The US Government Poisoned Alcohol to Enforce Prohibition

1. A Victorious Minority

As Prohibition’s advocates had predicted, the lower population and more rural states were the quickest to ratify the Eighteenth Amendment. The exceptions were Connecticut and Rhode Island, both of which had a majority Catholic population, and both of which refused to ratify. Their votes were neither missed nor needed, as the prohibitionists ran up the score in the legislatures of other small and rural states. On January 16th, 1919, Nebraska became the 36th state to ratify the Eighteenth Amendment, when its lower house voted in favor 98-0. It was official, and Prohibition was automatically scheduled to go into effect a year later.

The Eighteenth Amendment brought about drastic changes in the role of the federal government and its interactions with Americans, and fundamentally changed the way we live. It also set off a cascade of unintended and unforeseen consequences and changes impacting a bewildering variety of subjects. The rise of organized crime, the concept of home dinner parties, modern American tourism habits, radical changes in speedboat design, and the deep engagement of women in politics – all the preceding, and more, can be traced back to Prohibition. It might have ended in failure, but it changed America forever.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Aaron, Paul, and Musto, David – Temperance and Prohibition in America: An Historical Overview (1981)

Behr, Edward – Prohibition: Thirteen Yeas That Changed America (1996)

Burns, Eric – The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol (2003)

Cheever, Susan – Drinking in America: Our Secret History (2015)

Daily Beast – How the US Government Enforced Prohibition by Poisoning Americans

Encyclopedia Britannica – Anti Saloon League

Encyclopedia Britannica – Temperance Movement

History Collection – 18 Details in the Daily Life of a Bootlegger During Prohibition

Murdoch, Catherine Gilbert – Domesticating Drink: Women, Men, and Alcohol in America, 1870 – 1940 (1998)

Orkent, Daniel – Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition (2010)