Prohibition Dbq

The purpose of the Prohibition proposal is to bring forth information about how and why the Prohibition Era failed as a law due to the reactions of citizens across the nation. The Prohibition Era has two sides to its story as America arose in protests against liquor and protests against Prohibition. Along with protests and criminal acts, the history of Prohibition explains how the law began and ended, businesses across the United States were struggling to stay open, and the long term effects the era had on people among the nation. The Prohibition Era was a time that the United States experienced protests and criminal acts against their own government, loss of business among the nation, and the downfall of a law.

Throughout the 19th century,

People among societies had enough of the family violence and alcoholism that went on throughout the communities and decided to take a stand against the sale and production of liquor. Information used against alcohol was used to appeal to a general audience through scientific facts, logos, and statistical evidence. This protest against liquor became more popular through the Woman’s Christian Temperance Movement in the early 1900s. The Eighteenth Amendment was passed by congress in December of 1917. “On December 17, the House approved the new amendment by a vote of 282 to 128, allowing it to be submitted, in Senator Sheppard’s words, ‘as a Christmas present to the American people’” (Blumenthal, 54). On January 16, 1920, the law of Prohibition became a national law as the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect. “Exactly one minute after January 16, 1920, became January 17, daily life in America was immediately changed” (Blumenthal, 59). This law put a ban on production, sale, and transportation of any alcoholic beverage across the nation. People throughout the United States began to protest against the

This law started the decline in businesses among the United States. Since all of these businesses were unable to sell or produce alcohol, many of them closed down or had to find other items of interest, such as prostitution or gambling, to earn a profit and to keep their business open. Other businesses even had to start producing products such as cereal or ice cream. Though the nation tried to put an end to liquor, enough protesting changed the government’s mind as the Twenty-first Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment. “Liquor stores and bars reopened, and breweries that had been converted into cereal plants or ice cream factories returned to the beer business” (Currie, 65). Although Prohibition ended in failure with the Twenty-first Amendment, there was a noticeable drop in the amount of drinking among the people of the United States. Austin Kerr stated in his article that the “consumption of beverage alcohol was about thirty per cent of the pre-prohibition