PROHIBITION FACTS

1. There was a Prohibition Party and its symbol was the camel because it doesn’t need to drink much. The party still exists. In California it works to get winemakers to switch to a different crop from grapes.
2. Large parts of the country were “dry” already. The hard core Protestant areas.
3. Economists argued for the amendment arguing that it would get rid of “Blue Mondays” which was a reference to workers not showing up for work because of hangovers from the weekend.
4. Some supporters were anti-immigrant. So was the KKK, thus the Klan benefited from the push for Prohibition.
5. Pres. Wilson actually vetoed the Volstead Act, arguing it attempted to regulate “personal habits and customs.” He was overridden.
6. The amendment did not make drinking alcohol illegal. It made the making, transporting, and sale illegal.
7. Prohibition was a step forward for women in society because women could now drink with men as speakeasies allowed women in.
8. Tipping became accepted. Before Prohibition, it was not popular because Americans associated it with European upper classes.  During Prohibition, restaurants had to cut corners by cutting servers’ salaries.  Customers were encouraged to help out by tipping.
9. Breweries switched to selling malt extract for making bread. But very few people actually bought it to make home-made bread.
10. Winemakers sold bricks of dried grape juice. It came with detailed instructions on how NOT (wink wink) to soak it and allow it to ferment.
11. Pres. Harding hosted meetings of his Poker Cabinet where liquor was sold. Bootlegger George Cassaday brought bottles of booze to Capitol Hill and estimated that 70-80% of Congressmen and Senators drank.
12. Every other amendment to the Constitution has been ratified by the state legislatures. The 21^st Amendment is the only one ratified by state conventions.  South and North Carolina’s conventions rejected the repeal.  Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and North and South Dakota all refused to even hold a convention.  The most dry state has to have been Kansas.  When it first became a state in the 1850’s it had put prohibition in its state constitution and did not remove it until 1948!
13. WWI contributed to passage of the 18^th Amendment because the temperance movement pushed it as a measure against unpatriotic German brewers like Pabst, Miller, and Schlitz.
14. Some drug stores sold “medicinal whiskey” for toothaches and flu. Walgreens went from 20 stores to more than 500 in the 1920’s.
15. New Orleans celebrated the repeal of Prohibition with 20 minutes of cannon fire.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/603956/prohibition-facts

https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-should-know-about-prohibition