Public Domain foto | picryl.com
Het verbod is in bijna elk land ter wereld gebeurd. De notendopversie van het Amerikaanse verbod begint met Amerikaanse burgers aan het eind van de 18e eeuw die in twee groepen vielen: degenen die vonden dat het drinken van alcohol een zonde was (religieuze groepen) en gezinnen die moe waren van mannen die geld uitgeven in saloons terwijl vrouwen en kinderen werden achtergelaten bij berooid en uitgehongerd thuis . Ze geloofden dat alcohol een factor was die bijdroeg aan de toename van misdaad, gezondheidsproblemen, relatieproblemen en extreme armoede. Zo werd de matigheidsbeweging geboren.
Voor Amerika begon het verbod officieel om één minuut na middernacht op 17 januari 1920. Het verbod kan echter worden vergeleken met een orkaan van vandaag, omdat je voldoende gewaarschuwd bent voordat het toeslaat, dus er werden jarenlang grote hoeveelheden alcohol gehamsterd. Toen de voorraad opraakte, werd alcohol uit Canada en Mexico gesmokkeld en begonnen smokkelaars maneschijn te maken. Mensen namen ook drankcruises op twaalf mijl (de wettelijke afstand) naar internationale wateren. Verborgen geheime bars, speakeasies genaamd, gingen open, vaak verstopt in een kamer achter een legale winkel, of ingangen waren in steegjes of in kelders. Er wordt aangenomen dat er alleen al in New York City meer dan 100.000 speakeasies waren.
Dit alles zorgde voor een bloeiende business voor bootleggers, maar het creëerde ook een bloeiende business voor een nieuwe duistere wereld van de georganiseerde misdaad, de maffia genaamd, die zich verspreidde naar alle grote steden met veel bendes en gangsters.
De maffia maakte en verkocht "badkuipgin" aan speakeasies (en aan wie het maar wilde) door maneschijn te kopen van dranksmokkelaars, of legaal via medische leveranciers door het te infuseren met jeneverbessen en andere kruiden in een poging om de geur en smaak van pre- verbied jenever. (Ze gebruikten grote containers zoals vaten - geen badkuipen.) Na het bottelen, sneden ze de maneschijn af met water door de flessen en kannen onder de badkranen te plaatsen. (De flessen zouden niet onder een gootsteenkraan passen.) Jaarlijks zouden ongeveer 1.000 mensen sterven omdat er wordt gezegd dat ze soms goedkope (en giftige) industriële alcohol zouden krijgen, die werd gebruikt voor brandstoffen, poetsmiddelen, enz. ook het snijproces.
Wat cocktails betreft, werden er meer mixers en ingrediënten toegevoegd aan de badkuipjenever van de Mafia om de nare brandwonden te maskeren, zoals de Bee's Knees, gemaakt met veel citroensap en honing. Cocktails gemaakt met gesmokkelde rum, whisky en cognac waren onder meer de Twelve Mile Limit, Mary Pickford en Between the Sheets. Maar de gemiddelde Amerikanen van de midden- tot lagere klasse mixten - elke drank die ze konden krijgen - thuis met eenvoudige ingrediënten als gewone sappen, kruiden en zelfgemaakte siropen. Deze recepten zullen altijd een mysterie blijven.
De tien belangrijkste dingen die u moet weten over het verbod
Verbod (het nobele experiment) verbood het drinken van alcohol niet - het verbood de productie, verkoop en transport van alcohol.
Het verbod kwam niet alleen in Amerika voor. Het is op verschillende tijdstippen over de hele wereld gebeurd en bestaat vandaag de dag nog steeds in sommige landen (en Amerikaanse provincies).
Vanaf 2018 heeft de Amerikaanse grondwet zevenentwintig amendementen. Het achttiende amendement is toen het Amerikaanse verbod begon (dinsdag 20 januari 1920) en het eenentwintigste amendement is toen het verbod eindigde (dinsdag 5 december 1933) voor een totaal van dertien jaar, tien maanden en vijftien dagen.
