The 1920’s is a period when alcohol was prohibited, when men and women’s lifestyles and roles started to change, and it is also the period when automobiles came into place. The prohibition of alcohol and change of men and women caused them to start creating illegal businesses.
Prohibition came into place in the 1920s banning the production, selling, and distribution of alcohol. It helped reduce alcohol consumption but had many negative economic effects, including rape, murder, and crimes. It destroyed the brewing and distilling of industries, and reduced government revenue from taxes on alcohol. Besides controlling such long-standing illicit activities as prostitution and gambling, gangsters invested their "booze" profits in legitimate businesses
…show more content…
including bootlegging. People who illegally made, imported, or sold alcohol during this time were called bootleggers. Under those conditions, the nation's cities were ripe for crime. In cities like Pittsburgh and Cleveland, numerous ethnic gangs fought to control the local bootlegging activities. Many nightclubs had ties to organized crime, and Chicago's Al Capone amassed a fortune by supplying drinkers. The characters of The Great Gatsby are involved in illegal businesses in NYC and Chicago known as bootlegging. Wolfsheim and Gatsby have many side-street drug stores in NYC and in Chicago and sell grain alcohol over the counter. One evening, Wolfsheim and six others, including Rosy Rosenthal were at the Old Metropole drinking all evening until 4 am when the waiter came and told Rosy that there is someone outside waiting to speak with him. Wolfsheim held him back, but he still left and got shot three times in his stomach and died (Fitzgerald 74-75). If anyone is associated with illegal businesses, their life would be in danger just like Wolfsheim’s friend Rosy Rosenthal. Men and women’s role played an important part during the change in the 1920s. Everyone wanted to look and act "collegian," and the nation became obsessed with what glamorous college youth were doing, wearing, smoking, singing, and dancing. After World War I (1914–18) men and women started changing physically and mentally, presenting an “unjust” appearance changing the industry. No longer needing to follow the rules set by the military, men began getting their fashion guidance from newly popular film actors and public figures, such as the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII (1894–1972), or created their own styles on college campuses throughout Europe and the United States. It defined not only war as men's business, but also property, knowledge, government, and, in many contexts, even waged work as such. Men were thus expected to show interpersonal skills as well as being "sturdy oaks”. According to Margaret Deland, the new woman "has gone to college, and when she graduates, she is going to earn her own living. She declines to depend on her parents. She will do settlement work; she won't go to church; she has views on marriage and the birth-rate; she occupies herself passionately, with everything, except the things that used to occupy the minds of girls.” The "new women" of the 1920s were called flappers. The days of women's wearing dresses that covered most of their bodies, pinning up their long hair, acting modest, and allowing husbands, fathers, or brothers to chaperone them and make all their decisions were fading. The flashy style of the 1920s, with its love of exotic Eastern fashions, was the perfect time for the new product, and young women of the era painted their nails in bright pinks and reds, sometimes leaving the tips white for contrast. Men and women’s image were considered “unjust”.
The way they came out during this time was seen inappropriately. Women now attend parties, smoke cigarettes, and drink instead of staying home and babysitting their kids. In The Great Gatsby, Nick says, “It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms, but apparently there were no such intentions in her head” (Fitzgerald 25). What Nick says here accurately portrays how women have changed. You would expect Daisy to have her child in her arms, babysitting her, but instead she is out doing other things leaving her child with someone else. Nick says, “Tom the fact that he “had some woman in New York” was less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book” (Fitzgerald 25). Nick is saying that man cheats nowadays and it's not even surprising seeing men and women act this way in this generation. The rates of sexual activity both before and outside marriage increased. Accordingly, to this change, automobiles also took part in the change of gender …show more content…
roles. Compared to those who used to always stay home, babysit and wait for their spouse to come home, automobiles was like an outlet for women to go out, have a job, and do what they want. Greater numbers of working-class women worked outside the home in factories, stores, and offices, and growing numbers of middle-class women attended college and entered professional careers. As automobile ownership made distances easier to cover, schools were consolidated, and factories moved to the countryside. When the new Model A Ford in 1927 came out, five thousand customers made down payment on it without even seeing one. The 1920s automobiles were purchased mostly by the middle and upper classes. The invention of cars gave young people the freedom to go where they pleased and do what they wanted. Jazz bands played at dance halls like the savoy in NYC and the aragon in Chicago; radio stations and phonograph records (100 million of which were sold in 1927 alone) carried their tunes to listeners across the nations. Radio drama was slow to develop, possibly because the station owners thought that radio drama could not compete with movies, especially after sound was introduced in 1927. The long-enduring American ritual of going to the movies weekly was established during the 1920s. Automobiles play a big part in The Great Gatsby especially towards the end of the novel.
