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Il proibizionismo è successo in quasi tutti i paesi del mondo. La versione in poche parole del proibizionismo americano inizia con i cittadini americani alla fine del 1700 che si dividevano in due gruppi: quelli che sentivano che bere alcolici era un peccato (gruppi religiosi) e le famiglie stanche degli uomini che spendevano soldi nei saloon bevendo mentre donne e bambini venivano lasciati a casa senza un soldo e affamata. Credevano che l'alcol fosse un fattore che contribuisce all'aumento della criminalità, problemi di salute, problemi di relazione e povertà estrema. Nasce così il movimento per la temperanza.
Per l'America, il proibizionismo è iniziato ufficialmente un minuto dopo la mezzanotte del 17 gennaio 1920. Tuttavia, il proibizionismo può essere paragonato a un uragano di oggi in quanto hai molti avvisi prima che colpisca, quindi grandi quantità di alcol erano state precedentemente accumulate per anni. Quando la scorta si esaurisce, l'alcol è stato contrabbandato dal Canada e dal Messico e i contrabbandieri hanno iniziato a fare il chiaro di luna. Le persone facevano anche crociere alcoliche a dodici miglia (la distanza legale) verso le acque internazionali. Si aprivano bar segreti nascosti chiamati speakeasy, spesso nascosti in una stanza dietro un'attività commerciale legale, o gli ingressi erano nei vicoli o negli scantinati. Si ritiene che nella sola New York City ci fossero oltre 100.000 speakeasy.
Tutto ciò ha creato un business in forte espansione per i contrabbandieri, ma ha anche creato un business in forte espansione per un nuovo mondo oscuro della criminalità organizzata chiamato Mafia, che si è diffuso in tutte le grandi città con molte bande e gangster.
La mafia produceva e vendeva "gin da vasca" agli speakeasy (ea chiunque lo volesse) acquistando il chiaro di luna dai contrabbandieri, o legalmente tramite fornitori di medicinali infondendolo con bacche di ginepro e altre erbe nel tentativo di ottenere l'odore e il sapore di pre- vietare il gin. (Usavano grandi contenitori come botti, non vasche da bagno.) Dopo l'imbottigliamento, tagliavano il chiaro di luna con l'acqua posizionando le bottiglie e le brocche sotto i rubinetti della vasca da bagno. (Le bottiglie non starebbero sotto il rubinetto di un lavandino.) Circa 1.000 persone morivano ogni anno perché si dice che a volte ottenevano alcol industriale a buon mercato (e velenoso), che veniva usato per combustibili, lucidanti, ecc., e lo usavano in anche il processo di taglio.
Per quanto riguarda i cocktail, sono stati aggiunti più mixer e ingredienti al gin da bagno della mafia per mascherare le brutte bruciature, come il Bee's Knees, fatto con tanto succo di limone e miele. I cocktail a base di rum, whisky e brandy di contrabbando includevano il Twelve Mile Limit, Mary Pickford e Between the Sheets. Ma gli americani medi della classe medio-bassa hanno semplicemente mescolato - qualsiasi bevanda potessero avere - a casa con ingredienti semplici come succhi di frutta, erbe e sciroppi fatti in casa. Queste ricette rimarranno sempre un mistero.
Le prime dieci cose da sapere sul proibizionismo
Il proibizionismo (il nobile esperimento) non vietava il consumo di alcolici, ma vietava la produzione, la vendita e il trasporto di alcolici.
Il proibizionismo non si è verificato solo in America. È successo in momenti diversi in tutto il mondo ed esiste ancora oggi in alcuni paesi (e contee degli Stati Uniti).
A partire dal 2018, la Costituzione americana ha ventisette emendamenti. Il diciottesimo emendamento è l'inizio del proibizionismo americano (martedì 20 gennaio 1920) e il ventunesimo emendamento è quando il proibizionismo è terminato (martedì 5 dicembre 1933) per un totale di tredici anni, dieci mesi e quindici giorni.
Il diciottesimo emendamento non è avvenuto in un colpo solo. Molti stati avevano vietato l'alcol in precedenza, a partire dal 1851. Era lo stesso per il ventunesimo emendamento; molti stati non hanno revocato il divieto per anni e, oggi, ci sono ancora contee che hanno divieti sull'alcol che si traducono in contee "asciutte". Il ventunesimo emendamento ha lasciato la decisione agli stati. La lotta per il proibizionismo americano a livello nazionale non è stata qualcosa che è successo in pochi anni. Cominciò alla fine del 1700 con il Movimento della Temperanza (un movimento per domare l'ubriachezza diffusa in America).
