“Our country has deliberately undertaken a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose.”
-Herbert Hoover
Today, speakeasies are stylish bars hidden away behind bodegas, coffee shops, and laundromats. Ordering a cocktail is as easy as walking up to the bar, and while some places still require a password, you can usually find it on their website.
During the Prohibition era of the 1920s—a 13-year period when buying or selling alcohol was illegal—getting a drink required much more effort. You needed connections, the password, and a place in an underground movement that would transform American culture.
How far would you go to order your favorite drink? If you’re anything like the people who came to define the 1920s, you might have done whatever it took.
Calls for temperance (moderation in drinking alcohol) had been brewing since the 1820s, growing alongside other reform movements. Groups such as evangelical Protestants, the Anti-Saloon League, and especially the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) pushed hardest for change.
The WCTU believed banning alcohol would protect families from the destructive effects of alcohol abuse. Women had little legal protection if their husbands spent their wages on alcohol instead of food or rent or came home in a rage after a night of drinking. (If you want to go down an internet rabbit hole, look up WCTU member Carrie Nation. She became famous for storming into saloons and smashing bar fixtures and liquor stock with a hatchet.)
The U.S. got a taste of temperance when President Woodrow Wilson instituted a temporary wartime prohibition in 1917. He argued that grain was needed for food rather than liquor during World War I. Afterward, calls for a permanent ban grew louder.
On December 18, 1917, Congress passed the 18th Amendment, which banned “the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors.” All alcohol with more than 0.5% alcohol by volume was banned, including beer, wine, and spirits. The Volstead Act (National Prohibition Act) passed soon after on October 28, 1919, adding reinforcement guidelines. And with that, the United States became a “dry” nation.
Prohibition must have made it challenging—if not impossible—to find a drink, right? Well, not really.
All you had to do was visit your pharmacist, who could dispense whiskey by prescription for a wide range of ailments. Or you could receive sacramental wine during religious services. Or you could buy “grape bricks”: concentrated grape products that came with warnings (or for many, instructions) that they would ferment into wine if left in a cupboard.
These loopholes kept alcohol flowing, but none were as popular—or enticing—as visiting a speakeasy.
Prohibition aimed to curb vice, but in the shadows, nightlife culture flourished. Hidden bars—speakeasies—popped up in basements, back rooms, and behind unmarked doors, accessed by whispered passwords.
White middle-class men, driven into speakeasies in search of alcohol, suddenly found themselves in more diverse company. At a time of rigid segregation, they drank and danced to jazz alongside Black patrons.
Many speakeasies and underground venues also welcomed queer patrons, and extravagant drag balls drew crowds in the thousands, challenging traditional norms about gender and sexuality in public spaces.
Women, who were unwelcome in most pre-Prohibition saloons, could drink, smoke, and curse openly in many speakeasies. These spaces let women socialize with men outside of church or chaperoned settings—still unusual for the era.
The performance of femininity began to expand and evolve, and as it did, flappers were born. With their iconic bobs, sequined dresses, and dark eyeshadow, flapper girls became an enduring symbol of the Roaring ‘20s.
Cocktail culture also took off during Prohibition. Bartenders, forced to work with harsh-tasting “bathtub” gin and other low-quality spirits, invented new recipes to mask the flavor. Drinks like the bee’s knees, the sidecar, the old-fashioned, the gin rickey, and the mojito all gained popularity during the era of Prohibition.
Supporters promised that Prohibition would improve the economy. Money that would otherwise be spent on alcohol had to go somewhere, after all.
Instead, closing distilleries and saloons wiped out thousands of jobs and triggered additional losses in related industries, from trucking to barrel making. All told, the federal government lost $11 billion in alcohol tax revenue while spending hundreds of millions on enforcement.
Organized crime was one of the few clear winners of Prohibition. By turning alcohol into a black-market commodity, the ban created enormous profit opportunities for bootleggers and gangsters.
Chicago mobster Al Capone built an empire on speakeasies and bootlegging operations, reportedly earning tens of millions of dollars per year. Rivalries over territory and profits fueled violent clashes. These conflicts culminated in events like the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, when men disguised as police officers gunned down seven associates of Capone’s enemy, George “Bugs” Moran.
Scenes like this shocked the public and fueled growing disillusionment with Prohibition.
By 1932, the U.S. was deep in the Great Depression, and the promise of new jobs and tax revenue from legal alcohol became increasingly appealing. Franklin D. Roosevelt campaigned on ending Prohibition, and voters responded by electing him in a landslide.
In February 1933, Congress proposed the 21st Amendment to repeal the 18th amendment. On December 5, 1933, the states ratified it, officially ending Prohibition and bringing the experiment to a close.
This is what we learned from a nationwide ban that was almost destined to fail, forever changing American law, culture, and nightlife.
In hindsight, Prohibition was almost destined to fail. Earlier attempts at broad alcohol bans had collapsed under similar pressures, and people had always found ways around the rules—like the promoter who “gave away” beer to anyone who bought a ticket to see his prized pig.
You’ll probably never institute a nationwide ban that sends an economy reeling and empowers organized crime. Still, history offers countless lessons about public policy, cultural change, and unintended consequences.
If you’re interested in exploring those lessons, check out our online Master of Arts in History program. Courses on topics such as the American Revolution, the Civil War, and World War I help you explore and find meaning in the events and ideas that shaped the U.S.
Explore our online MA in history and learn how to shape the future.
Sources:
https://www.history.com/articles/prohibition#Organized-Crime
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/unintended-consequences
https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/about-wwi/prohibition
https://www.vice.com/en/article/how-new-york-city-speakeasies-changed-american-culture-forever/
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