Het achttiende amendement kwam er niet in één klap. Veel staten verboden alcohol eerder, te beginnen in 1851. Hetzelfde gold voor het eenentwintigste amendement; veel staten hebben het verbod jarenlang niet opgeheven en vandaag zijn er nog steeds provincies die alcoholverboden hebben, wat resulteert in "droge" provincies. Het eenentwintigste amendement liet de beslissing aan de staten over. De strijd voor een landelijk Amerikaans verbod was niet iets dat in een paar jaar gebeurde. Het begon aan het eind van de 18e eeuw met de Temperance Movement (een beweging om de wijdverbreide dronkenschap in Amerika te bedwingen).
Juridische alcohol tijdens de drooglegging omvatte sacramentele wijn voor kerken; gepatenteerde medicijnen; gebruik bij wetenschappelijk onderzoek; industriële ontwikkeling van brandstof, kleurstof en andere dingen die industrieën nodig kunnen hebben; en gebruik in ziekenhuizen voor reiniging. Zelfgemaakt bier, wijn en cider, en vooraf verboden alcohol kunnen in de privacy van je eigen huis worden gedronken.
Tot de jaren twintig van de vorige eeuw waren prostituees en madams de enige Amerikaanse vrouwen die in de grote kamers van saloons/bars werden toegelaten. In leuke kroegen waren kleine 'Ladies' Rooms' waar vooraanstaande vrouwen konden drinken. De speakeasies van 1920 tot 1933 waren de eerste drankgelegenheden waar vrouwen de hele bar konden betuttelen.
Cocktails en drankjes in speakeasies stonden bekend als duur, dus je spaarde voor een bijzondere avond in de stad, had veel geld (of was bij iemand met geld), of je ging gewoon thuis feesten.
Noodgedwongen sleutelden bootleggers uit de Appalachen aan hun voertuigmotoren om ze sneller te maken dan politieauto's. Dit leidde tot wat we tegenwoordig kennen als de National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR).
Kansas
Als je vandaag door Kansas reist , heb dan geluk, want ze winnen voor het langste alcoholverbod (achtenzestig jaar tussen 1880 en 1948). Het alcoholverbod werd opgeheven door een nieuwe staatswet van Kansas die in 1965 werd aangenomen. Het zette echter alle openbare bars buiten werking omdat alleen privébars waren toegestaan.
Eenentwintig jaar later, in 1986, werd het verbod op privébars opgeheven en binnen een jaar gingen 400 openbare bars open. Er was echter een bepaling: 30 procent van de barverkoop moet uit voedsel komen. Even terzijde en om de gekke Kansas-doos nog meer te openen, werd in de jaren zeventig - ongelooflijk - 5'5” Vern Miller ( ex-politieagent , hulpsheriff en county marshal die vervolgens rechten studeerde) verkozen tot de procureur-generaal van Kansas in 1970. Het was zijn taak om de drankwetten van Kansas agressief te handhaven. Voorbeelden van zijn vijandige assertiviteit waren het overvallen van Amtrak-treinen die door Kansas reden en het dwingen van luchtvaartmaatschappijen om te stoppen met het schenken van sterke drank tijdens het reizen door het luchtruim van Kansas. Miller haalde de krantenkoppen en in 2008 verscheen er een boek over hem.
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.
Bring a little Prohibition home—without
the raids, bathtub gin, or organized crime.
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.
Bring a little Prohibition home—without
the raids, bathtub gin, or organized crime.
Public Domain foto | picryl.com
Public Domain foto | 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.
Public Domain foto | picryl.com
De cocktailjurk was begin jaren twintig een uitvinding van Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel. De zwarte jurk is geïnspireerd op de gewoonten van de nonnen.
Timmerlieden verdienden extra geld door verborgen huisbars te ontwerpen en te bouwen die waren ingebouwd in muren, holle klokken, meubels en andere plaatsen die inspiratie opriepen.
Tijdens een inval had de 21 Club in New York City hendels die, wanneer ze werden getrokken, de drankrekken in het riool lieten vallen.