Knowra Bootlegging Bootlegging Bootlegging is the illegal manufacture, transport, or sale of goods, especially alcoholic beverages during Prohibition. It flourished in the United States after the Eighteenth Amendment took effect in 1920.
Moonshine : Illicitly distilled or otherwise untaxed spirits, often made in small, concealed stills. Home distillation supplied bootleggers with spirits that could be transported and sold illegally.
Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution : The 1919 constitutional amendment that prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transport of intoxicating liquors in the United States. Its enforcement beginning in 1920 transformed illicit liquor dealing into a nationwide business.
Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution : The 1933 constitutional amendment that repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and ended national alcohol prohibition. Its ratification removed the national ban that had sustained much alcohol bootlegging.
Smuggling : The clandestine movement of goods across borders or through restricted routes to evade law or taxation. Bootlegging is a form of smuggling when it moves prohibited goods across a boundary.
Rum-running : The illicit transport of alcoholic beverages, especially by sea, into places where their sale is prohibited. Smugglers brought foreign liquor to shore before bootleggers distributed it inland.
Volstead Act : The 1919 federal law that defined intoxicating liquor and established enforcement procedures for Prohibition. Its definitions and penalties shaped which alcohol activities bootleggers concealed or evaded.
St. Valentine's Day Massacre : The 1929 murder of seven men associated with a Chicago gang, widely linked to the city's criminal underworld. The killings became a notorious sign of the violence surrounding rival bootlegging operations.
Counterfeiting : The unauthorized production of imitation currency, documents, or goods intended to pass as genuine. Unlike bootlegging, counterfeiting centers on deceptive imitation rather than prohibited trade itself.
Speakeasy : An illicit establishment that sold alcoholic drinks during Prohibition in the United States. These concealed venues created a steady market for bootlegged liquor.
Temperance movement : A social and political movement advocating reduced or prohibited consumption of alcoholic beverages. Temperance activism helped produce the constitutional ban that expanded bootlegging.
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