L'alcol legale durante il proibizionismo includeva vino sacramentale per le chiese; medicinali brevettati; uso nella ricerca scientifica; sviluppo industriale di combustibili, coloranti e altre cose di cui le industrie potrebbero aver bisogno; e utilizzare negli ospedali per la pulizia. Birra, vino e sidro fatti in casa e alcolici pre-vietati potevano essere bevuti nell'intimità della propria casa.
Fino agli anni '20, le uniche donne americane ammesse nelle grandi sale principali dei saloon/bar erano prostitute e madam. Nei bei bar, c'erano piccole "Camere per donne" dove le donne importanti potevano bere. Gli speakeasy dal 1920 al 1933 furono i primi locali dove le donne potevano frequentare l'intero bar.
I cocktail e le bevande negli speakeasy erano noti per essere costosi, quindi hai risparmiato per una serata speciale in città, hai avuto un sacco di soldi (o eri con qualcuno con dei soldi) o semplicemente hai festeggiato a casa.
Per necessità, i contrabbandieri delle montagne degli Appalachi hanno armeggiato con i motori dei loro veicoli per renderli più veloci delle auto della polizia. Questo ha portato a quella che oggi conosciamo come la National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR).
Kansas
Se ti capita di viaggiare attraverso il Kansas oggi, allora sentiti fortunato perché vincono per avere il divieto di alcol più lungo (sessantotto anni tra il 1880 e il 1948). Il divieto di alcolici è stato revocato da una nuova legge statale del Kansas approvata nel 1965. Tuttavia, ha chiuso tutti i bar pubblici perché erano ammessi solo i bar privati.
Ventuno anni dopo, nel 1986, il divieto dei bar privati fu revocato e nel giro di un anno furono aperti 400 bar pubblici. Tuttavia, c'era una clausola: il 30 percento delle vendite dei bar doveva provenire dal cibo. In una nota a margine e per aprire ancora di più la folle scatola del Kansas, negli anni '70 - incredibilmente - 5'5 "Vern Miller ( ex agente di polizia , vice sceriffo e maresciallo della contea che poi si è laureato in giurisprudenza) è stato eletto come il procuratore generale del Kansas nel 1970. Il suo compito era quello di far rispettare in modo aggressivo le leggi sugli alcolici del Kansas. Esempi della sua assertività ostile includevano l'irruzione dei treni Amtrak che stavano passando per il Kansas e costringendo le compagnie aeree a smettere di servire alcolici mentre viaggiavano nello spazio aereo del Kansas. Miller ha fatto notizia e un libro su di lui è stato pubblicato nel 2008.
The Top Twelve Things to Know About American Prohibition
1. Prohibition did not make drinking alcohol federally illegal.
The Eighteenth Amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquor. Possessing and drinking alcohol that had been legally obtained before Prohibition could still be lawful.
Basically, America outlawed getting the drink to you—but not necessarily what happened after it arrived.
2. American Prohibition lasted almost fourteen years.
The Eighteenth Amendment was ratified on January 16, 1919, took effect on January 17, 1920, and was repealed when the Twenty-First Amendment was ratified on December 5, 1933.
Thirteen years, ten months, and nineteen days.
America gave it a pretty fair shot.
3. America was hardly the only country experimenting with Prohibition.
Various forms of alcohol prohibition were enacted at different times in Canada, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Russia, and elsewhere. Alcohol remains prohibited or heavily restricted in some countries today.
4. Much of America was already dry before national Prohibition.
States and local governments had been passing temperance and prohibition laws for decades. Maine adopted its famous prohibition law in 1851, and Kansas placed prohibition into its state constitution in 1880.
So January 1920 was not America suddenly waking up dry. The country had been arguing about drinking for generations.
5. There were legal ways to obtain alcohol.
Sacramental wine was permitted for religious purposes. Alcohol could be manufactured for scientific and industrial uses, and physicians were permitted to prescribe medicinal alcohol under federal regulations.
Suddenly everyone discovered just how many ailments might respond favorably to whiskey.
6. Speakeasies changed American nightlife.
Before Prohibition, many traditional saloons were overwhelmingly male spaces and respectable women were often discouraged or excluded from the main barroom.
