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Prohibition (United States, 1920–1933)

Prohibition refers to the nationwide constitutional ban on the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcoholic beverages in the United States from 1920 until repeal in 1933. Enacted through the 18th Amendment and enforced (imperfectly) via the Volstead Act, it reshaped nightlife, gendered leisure, organised crime, and the sexual topography of the Jazz Age.

Origins

  • Temperance & Moral Reform: 19th‑century pietistic Protestant activism (Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Anti‑Saloon League) framed alcohol as the vector of domestic violence, urban vice, political corruption.
  • War Mobilisation & Nativism: WWI grain conservation + anti‑German sentiment (against brewing dynasties) accelerated ratification.
  • Constitutional Mechanism: 18th Amendment ratified 1919; Volstead Act defined "intoxicating liquors" (>0.5% ABV). Private consumption per se not banned; medicinal, sacramental, industrial loopholes remained.

Enforcement & Evasion

  • Speakeasies: Hidden bars (passwords, peepholes, false walls) proliferated—estimates range from 20k–30k in New York alone at peak.
  • Bootlegging Networks: Maritime rum-running (e.g., William "Bill" McCoy), cross-border smuggling from Canada & Caribbean, diversion of industrial alcohol (redistilled with denaturant risks).
  • Homemade Liquor: Bathtub gin, moonshine, "near beer" augmentations. Toxic adulterants caused poisonings—heightening clandestine risk erotics.
  • Corruption: Payoffs to local police, selective raids creating theatre rather than sustained suppression.

Gender & Social Space

  • Female Patronage: Respectable middle-class women entered mixed drinking spaces more routinely; cocktails masked harsher alcohol taste, facilitating social experimentation.
  • Work Roles: Women as coat-check staff, cigarette girls, jazz vocalists—occupational visibility tied to fashion innovation (beaded chemises easy for movement and gaze choreography).
  • Moral Anxiety: Reformers argued co-educational drinking promoted "petting parties" and blurred class boundaries.

Race, Class & Nightlife Stratification

  • Black-and-Tan Clubs: Interracial patronage and performance (Harlem, Chicago) fostered cultural exchange and queer-friendly pockets; also exoticised Black performers for white voyeurism.
  • Segregation & Policing: Raids disproportionally targeted Black-owned venues while elite speakeasies enjoyed relative impunity.

Organised Crime

  • Syndicate Formation: Figures such as Al Capone scaled distribution (vertical integration: breweries → transport → retail fronts).
  • Violence & Public Perception: High-profile incidents (St. Valentine’s Day Massacre 1929) eroded middle-class support for the policy.

Decline & Repeal

  • Economic Argument: Great Depression shifted discourse—lost excise revenues + job creation potential for legal brewing/distilling.
  • Political Mobilisation: Association Against the Prohibition Amendment; women’s groups split (some former temperance allies switched to repeal on pragmatic grounds).
  • 21st Amendment (1933): First (and only) repeal of a constitutional amendment; states regained regulatory patchwork authority.

Cultural & Erotic Legacy

  • Cocktail culture, jazz patronage, and clandestine rendezvous aesthetics (dim lighting, intimate tables) persisted after repeal, embedding an association between mixed drinks and transgressive romance.
  • Culinary experimentation (mixers, bitters, syrups) originally used to mask poor-quality spirits evolved into stylistic bartending craft.
  • The speakeasy trope endures in modern themed bars with hidden entrances—nostalgia for curated secrecy.

Writing Tips

  • Tension Devices: Use imminent raid rumours, a hidden bottle disposal mechanism, or a corrupt officer’s delayed knock as structural suspense.
  • Multi-Sensory Detail: Denatured alcohol’s sharp chemical nose vs. citrus oils and sugar masking; the clink of contraband glass under floorboards.
  • Class Contrast: A silk-clad debutante beside a dockworker at 2am—dialogue rhythms differ; shared jazz beat equalises temporarily.
  • Risk & Desire Coupling: Characters’ arousal tracked alongside social risk (door buzzer, coded knocks) entwines law defiance with intimacy.

Example

The lever clicked; the rear shelving lurched and bottles cascaded into the sand-packed chute. By the time the uniforms reached the bar, only citrus peel and juniper ghosted the air between her pulse and his unsteady grin.

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