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The Role Of Prohibition In The 1920's

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The Role Of Prohibition In The 1920's
Judit Rosanas
Mrs Sandoval
US History
6 May 2015
Prohibition
The 1920’s, also known as the roaring twenties, were a decade with a lot of political and social changes. High buildings were build, huge parties were thrown and many people became wealthy and moved to the city with their families, where the roll of women started changing a lot. They economy grew a lot and a lot of people were having the life that they have always dreamed of, so everything started to get a little crazy.
Alcohol started to be seen as a destructive force in families and companies, and some factory owners started to believe that life would be better if alcohol was forbidden, it would be saver for the workers and they would be way more efficient. Also the Women Christian …show more content…
They were supposed to wait three years to see what every state thought but in only 11 months they got enough votes to start working on it. After receiving the support of ¾ of the United States, on January 19, 1919, the 18th amendment was ratified and went into effect a year later and on October 1919, the Volstead act was passed.
Even thought alcohol was banned, those who wanted to drink found many ways to keep doing it through bootlegging. Bootlegging was the illegal traffic, manufacture, sale or transportation of alcohol. Bootleggers made a lot of money because there were so many people that wanted to drink that they sold a lot of alcohol, and that is the reason why it helped to increase organized crime. It was so demanded that people found that it was an easy way to make money, so they started a lot of illegal …show more content…
The name comes from “speak easy” because people had to act like if no alcohol was there or else they could get in trouble and get arrested. They were located in hidden buildings, underground or places where you would never think a bar was there, and they were similar to the clubs that we have today. They had different ways to hide the alcohol if all of a sudden the police came in. Some bars had special tables which they could turn upside down if something was happening and all the bottles of alcohol would be hide from the people. To enter a speakeasy you would have to say the correct password so the doorperson would know whether or not you were a secret agent, and the passwords were changed often so it would be even more secure. It is said that for every legal bar before prohibition, six speakeasies were opened after
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