Speakeasies helped create a more socially mixed nightlife in which women increasingly drank alongside men, smoked, listened to jazz, danced, and participated openly in urban drinking culture.
The cocktail bar was beginning to look much more like the bar we recognize today.
7. Speakeasies weren't necessarily glamorous.
Movies tend to give us chandeliers, flappers, jazz bands, and bartenders in white dinner jackets.
Those existed.
So did filthy rooms selling terrible liquor where robbery, fights, police raids, and shootings were considerably more likely than a perfectly chilled Martini.
8. Prohibition helped organized crime grow enormously.
Demand did not disappear simply because supply became illegal. Criminal organizations filled the gap, controlling production, smuggling, transportation, protection, and distribution.
Alcohol essentially became a very profitable illegal commodity with millions of willing customers.
Not exactly the outcome the Temperance Movement had in mind.
9. Bootlegging helped shape stock-car racing culture.
Southern moonshine runners modified ordinary-looking automobiles with stronger suspensions, increased cargo capacity, and powerful engines so they could transport liquor and outrun law enforcement.
Drivers raced one another when they weren't hauling liquor, and that Southern bootlegging and racing culture eventually became part of the roots of NASCAR, founded in 1948.
So yes, there is a little moonshine in NASCAR's family tree.
10. Prohibition is the only constitutional amendment that another amendment completely repealed.
The Twenty-First Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment in 1933.
Congress essentially said:
Never mind.
11. NASCAR has roots in bootlegging.
During Prohibition—and continuing afterward in the moonshine trade—Southern bootleggers modified ordinary-looking cars with powerful engines, heavy-duty suspensions, and extra cargo capacity so they could haul illegal liquor and outrun law enforcement. When they weren't making deliveries, drivers raced one another. That moonshine-running culture helped give rise to organized stock-car racing, and NASCAR was founded in 1948.
Good to know: The cars needed to look ordinary on the outside. Apparently a trunk full of moonshine was suspicious enough without adding racing stripes.
12. Kansas
Kansas voters approved constitutional Prohibition in 1880, and the law took effect in 1881—almost forty years before national Prohibition.
And Kansas stayed dry after the rest of the country changed its mind.
When the Twenty-First Amendment ended national Prohibition in 1933, Kansas kept its statewide prohibition laws until 1948.
Even after liquor became legal again, drinking laws remained unusually restrictive.
In 1965, Kansas authorized regulated private clubs to serve liquor. Because the state constitution still prohibited the traditional “open saloon,” public liquor-by-the-drink remained highly restricted.
Kansas voters finally amended the constitution in 1986, allowing counties to approve liquor by the drink. Counties could require drinking establishments to receive at least 30 percent of their gross receipts from food sales, and some still operate under that requirement today.
Kansas did not simply end Prohibition.
It eased out of it very, very slowly.
And Then There Was Vern Miller...
Kansas elected Vern Miller attorney general in 1970.
Miller—a former police officer, sheriff, marshal, and lawyer—became famous for aggressively enforcing Kansas liquor laws.
In one of his most legendary episodes, he raided trains traveling through Kansas because alcoholic beverages were being served onboard. He also challenged alcohol service aboard commercial aircraft crossing Kansas airspace.
Imagine enjoying your cocktail at 30,000 feet and suddenly wondering whether the Kansas attorney general was going to pull the plane over.
American Prohibition Words to Know
Amendment
A change or addition to the United States Constitution.
Anti-Saloon League
One of the most powerful organizations behind the national Prohibition movement. Founded in 1893, it became an extraordinarily effective political lobbying organization focused almost entirely on eliminating the legal liquor trade.
Their marketing department was apparently excellent.
Bathtub Gin
A nickname for inexpensive homemade or compounded gin-like spirits during Prohibition. Alcohol was commonly flavored with juniper or juniper oil and diluted with water.
Despite the name, it generally wasn't fermented or distilled in a bathtub.
Which is reassuring.
Bootlegger
Someone involved in making, transporting, or selling illegal alcohol.
The word bootleg existed before Prohibition and was associated with concealing contraband—sometimes literally inside the leg of a tall boot.
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel “Al” Capone (1899–1947) became the most famous American gangster associated with Prohibition.
Born in Brooklyn to Italian immigrant parents, Capone left school as a teenager and became involved with street gangs. While working at the Harvard Inn on Coney Island, his face was slashed during an altercation, resulting in the nickname he hated: Scarface.
