A PBS documentary, Prohibition, begins October 2 and runs for three nights. Its a three part series on the rise and fall of prohibition. Looks very interesting. Check out PBS.org or there is a link to the production on the BYO website.
Prohibition is coming
- Thread starter brian74
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
Oh yeah I'm glad you mentioned it, I forgot all about. It's Ken Burns, so it should be excellent.
Last edited by a moderator:
I've always wondered how Prohibition ever got passed. I got some insight into this recently from a book I read, "Only Yesterday: America During the 1920's" by Frederick Lewis Allen (published in 1931). He also wrote "Since Yesterday: The 1930's in America" (published in 1939) and "The Big Change: America Transforms Itself - 1900-1950" (published in 1952). I find all three of these books fascinating and well worth reading - they are available free in html format, or for $4 AUD (they accept PayPal) in e-reader format (epub or kindle mobi).
Free version:
http://gutenberg.net.au/
e-reader versions:
http://epubebookeditions.com.au/
Here's a sample from the first book about the passing of prohibition:
"Nothing in recent American history is more extraordinary, as one looks back from the nineteen-thirties, than the ease with which--after generations of uphill fighting by the drys--prohibition was finally written upon the statute-books. The country accepted it not only willingly, but almost absent-mindedly. When the Eighteenth Amendment came before the Senate in 1917, it was passed by a one-sided vote after only thirteen hours of debate, part of which was conducted under the ten-minute rule. When the House of Representatives accepted it a few months later, the debate upon the Amendment as a whole occupied only a single day. The state legislatures ratified it in short order; by January, 1919, some two months after the Armistice, the necessary three-quarters of the states had fallen into line and the Amendment was a part of the Constitution. (All the rest of the states but two subsequently added their ratifications--only Connecticut and Rhode Island remained outside the pale.) The Volstead Act for the enforcement of the Amendment, drafted after a pattern laid down by the Anti-Saloon League, slipped through with even greater ease and dispatch. Woodrow Wilson momentarily surprised the country by vetoing it, but it was promptly repassed over his veto. There were scattered protests--a mass-meeting in New York, a parade in Baltimore, a resolution passed by the American Federation of Labor demanding modification in order that the workman might not be deprived of his beer, a noisy demonstration before the Capitol in Washington--but so half-hearted and ineffective were the forces of the opposition and so completely did the country as a whole take for granted the inevitability of a dry régime, that few of the arguments in the press or about the dinner table raised the question whether the law would or would not prove enforceable; the burning question was what a really dry country would be like, what effect enforced national sobriety would have upon industry, the social order, and the next generation.
How did it happen? Why this overwhelming, this almost casual acceptance of a measure of such huge importance?
As Charles Merz has clearly shown in his excellent history of the first ten years of the prohibition experiment, the forces behind the Amendment were closely organized; the forces opposed to the Amendment were hardly organized at all. Until the United States entered the war, the prospect of national prohibition had seemed remote, and it is always hard to mobilize an unimaginative public against a vague threat. Furthermore, the wet leadership was discredited; for it was furnished by the dispensers of liquor, whose reputation had been unsavory and who had obstinately refused to clean house even in the face of a growing agitation for temperance.
The entrance of the United States into the war gave the dry leaders their great opportunity. The war diverted the attention of those who might have objected to the bone-dry program: with the very existence of the nation at stake, the future status of alcohol seemed a trifling matter. The war accustomed the country to drastic legislation conferring new and wide powers upon the Federal Government. It necessitated the saving of food and thus commended prohibition to the patriotic as a grain-saving measure. It turned public opinion against everything German--and many of the big brewers and distillers were of German origin. The war also brought with it a mood of Spartan idealism of which the Eighteenth Amendment was a natural expression. Everything was sacrificed to efficiency, production, and health. If a sober soldier was a good soldier and a sober factory hand was a productive factory hand, the argument for prohibition was for the moment unanswerable. Meanwhile the American people were seeing Utopian visions; if it seemed possible to them that the war should end all wars and that victory should bring a new and shining world order, how much easier to imagine that America might enter an endless era of efficient sobriety! And finally, the war made them impatient for immediate results. In 1917 and 1918, whatever was worth doing at all was worth doing at once, regardless of red tape, counter-arguments, comfort, or convenience. The combination of these various forces was irresistible. Fervently and with headlong haste the nation took the shortcut to a dry Utopia.
