Prohibition and Crime
Temperance
and Prohibition
Prohibition in the United States was a measure designed to reduce
drinking by eliminating the businesses that manufactured, distributed, and
sold alcoholic beverages. The prohibition movement's strength grew,
especially after the formation of the
Anti-Saloon League in 1893 and became official policy with the passage
of the 18th Amendment.
The
Ohio Dry Campaign of 1918
Ohio was a very closely contested state in the national campaign
to eradicate the liquor traffic by declaring illegal the businesses of
manufacturing, distributing, and selling alcoholic beverages. Ohio was the
birthplace of both the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (1874) and the
Anti-Saloon League (1893).
Prohibition in the
1920s: Thirteen Years That Damaged America
Catherine H. Pholoke argues in this term paper that Prohibition’s
contribution to the rise of organized crime outweighed its benefits to
society. There are advertisements since this is a geocities site.
Al Capone
Al Capone is America's best known gangster and the single greatest
symbol of the collapse of law and order in the United States during the
1920s Prohibition era. Capone had a leading role in the illegal activities
that lent Chicago its reputation as a lawless city. The Chicago History
site has an essay, photographs and other artifacts of this famous
gangster.
Al
Capone and the Capone Family
The Crime Library dispels some of the fiction around Capone. One
of the most common fictions is that like many gangsters of that era, he
was born in Italy. Absolutely not true. This amazing crime czar was
strictly domestic -- taking the feudal Italian criminal society and
fashioning it into a modern American criminal enterprise.
Police Work in the
1920s: San Francisco
Charles Foster, a 91-year-old retired officer who joined the force
in 1920, remembers the days of the foot patrol. San Francisco had
its first taste of the Roaring Twenties on December 5, 1920, when two
police detectives were shot and killed by three members of the Howard
Street Gang, a group of organized bootleggers operating out of a
South-of-Market warehouse. |