Capone later moved to Chicago and rose through Johnny Torrio's criminal organization before becoming one of the city's most powerful crime bosses.
Bootlegging made him spectacularly wealthy, but prosecutors ultimately couldn't make the biggest criminal charges stick.
Instead, the government convicted him of income-tax evasion.
After all that, accounting got him.
Eighteenth Amendment
The constitutional amendment establishing national Prohibition by banning the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquor for beverage purposes.
It was ratified in 1919 and took effect in 1920.
Flappers
Young women associated with the changing social culture of the 1920s.
Flappers cut their hair into bobs, wore shorter skirts, listened and danced to jazz, smoked cigarettes, drove automobiles, drank cocktails, and challenged traditional expectations about women's behavior.
To their parents, civilization was clearly ending.
Gangster
A member of an organized criminal gang.
During Prohibition, gangsters became closely associated with illegal alcohol production and distribution, although their criminal activities extended well beyond booze.
Jazz Age
A cultural period beginning in the 1920s when jazz music became enormously influential in American popular culture and spread internationally.
Jazz, dancing, radio, nightlife, speakeasies, and changing social attitudes became inseparable from our image of the era.
Ratify
To formally approve something—in this case, a constitutional amendment.
An amendment becomes part of the United States Constitution only after the required number of states ratify it.
Roaring Twenties
The nickname for the decade associated with economic expansion, automobiles, radio, motion pictures, aviation, jazz, Art Deco, changing fashions, celebrity culture, and major shifts in social behavior.
Women's hairstyles got shorter.
Women's skirts got shorter.
Cocktail glasses got fuller.
Traditionalists became increasingly nervous.
Then the stock market crashed.
Rum Runner
Someone who illegally transports or smuggles liquor, particularly by boat.
Despite the name, rum runners transported plenty besides rum.
Speakeasy
An establishment that illegally sold alcoholic beverages during Prohibition.
Speakeasies were also called blind pigs or blind tigers.
The term speakeasy actually predates American Prohibition and probably derives from the idea of speaking quietly or discreetly about an illegal drinking establishment. The popular story that customers had to “speak easy” while giving a password at the door makes a wonderful story, but passwords were not the origin of the word.
Temperance
Moderation or voluntary restraint, particularly regarding alcohol.
Early temperance organizations often promoted moderate drinking before many eventually moved toward complete abstinence and prohibition.
Twenty-First Amendment
Ratified on December 5, 1933, the Twenty-First Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and ended nationwide Prohibition.
It remains the only amendment ratified specifically to repeal another constitutional amendment.
Teetotaler
Someone who abstains completely from alcoholic beverages.
No tasting flight.
No “just one.”
No Champagne toast.
Nothing.
Volstead Act
The National Prohibition Act of 1919, commonly called the Volstead Act.
It defined intoxicating beverages and established the rules used to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment.
Foto di pubblico dominio | picryl.com
Foto di pubblico dominio | picryl.com
American Prohibition Timeline
1784
Philadelphia physician and Founding Father Benjamin Rush publishes An Inquiry into the Effects of Spirituous Liquors upon the Human Body and Their Influence upon the Happiness of Society.
Rush argues that excessive consumption of distilled spirits causes serious physical and social harm.
The national alcohol argument has officially begun.
1789
An early American temperance organization forms in Connecticut.
1813
Temperance organizations continue appearing throughout New England, including the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance.
1826
Ministers and reformers establish the American Temperance Society in Boston.
The organization grows rapidly and encourages Americans to pledge abstinence from distilled spirits.
1833
Temperance organizations consolidate into the American Temperance Union, helping turn temperance into a national social movement.
1838
Massachusetts prohibits certain small-quantity alcohol sales.
The restriction is repealed two years later.
America is already discovering that alcohol legislation comes with a lot of revisions.
1840
Six reformed drinkers establish the Washington Temperance Society in Baltimore.
The Washingtonian movement emphasizes recovering drinkers supporting one another through meetings and personal testimony—a striking precursor to later peer-support organizations.
Within a few years the movement fades, but for a while it attracts hundreds of thousands of supporters.
1851
Maine passes a statewide prohibition law championed by Neal Dow, earning it the nickname The Maine Law.
Other states experiment with similar legislation.
1869
The Prohibition Party is organized.
Yes, America once had an entire political party whose brand strategy was essentially:
No drinks.
1874
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is founded.
It becomes one of America's largest and most influential women's organizations and campaigns not only against alcohol but for broader social reforms.