Almost nobody, even after the war had ended, seemed to have any idea that the Amendment would be really difficult to enforce. Certainly the first Prohibition Commissioner, John F. Kramer, displayed no doubts. "This law," he declared in a burst of somewhat Scriptural rhetoric, "will be obeyed in cities, large and small, and in villages, and where it is not obeyed it will be enforced. . . . The law says that liquor to be used as a beverage must not be manufactured. We shall see that it is not manufactured. Nor sold, nor given away, nor hauled in anything on the surface of the earth or under the earth or in the air." The Anti-Saloon League estimated that an appropriation by Congress of five million dollars a year would be ample to secure compliance with the law (including, presumably, the prevention of liquor-hauling "under the earth"). Congress voted not much more than that, heaved a long sigh of relief at having finally disposed of an inconvenient and vexatious issue, and turned to other matters of more pressing importance. The morning of January 16, 1920, arrived and the era of promised aridity began. Only gradually did the dry leaders, or Congress, or the public at large begin to perceive that the problem with which they had so light-heartedly grappled was a problem of gigantic proportions."
Free version:
http://gutenberg.net.au/
e-reader versions:
http://epubebookeditions.com.au/
Here's a sample from the first book about the passing of prohibition:
"Nothing in recent American history is more extraordinary, as one looks back from the nineteen-thirties, than the ease with which--after generations of uphill fighting by the drys--prohibition was finally written upon the statute-books. The country accepted it not only willingly, but almost absent-mindedly. When the Eighteenth Amendment came before the Senate in 1917, it was passed by a one-sided vote after only thirteen hours of debate, part of which was conducted under the ten-minute rule. When the House of Representatives accepted it a few months later, the debate upon the Amendment as a whole occupied only a single day. The state legislatures ratified it in short order; by January, 1919, some two months after the Armistice, the necessary three-quarters of the states had fallen into line and the Amendment was a part of the Constitution. (All the rest of the states but two subsequently added their ratifications--only Connecticut and Rhode Island remained outside the pale.) The Volstead Act for the enforcement of the Amendment, drafted after a pattern laid down by the Anti-Saloon League, slipped through with even greater ease and dispatch. Woodrow Wilson momentarily surprised the country by vetoing it, but it was promptly repassed over his veto. There were scattered protests--a mass-meeting in New York, a parade in Baltimore, a resolution passed by the American Federation of Labor demanding modification in order that the workman might not be deprived of his beer, a noisy demonstration before the Capitol in Washington--but so half-hearted and ineffective were the forces of the opposition and so completely did the country as a whole take for granted the inevitability of a dry régime, that few of the arguments in the press or about the dinner table raised the question whether the law would or would not prove enforceable; the burning question was what a really dry country would be like, what effect enforced national sobriety would have upon industry, the social order, and the next generation.
How did it happen? Why this overwhelming, this almost casual acceptance of a measure of such huge importance?
As Charles Merz has clearly shown in his excellent history of the first ten years of the prohibition experiment, the forces behind the Amendment were closely organized; the forces opposed to the Amendment were hardly organized at all. Until the United States entered the war, the prospect of national prohibition had seemed remote, and it is always hard to mobilize an unimaginative public against a vague threat. Furthermore, the wet leadership was discredited; for it was furnished by the dispensers of liquor, whose reputation had been unsavory and who had obstinately refused to clean house even in the face of a growing agitation for temperance.
The entrance of the United States into the war gave the dry leaders their great opportunity. The war diverted the attention of those who might have objected to the bone-dry program: with the very existence of the nation at stake, the future status of alcohol seemed a trifling matter. The war accustomed the country to drastic legislation conferring new and wide powers upon the Federal Government. It necessitated the saving of food and thus commended prohibition to the patriotic as a grain-saving measure. It turned public opinion against everything German--and many of the big brewers and distillers were of German origin. The war also brought with it a mood of Spartan idealism of which the Eighteenth Amendment was a natural expression. Everything was sacrificed to efficiency, production, and health. If a sober soldier was a good soldier and a sober factory hand was a productive factory hand, the argument for prohibition was for the moment unanswerable. Meanwhile the American people were seeing Utopian visions; if it seemed possible to them that the war should end all wars and that victory should bring a new and shining world order, how much easier to imagine that America might enter an endless era of efficient sobriety! And finally, the war made them impatient for immediate results. In 1917 and 1918, whatever was worth doing at all was worth doing at once, regardless of red tape, counter-arguments, comfort, or convenience. The combination of these various forces was irresistible. Fervently and with headlong haste the nation took the shortcut to a dry Utopia.
