Prohibition in the United States

Prohibition was the nationwide ban on manufacturing, selling, and transporting intoxicating liquor, established by the Eighteenth Amendment and repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment.

Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution: The 1919 amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors in the United States. It established the nationwide ban and defined its constitutional reach.
Temperance movement: The temperance movement advocated reducing or eliminating alcohol consumption, often through moral reform and law. Its decades-long campaigns built the case for banning alcohol nationwide.
Organized crime: Organized crime is coordinated illegal activity conducted by groups for profit or power. Illegal alcohol profits strengthened criminal networks during the ban.
Repeal of Prohibition: Repeal of Prohibition was the 1933 process that ended the Eighteenth Amendment’s nationwide alcohol ban. It shows how political opposition and changing public opinion dismantled the ban.
Volstead Act: The 1919 federal law defined intoxicating liquor and established enforcement procedures for Prohibition. It translated the amendment’s broad prohibition into rules federal authorities could enforce.
Woman's Christian Temperance Union: The Woman's Christian Temperance Union was a women's organization that campaigned for temperance and social reform. It organized women into a major force for prohibition and political reform.
Al Capone: Al Capone was a Chicago gangster who built a criminal organization around bootlegging and other illicit businesses. His rise became a prominent example of organized crime profiting from illegal liquor.
Twenty-first Amendment: The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment in 1933. It was the constitutional instrument of repeal and left alcohol regulation largely to states.
Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution: The 1933 amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and ended nationwide Prohibition. Its ratification formally ended the constitutional ban.
Anti-Saloon League: The Anti-Saloon League was a U.S. political organization that made prohibition its central legislative goal. Its focused lobbying helped secure constitutional and state-level prohibition.

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