Everyone who drove in the novel is bad at driving. When Daisy is driving back home mad and furious in Gatsby’s car, she runs into Myrtle because Myrtle thought it was Tom since he was driving Gatsby’s car before, so she ran into the road, which causes her death. “The “death car,” as the newspapers called it, it didn't stop; it came out of the gathering darkness, wavered tragically for a moment and then disappeared around the next bend. Michaelis wasn't even sure of its color, he told the first policeman it was light green. The other car, the one going toward New York, came to where a hundred yards beyond, and its driver hurried back to where Myrtle Wilson, her life violently extinguished, knelt in the road and mingled her thick, dark blood with the dust” (Fitzgerald 144-145). Among the related businesses were car dealerships; parts and supplies manufacturers and retailers; petroleum-products developers; service stations and garages. Model A Ford was one of the most popular car in the 1920s but expensive. “One of the three shops it contained was for rent and another was an all-night restaurant, approached by a trail of ashes; the third was a garage, I followed Tom inside. The interior was unprosperous and bare; the only car visible was the dust-covered wreck of a Ford which crouched in a dim
corner.”
In the year 1920, Prohibition was established. It was came with the 18th amendment. This banned the distribution of alcoholic beverages. Criminals saw this as an opportunity. It was a way to make easy cash. Criminals would import it, manufacture it, steal the product, and then sell it for a lot of profit. Alcohol was extremely popular, and there was a lot of business to be made. Especially since there was no legal competition since it was now banned, there would be no tax on the product and merely all the money made was for the person to keep. Bootlegging was the name given to this criminal behavior. Criminals and gangsters were flourishing with all the profits that were being made from bootlegging alcohol.
The United States and our government has been shaped entirely from its past. We have learned right from wrong, what has worked and what has failed. The 1920s was a time in our country where the government created a law that upset the people. This decade is often referred to as The Roaring 20’s, The Jazz Age, The Prohibition Era, The Cocktail Era, etc. All these names perfectly describe this time, but it was also a time to learn from the mistake of creating a law that prohibited alcohol. This law played such a huge role in the decade, and has been forever remembered. The Great Gatsby is a romance novel that also hints on the time of prohibition. F. Scott Fitzgerald talked greatly about alcohol and the part it took in The Roaring 20 's. Though
The gangsters caused massacres and the St Valentines Massacre was a turning point for prohibition. People started to realise the dramatic failure of the law, and so when the Wall Street crash and the depression hit the USA in the early 1930s' it was obvious that legalising alcohol would create jobs helping people out of the depression. With all these problems, people were still getting drunk, so even with the law drunkenness hardly decreased. This made people begin to realise that by repealing the law alcohol would help get the taxes from it so the USA could stop wastin... ... middle of paper ...
Prohibition was a period in which the manufacturing, sale and transportation of alcohol was illegal. Alcohol was prohibited because it was believed that it was the reason for conflicts that involved the family. The prohibition of alcohol also led to the repeal of the 21st amendment for the first time. Because alcohol was prohibited people started drinking and sell illegal alcohol, in this photo men can be seen draining barrels of alcohol.
Prohibition was designed to rid the country of businesses that manufactured, sold, and or distributed alcoholic beverages. The eighteenth amendment made it a violation of the constitution to do and of the before mentioned. This was a crime punishable up to the Supreme Court. The original idea was that Americans as a whole were unhealthy, there was too much crime and corruption, and that people were being burdened by excess taxes that poorhouses and prisons were creating. What happened? The cheap alcohol being illegally produced killed more Americans, crime and corruption went up, taxes were raised to fund the law enforcement needed to enforce prohibition, and the prisons became overcrowded.
Looking back in American history, America has tended to have different phases lasting around ten years. The nineteen-twenties will always be remembered in history because of the triumphal progress in many different areas. The twenties were a time of great change in America in many different areas. The changes were in the laws, the lifestyle of women especially and the moral values that they lived by. One of the major events that sculpted this era was prohibition. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald explores the life of crime associated with prohibition causing the enormous transformation of Jay Gatz to Jay Gatsby, and also causing a tremendous change in America.
“Prohibition did not achieve its goals. Instead, it added to the problems it was intended to solve.” On 16th January 1920, one of the most common personal habits and customs of American society came to a halt. The eighteenth amendment was implemented, making all importing, exporting, transporting, selling and manufacturing of intoxicating liquors absolutely prohibited. This law was created in the hope of achieving the reduction of alcohol consumption, which in turn would reduce: crime, poverty, death rates, and improve both the economy, and the quality of life for all Americans. These goals were far from achieved. The prohibition amendment of the 1920's was ineffective because it was unenforceable. Instead, it caused various social problems such as: the explosive growth of organized crime, increased liquor consumption, massive murder rates and corruption among city officials. Prohibition also hurt the economy because the government wasn’t collecting taxes on the multi-billion dollar a year industry.
