The Roaring Twenties

The Roaring Twenties

The 1920s. It was the Jazz Age, the Era of Wonderful Nonsense, the Age of Babbitts,

Bootlegging, and Bathtub Gin. Americans were speeding up, moving out, buying more, having fun, and dreaming bigger. Many events and changes made the twenties a new and exciting era to live in. The country grew because of the new inventions, such as the automobile, the radio, and film making. The social groups went under some changes too. Women’s rights, new inventions and entertainment were just a few of the many things that made the 1920's to be considered roaring.

The 1920's started with the Act of Prohibitation, the ban of alcohol. In 1919, the government passed the 18th amendment, the Act of Prohibitation. This act was a ban to stop manufactacturing, the sales, and the transportation of alcohol anywhere in the United States. Some people called this the “noble experiment.” In the 1920s many Americans abused alcohol. Many felt that a ban on the liquor would stop or decline alcohol abuse. Alcoholism did decline during this Prohibitation, but the ban did not work. Many found other ways to get around this law. Some people manufactured their own alcohol which was known as bathtub gin. Other people smuggled alcohol from Canada and the Caribbean. Sometimes the smugglers hid the alcohol in their boots, and they became known as bootleggers.

After a while crime increased as people rebelled against not able to drink alcohol. Several illegal bars called speakeasies were started. This sense of illegal drinking made drinking alcohol more popular than ever. It even attracted women to visit these speakeasies places. The underground saloons did a booming business. To keep these illegal clubs stocks with liquor-alcohol thousands of rumrunner, bootleggers, and beer barons, who were forced to work beyond the law.

As time passed more and more people began to rethink the Prohibition as a mistake. By the mid-1920s almost half of all federal arrest was the result of Prohibition crimes. By the end of the 1920s people began to call for a revoke of the Ban of Alcohol. Finally in 1933 the state ratified the 21 Amendment that reversed the 18 Amendment.

During Prohibition gangsters profited the most during this decade by smuggling alcohol and giving it to different illegal businesses. The best-known gangster in the 1920s was Al Capone, known as Scarface. Al Capone was one gangster who made $105 million a year by smuggling alcohol into the United States. He was born in Brooklyn, New York 1899. He quit school in the 6th grade to be apart of a street gang. In the gang the for the prohibitation law about alcohol they illegally brewed and gave alcohol. In 1925, Torrio got severely wounded in an assassination attempt. Al Capone took his place and took over the gang. He was soon to be known as a cold-blooded and violent gangster who eliminated most of the enemies. Capone was the organizer of the assassination. He would always get others to do his dirty work. He was a violent gangster and did all his work under as “Al Capone2" which was a respectable business man. He was popular for two reasons. One was that he gave them what they wanted during the prohibitation of alcohol. The second one was that during, the depression he opened a soup kitchen and gave the poor people financial support. On May 17, 1929, he was arrested along with his bodyguard in Philadelphia. He was arrested for carrying a deadly weapon. Both got sentenced for one year in prison. He served his time and they let him out May17, 1930 because of good behavior. On October 17, 1931, they sentenced him for eleven years in federal prison for tax evasion. He had to pay a total of $272,692 for this tax evasion and prohibitation charges. He got released in 1939, but he no longer fit in enough to practice gangland polities. He died due to a stroke on January 25, 1947.

Another change to the constitution in the 1920s was the 19th Amendment, the Right for Women to Vote. Women were given the right to vote in the 1920 election. Their voting power helped Warren Harding become president. