Prohibition
During Prohibition, the manufacture, transportation, import, export, and sale of alcoholic beverages were restricted or illegal. 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. Instead, Alcohol became more dangerous to consume; organized crime blossomed; courts and prisons systems became overloaded; and endemic corruption of police and public officials occurred. The whole prohibition law basically destroyed the government from the inside out.
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18 Amendment
Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge was the 30th U.S. president, led the nation through most of the Roaring Twenties, a decade of dynamic social and cultural change, materialism and excess. He took office on August 3, 1923, following the sudden death of President Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), whose administration was riddled with scandal. Nicknamed “Silent Cal” for his quiet, steadfast and frugal nature, Coolidge, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts, cleaned up the rampant corruption of the Harding administration and provided a model of stability and respectability for the American people in an era of fast-paced modernization. He was a pro-business conservative who favored tax cuts and limited government spending. Yet some of his laissez-faire policies also contributed to the economic problems that erupted into the Great Depression.
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speakeasies
Prohibition bars are all the rage in New York City.But today's over-priced, often pretentious, watering holes are nothing like the speakeasies of the 1920s and '30s they're trying to recreate.
Ninety years ago, there were hundreds of illegal drinking spots in New York, and the speakeasies - which were often just a hidden room with barely drinkable booze - were mostly run by gangsters.While many of today's incarnations will disappear as quickly as they've popped up, some of the infamous night spots of the prohibition era have stood the test of time, making an unforgettable mark on the fabric of New York. |