1880
Kansas voters approve a constitutional amendment banning the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor.
Kansas settles in for the long haul.
1893
The Anti-Saloon League is founded in Ohio.
Unlike many organizations with broad reform agendas, the League focuses its political power almost exclusively on Prohibition.
It becomes extremely good at it.
1899
Carry Nation, a six-foot-tall Kansas temperance crusader, begins entering illegal saloons and destroying bottles, mirrors, furniture, and fixtures.
She eventually becomes famous for wielding a hatchet.
She is arrested repeatedly.
Apparently “Please stop smashing the bar” was not particularly persuasive.
1901
Prince Edward Island begins provincial Prohibition.
It remains Canada's longest-lasting provincial prohibition, ending in 1948.
1908
Mississippi adopts statewide Prohibition, which takes effect in 1909.
It will retain statewide prohibition policy far longer than national Prohibition itself.
New Year's Eve must have been interesting.
1914
The Anti-Saloon League formally pushes for a constitutional amendment establishing nationwide Prohibition.
1917
Congress approves the proposed Eighteenth Amendment and sends it to the states for ratification.
World War I strengthens the movement. Grain conservation, anti-German sentiment toward the brewing industry, and decades of temperance activism all contribute.
1918–1919
State after state ratifies the Eighteenth Amendment.
The required thirty-sixth state approves it on January 16, 1919, completing ratification.
Congress passes the Volstead Act later that year to enforce the amendment.
President Woodrow Wilson vetoes it.
Congress overrides his veto.
Everyone seems very committed at this point.
1920
At 12:01 a.m. on January 17, national Prohibition takes effect.
The legal liquor industry closes.
The illegal liquor industry begins one of the greatest growth periods in American history.
Also in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment is ratified, constitutionally protecting women's right to vote.
Temperance organizations—particularly the WCTU—had been closely connected with women's political activism, although the relationship between suffrage and Prohibition was considerably more complicated than simply “women got the vote so they could ban alcohol.”
1920s
Bootlegging explodes.
Rum runners smuggle liquor by sea.
Moonshine production increases.
Speakeasies multiply.
Doctors prescribe medicinal alcohol.
Americans learn several thousand new ways to hide a bottle.
Organized crime expands rapidly in cities including Chicago and New York.
And cocktails somehow survive all of it.
1929
The stock market crashes and the Great Depression begins.
Arguments for repeal increasingly include economics: legalizing alcohol could create jobs and once again provide governments with alcohol-tax revenue.
When the country desperately needs money, that untaxed glass of whiskey starts looking considerably more attractive.
1932
Franklin D. Roosevelt campaigns for president while supporting repeal of Prohibition.
He wins.
Decisively.
Apparently America is ready for a drink.
1933
Congress proposes the Twenty-First Amendment in February.
Before full repeal, the Cullen-Harrison Act allows the legal sale of beer and wine containing up to 3.2 percent alcohol by weight beginning April 7.
Then, on December 5, 1933, Utah becomes the thirty-sixth state to ratify the Twenty-First Amendment.
National Prohibition ends.
States, however, retain enormous authority over alcohol regulation—and some remain dry for years.
1948
Kansas finally repeals statewide constitutional Prohibition.
Sixty-eight years after adopting it.
Kansas does not rush these things.
1966
Mississippi changes its long-standing statewide prohibition system, allowing counties and municipalities to vote themselves wet under local-option laws.
Although Mississippi's modern alcohol laws remained complicated, 1966 effectively ends the extraordinary era in which statewide prohibition remained the official policy.
1984
Congress passes the National Minimum Drinking Age Act.
Rather than directly establishing a federal drinking age, the law pressures states to set the minimum age for purchasing and publicly possessing alcohol at 21 by threatening a portion of federal highway funding.
Every state eventually complies.
After almost two centuries of arguing about alcohol, America discovers that sometimes the most persuasive temperance tool is apparently highway money.
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L'abito da cocktail è stato un'invenzione nei primi anni '20 di Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel. L'abito nero è stato ispirato dalle abitudini delle suore.
I falegnami hanno guadagnato soldi extra progettando e costruendo bar nascosti costruiti in pareti, orologi cavi, mobili e qualsiasi altro luogo che abbia suscitato ispirazione.
Durante un raid, il 21 Club di New York City aveva leve della barra che, una volta tirate, facevano cadere gli scaffali dei liquori nelle fogne.