Term paper on Prohibition

Prohibition (1919–1933)

RESOURCE GUIDE

Ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment in January 1919 and the subsequent passage of the Volstead Act in October brought prohibition to the United States, polarizing ‘‘wets” and ‘‘drys,” and proving enormously difficult to enforce. Despite the legendary efforts of dedicated agents such as Eliot Ness, illegal speakeasies flourished, as did organized crime, which reaped great profits. Al Capone was but one, if the most famous, of the many gangsters of the era. The Wickersham Report of 1931 noted the failures of prohibition but advocated its continuation, which President Herbert Hoover called an ‘‘experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose.” Nonetheless, the Twenty-first Amendment, ratified in December 1933, repealed prohibition.

Suggestions for Term Papers

1. Why did the United States adopt prohibition?

2. Analyze why prohibition failed.

3. Discuss the career of a prominent prohibition era gangster.

4. What were the long-range consequences of prohibition?

5. Compare prohibition with today’s attempts to ban addictive drugs.

Suggested Sources : See entry 32 for related items.

GENERAL SOURCES

Aaron, Paul, and David Musto. ‘‘Temperance and Prohibition in America : A Historical Overview.” In Mark H. Moore and Dean R. Gerstein, eds., Alcohol and Public Policy: Beyond the Shadow of Prohibition. Washington, DC : National Academy Press, 1981. Good overview of and bibliography on temperance and prohibition. One of seven commissioned studies in this work.

Blocker, Jack S., Jr. American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform. Boston : Twayne, 1989. A comprehensive survey of the temperance and prohibition movements.

Friedman, Lawrence M. Crime and Punishment in American History. New York: Basic Books, 1993. Comprehensive and detailed history of crime and punishment in the United States, with a good treatment of the prohibition era. Lengthy bibliography.

Hamm, Richard F. Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment: Temperance Reform, Legal Culture, and the Polity, 1880–1920. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. An excellent study of the forces that created the prohibition period.

Woodiwiss, Michael. Crime, Crusades, and Corruption: Prohibitions in the United States , 1900–1987. Totowa, NJ: Barnes&Noble Books, 1988. Comprehensive general coverage of police corruption and development of organized crime and its link to crusades such as prohibition.

SPECIALIZED SOURCES

Behr, Edward. Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America . New York : Arcade Publishing/Little, Brown, 1996. Interesting account of the legendary period, complete with gangsters, political corruption, and speakeasies.

Blocker, Jack S., Jr. Retreat from Reform: The Prohibition Movement in the United States , 1890–1913 . Westport , CT: Greenwood, 1976. Examines the movement and how it distanced itself from all other social reforms to focus on the prohibition amendment.

Clark, Norman H. Deliver Us from Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition. New York: Norton, 1976. A useful survey of the prohibition period from 1918 to 1932.

Coffey, Thomas M. The Long Thirst: Prohibition in America. New York: Norton, 1975. Standard history of the period.

Englemann, Larry. Intemperance, the Lost War against Liquor. New York: Free Press, 1979. Examines the prohibition period in terms of the legal struggle against liquor. Treats the situation in Michigan.

and interesting web site maintained by the Ohio State University History Department. Table of contents is presented with the music from Cheers and leads to fine narratives and pictorials such as, ‘‘Why was there Prohibition in the United States ?” and ‘‘American Prohibition in the 1920s.”