowed for religious purposes. Therefore, Bootleggers discovered these places would be a perfect concealer for their illegal alcohol trade. Hence, enormous pharmacies and churches popped up all of a sudden to serve themselves and others alcohol. Deceiving, industries started to come out with new ways to operate and advertise their “grape juice”, shamelessly proclaiming that it would ferment and turn into wine if not stored right. Addicted, men hopelessly longing for alcohol started to associate with illegal activity like this and the underground market only to get themselves wasted. Many were getting loans and mortgages on their properties to fulfill their temptation, leading to the increasing percentage of homelessness, and crimes involving robbery and burglary. Furthermore, crime syndicates

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By 1932, Americans had reversed the approval and disapproval making the disapproval rating had gone higher. Americans disapproved the prohibition because the criminality and murder went up, business’ were going down and it was impossible to enforce no alcohol. The rate of criminals went up leading to more murders when the Prohibition was enforced. Many criminals such as gangsters, racketeers, bootleggers, and dope sellers got “helped” out by prohibition. Especially in the Great Depression, were alcohol was even more wanted.

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Stayton argues that Prohibition has had the opposite of its desired effect on the morals of the nation. Stayton claims that consumption of alcoholic beverages was at a higher point in 1925 than its peak pre-Prohibition. Stayton presents several facts to support his claim, showing a rise in consumption among not just men, but women and children, combined with an increase in moneys spent on alcoholic drinks to the tune of four-fold (p. 195). Furthermore, Stayton cites that the drinks available in the time of Prohibition have a substantially greater alcohol content than those that were served pre-Prohibition. This allows alcohol to be more readily abused and caused an observable increase in public drunkenness.

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The country was trying to control America’s alcohol problems by law. The ban on alcohol worsened America’s alcohol problem, in fact, it did quite the opposite of its intention. All caused by prohibition, America had an increased crime rate, death rate, and to top it off, America was losing slathers of money.

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America was trying to rid itself of violence and crime when the Volstead Act was passed. The country suffered when alcohol caused spousal abuse and America wanted to rid themselves of that crime. Instead, Prohibition enlarged violence and crime in other ways. In Document F, it shows that there was an elevated number of illegal saloons, breweries, and industrial alcohol production after years of Prohibition. America changed its mind because many criminals were not following the rules of Prohibition and it was ineffective.

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Wets believe that alcohol was a key contributor that helped society thrive in the 1920s. When the Eighteenth Amendment was passed, instead of solving issues, it created more; many jobs were lost as a result of the amendment. Tax revenue decreased and the government lost eleven million dollars (Doc 1). Society’s need and want for alcohol did not subside after the passing of this amendment. This led to people taking drastic measures to inquire alcohol.

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Alcohol was one of the prominent industry in the United States. In 1914, the alcohol tax revenue reached 226,000,000. Prohibition’s supporters expected the rise in the sales of other products like clothing, household goods, and other beverages. Instead, it deteriorated other industries. Breweries, distilleries and saloons closed their doors.

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Gangs started to pop up all over the country and made millions of dollars off of illegal sales. Instead of alcoholics there were criminal gangs, and organized crime was very popular. Alcohol-related deaths, health problems, and alcohol syndrome were big problems. People were still consuming even though The FBI was trying hard to stop it. At first, drinking rates went down by about 30%, but then they spiked to even higher.

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Prohibition was a period in time where people were not allowed to have or consume drinking alcohol. A number of states thought drinking was one of the number one problems in America that needed to be handled. The Volstead Act was the act that made it illegal to drink alcohol any alcoholic drink with 1% of alcohol was considered intoxicating. America changed its mind on Prohibition for hypocrisy, crime and financial stability. One big reason Prohibition was repealed was because even people who were making the laws were breaking them.

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America was losing money by not having alcohol sales to gather taxes. Without these taxes, the United States lost lots of money. According to Document E, the people in Congress had known about these illegal alcohol sales and taxed the violators for their profits, America could have had as much as $200,000,000 dollars or more for emergency needs whilst repaying the current American debt at the time. The economic state of America caused Americans to change their minds about Prohibition because the United States was losing more money by the day because they didn't know about the sales of alcohol and the tax, they were losing from

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America: A Perception Changed Prohibition, the age of ‘dry states’, illegal drinking, and, all in all, the height of organized criminal activity; veterans joined the crime as a last option, vulnerable humans ran the streets unemployed and looking for a way to drown their sorrows. Organized criminals defiantly took advantage of the “Roaring Twenties” misfortunes, they provided illegal alcohol to the people, gave jobs to the unemployed, who needed the lucrative labor, and drove the number of alcoholics up the wall in droves. “The arrests under the Volstead Act from 1920- 1929 reached 550,307 with 1928 having the highest at 75,307 arrests” (Volstead). With Mafia members, like Al Capone, taking the cake on headliners, the people of America slowly

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“Thus came prohibition to the United States. Middle-class Americans—striving to revitalize and preserve American democracy and to usher in a new era of humanity, achievement, and progress—turned to prohibition as one device to achieve their goals.” (Callow) The Prohibition was a time where in the United States the sale and consumption of alcohol was illegal from 1920-1933. It was the 18th amendment which prohibited alcohol in the United States and it states, “The manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.”

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The Effects of Prohibition in the American Society Prohibition in America was considered the war on alcohol. Prohibition happened from 1920 to 1933. People wanted to cut out alcohol altogether to try and better the United States. Prohibition leaders believed that once a businesses liquor license was taken away it would make people change their mind on drinking. Leaders had thought that the European Immigrants had brought their drinking problems across seas with them.

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996 Words | 4 Pages

In the following several years, alcohol consumption increased to “approximately 60 to 70 percent of pre-Prohibition levels.” Later on in Prohibition, the level of alcohol consumption was about the same as immediately when Prohibition started A reason that things did not change may have been that illegal drinking, even at a higher cost, expense and risk wise, than during pre-Prohibition, provided Americans with a desirable sense of adventure and risk. For over a decade, the law that was meant to cultivate temperance instead cultivated intemperance and illegality. The solution the United States created to address the problem of alcohol abuse instead made problems worse than ever

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537 Words | 3 Pages

Small-time street gangs were provided the opportunity to feed the need of Americans demand for illegal alcohol. “By the early 1920s, profits from the illegal production and trafficking of liquor were so enormous that gangs learned to be more “organized” than ever, they bought breweries that were closed because of Prohibition and hired experience brewers. They ran boats out into oceans and lakes to buy liquor from other countries, leading to the term “rum running.” Paid individual citizens would operate stills at home to make gallons of bad-tasting booze. Thousands of Mob-owned illegal bars known as “speakeasies sold illegal beer, watered down whiskey and sometimes “rotgut” which was poisonous.”

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973 Words | 4 Pages

“There'd never been a more advantageous time to be a criminal in America than during the 13 years of Prohibition. At a stroke, the American government closed down the fifth largest industry in the United States - alcohol production - and just handed it to criminals - a pretty remarkable thing to do.” (Bryson). In 1920 the 66th United States Congress enacted the National Prohibition Act in order to reduce criminal activity, corruption, and social problems that were affecting the society at the time. What hopes they had for cleaning up America and bringing it back to a clean moral standard were destroyed when organized crime and a disregard for law enforcement began to run rampant.

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