People turned more and more towards criminal activity, organized criminals such as the American mobsters and European crime syndicates thrived, most common people looked upon these organizations as heros. Criminals like Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger were headliners of the era. Jobs were scarce and people needed to provide for their families, gangsterism was dangerous but provided an easy way to make money. When the American government passed the eighteenth Amendments outlawing alcohol, people who enjoyed a drink became criminal for doing so. It was organized criminals who supplied the booze. In January of 1920 the American government banned the sale and supply of alcohol, the government thought that this would curb crime and violence, prohibition did not achieve its goals, leading more toward higher crime rates and excessive violence. Alcohol was seen as the devil's advocate and banning the substance would help improve the quality of American lives. It caused an explosive growth in crime with more than double the amount of illegal bars and saloons operating than before prohibition. The government set up the “Federal Prohibition Bureau” to police prohibition, this did not deter people and organized crime continued to be the main supplier of booze. With a large coastline it was almost impossible to police with only five percent of alcohol ever being confiscated. Bribing government officials was common, and people were increasingly crafty in the way they
The 1920's was a time of change in the United States. “The Roaring Twenties” had an outstanding impact on the economy, social standards and everyday life. It was a time for positive results in the consumer goods industry and American families, because of higher wages, shorter working hours, and manufacturing was up 60% in consumer goods. But it was also a time of adversity and opposition for others, such as immigrants and farmers. Immigrants had lots of competition when they were looking for work and they weren't treated fairly by Americans, depending on where they came from and what they believed.
Prohibition was passed to eradicate the demand for liquor but had the inadvertent effect of raising the crime rates in America. Robert Scott stated, “Prohibition was supposed to lower crime and corruption, reduce social problems, lower taxes needed to support prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America” (Scott 2). As the demand for alcohol increased, people began to find new methods to mask the production and consumption of liquor. It became easier to break the rules. Organized crime blossomed and many law-abiding citizens turned into criminals.
Prohibition was a period in which the sale, manufacture, or transport of alcoholic beverages became illegal. It started January 16, 1919 and continued to December 5, 193. Although it was formed to stop drinking completely, it did not even come close. It created a large number of bootleggers who were able to supply the public with illegal alcohol. Many of these bootleggers became very rich and influential through selling alcohol and using other methods. They started the practices of organized crime that are still used today. Thus, Prohibition led to the rapid growth of organized crime.
Introduction of Prohibition Prohibition was introduced to all American states apart from Maryland in 1920. Prohibition was the banning of alcohol; you could be arrested for sale, manufacture and transportation of alcohol. There were many factors that influenced the introduction of prohibition, One of the main factors was the temperance movements two examples of this were the anti-saloon league and Women’s Christian temperance movement. The temperance movements were at the strongest in rural areas, they put pressure on state governments to introduce prohibition. They put pressure on them by claiming the Damage to drinkers health they also protested that the sale in alcohol produced crime and disorder, poverty and distress, absenteeism and loss of production it also brought misery and turned men vicious.
Bootleggers made fortunes off the Habits of our nation. Women changed their looks to stand out against people who didn’t want them to vote. This decade has nicknames such as “The Jazz Age”, “The Lawless Age”, and “The Era of Wonderful Nonsense”. Many things in this era of prodigiousness express what and how we are the nation we are today. Business in the 1920s grew epidemically. In the 1920s, many things occurred, the Prohibition commenced, sports transcended, and the Nineteenth Amendment allowed women to vote.
Prohibition started in 1920 where they banned the use of alcohol. Congress submitted the eighteenth Amendment, which banned the manufacture, transportation and sale of intoxicating liquors, for state ratification. Then soon after that Amendment was passed. The government had a hard time trying to enforce this law. Their was a thirty percent drop in alcohol consumption, but those who wanted to drink would find a way to do so. People stated to bootleg the alcohol to make money. Al Capone, earned sixty million dollars annually from his bootlegging operations. Prohibition nearly ruined the country's brewing industry, but some companies survived the prohibitions by selling other products. There was around twenty-two brewers in st. louis and only
Prohibition in the United States lasted about 14 years from 1920 to 1933. “Prohibition was the period in United States history in which the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors was outlawed.” . Intoxicating liquors were beginning to ruin the lives of some Americans and it became banned. “Prohibition, members of the Temperance movement urged, would stop husbands from spending all the family income on alcohol and prevent accidents in the workplace caused by workers who drank during lunch” . Alcohol was beginning to tear families apart and some wanted to finally outlaw all of the alcohol which would make life easier. In the beginning organizations pushed moderation, but after some decades the organizations’ focus’ turned into the idea of complete prohibition . Although the idea of total prohibition was far-fetched it eventually began. The 18th amendment brought about complete prohibition to all of the United States, with this amendment prohibition in the United States was finally established.