It was in 1919 that the Volstead Act, legislation that prohibits the distribution and sale of any alcohol over 0.5 degrees (the bass is therefore quite low), apart from a few rare exceptions such as church wine.
Prior to the enactment of this legislation, there were already 13 so-called “dry states”, which prohibited the consumption of alcohol, particularly on the East Coast. We are in a puritanical society, very shocked by the excesses that take place in the saloons. There is also the desire to ration cereals after the First World War, when the economy was tested by deprivation.
In reality, the ban did not prevent the consumption of alcohol at all. She even gave him a certain seduction, especially in the Roaring Twenties of the 1920s. Desire for freedom, to move society.
THE “speakeasies”, clandestine bars, are flourishing. There will be thousands of them in New York. Moreover, prohibition has all sorts of perverse effects. We are witnessing the development of artisanal distilleries, sometimes with adulterated products. This causes tens of thousands of deaths.
The main consequence of prohibition, it’s the crime boom. This period coincides with the golden age of the mafia and organized crime. This is the time of Al Capone, one of the most famous American gangsters of the 20th century.
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