Under the 18thAmendment, which was first legally enforced in 1920 and lasted until 1933, it was illegal to manufacture, sell or transport alcohol in the United States. However, the private possession or consumption of alcohol wasn’t outlawed. 

The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was founded in 1874 and soon became the largest political organisation for women the US had ever seen. Large numbers of women took to the streets to try and control men’s behaviour – in particular, to curb their drinking – and petitioned for the vote as a means of achieving this goal. The WCTU expanded into an international organisation, with the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in Britain becoming popular and pushing for alcohol to be banned in the country.

It’s estimated that 32,000 speakeasies were operating in secret in New York towards the end of the decade. Across America, this number may have been as high as 200,000. These establishments ranged from a single apartment owned by someone with a few bottles of liquor who was looking to make some money, to the expensive, flashy clubs frequented by flappers we typically think of today. 

Corruption was rife in law enforcement and politics at the time, going all the way up to the top. When Warren Harding (US president from 1921 to 1923) came into office he gave his cronies positions of power. For instance, he made his campaign manager, Harry Dougherty, the US attorney general. Dougherty brought along his fixer, Jess Smith, who – in exchange for approximately $300,000 – allegedly promised George Remus, known as the ‘king of the bootleggers’, that he would never go to jail for his exploits, even if he was arrested.

Al Capone’s older brother, Richard 'Two Gun' Hart, was born in Italy and moved to US in his childhood. He was ashamed of his Italian accent and idolised cowboys, changing his name and eventually becoming an Indian agent who helped enforce prohibition. He was known for his tough tactics and had a fearsome reputation for shooting bootleggers. After prohibition ended, he spent the rest of his career as an agent on Native American reservations.

Winston Churchill was very vocal about his dislike of prohibition, branding it “an affront to the whole history of mankind”. When he was in New York in 1931 to give a speech, he was involved in a car accident and went to the Bahamas to recover. Upon his return to the United States, he was given a prescription from a doctor for alcohol, which he was advised to drink at mealtimes. This practice of prescriptions for alcohol was common in America at the time, as doctors were still legally allowed to prescribe alcohol to people for “medicinal purposes”.

All of the above factors caused prohibition to be repealed in 1933. The violence had spiralled out of control, culminating in the St Valentine’s Day massacre that took place in 1929. In this Chicago shooting, seven men were shot down in what was allegedly an attempted hit to take out Bugs Moran, Al Capone’s chief rival.Women were beginning to turn their backs on the movement, too, as the Republican organiser Pauline Sabin actively came out in opposition to the anti-alcohol laws. And more and more women feared that Prohibition, with the corruption and violence that accompanied it, was more damaging to their children than a system that allowed the sale and manufacture of alcohol and was properly regulated.Finally, the Great Depression hit in the 1930s, devastating the US economically. The brewing and distilling industry would bring back thousands of jobs, from making alcohol to driving trucks and running pubs – not to mention the significant tax income that alcohol would bring the government.

Although the 21st Amendment (which repealed the 18th Amendment) was ratified in December 1933, thus officially ending prohibition, not every state returned to the bottle immediately. Mississippi lasted the longest, remaining “dry” until 1966. However, many states continue to have some anti-alcohol rules today – for instance, in states such as Utah and Oregon you would still need to go to a package shop to purchase liquor, as spirits can’t be sold in grocery stores.