Almost nobody, even after the war had ended, seemed to have any idea that the Amendment would be really difficult to enforce. Certainly the first Prohibition Commissioner, John F. Kramer, displayed no doubts. "This law," he declared in a burst of somewhat Scriptural rhetoric, "will be obeyed in cities, large and small, and in villages, and where it is not obeyed it will be enforced. . . . The law says that liquor to be used as a beverage must not be manufactured. We shall see that it is not manufactured. Nor sold, nor given away, nor hauled in anything on the surface of the earth or under the earth or in the air." The Anti-Saloon League estimated that an appropriation by Congress of five million dollars a year would be ample to secure compliance with the law (including, presumably, the prevention of liquor-hauling "under the earth"). Congress voted not much more than that, heaved a long sigh of relief at having finally disposed of an inconvenient and vexatious issue, and turned to other matters of more pressing importance. The morning of January 16, 1920, arrived and the era of promised aridity began. Only gradually did the dry leaders, or Congress, or the public at large begin to perceive that the problem with which they had so light-heartedly grappled was a problem of gigantic proportions."
If you haven't check out Maureen Ogle's Ambitious brew, as well, she goes into some of the stuff that led up to the "great idiocy" I mean "great experiment" as well.
LVBen
Well-Known Member
I need a reminder about a week before it starts so I can dvr it.
DoubleAught
Well-Known Member
subscribed...so I dont forget 
No kidding, I did an "oh ****".
Rip
Well-Known Member
...just added to my Netflix queue, says DVD available "From Oct 4, 2011" - I doubt that's true but who knows.
- M
android
Well-Known Member
saw an ad for this during the summer, can't wait for it. i love ken burns.
LVBen
Well-Known Member
Boardwalk Empire is a great show to watch also. It is fictional, but it is based on the Prohibition era.
DoubleAught
Well-Known Member
Love that show
stamandster
Well-Known Member
Beer Wars was pretty good too! Thanks for the heads up on the show.
Bump - tonight's the night!
android
Well-Known Member
thanks for the heads up!
thegerm
Well-Known Member
bierhaus15
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2008
- Messages
- 1,950
- Reaction score
- 447
It took me a while to realize that they were not all drinking black lagers...
You can say I was "enjoying" a pint or four while watching.
You can say I was "enjoying" a pint or four while watching.
Arrrrgh...had to DJ my brother's wedding until an hour past airtime.
stamandster
Well-Known Member
Man I missed it! How was it? (if I even need to ask)
You only missed the first episode. The other two are airing tonight and tomorrow night for us old fashioned people who actually watch over the air tv.
They are also rerunning the whole thing later this week.
McGarnigle
Well-Known Member
I don't see this mentioned above, but I'd recommend Daniel Okrent's book Last Call on the same subject.
CreamyGoodness
Well-Known Member
Oh God, you guys meant a show. I saw the title of the thread and figured some yutz was trying to outlaw homebrewing. Dont do that to me, Im very delicate.
I was enjoying a pint of my janet's brown while watching.
Too funny.. I was drinking the exact same thing!
OP
OP
brian74
Well-Known Member
WhineinAlbany
Well-Known Member
Grr I just caught the last 5 minutes of part 2 on PBS. Darn it.
mikeysab
Well-Known Member
Good thing I dvr'ed it. Thought it was on next sunday
I forgot to set the DVR before going to the Marching Band Festival last night.
But I managed to set the DVR when we got home, so by end of week it will be in glorious HD! Can't wait to see all of those old photos in 1080P!
But I managed to set the DVR when we got home, so by end of week it will be in glorious HD! Can't wait to see all of those old photos in 1080P!
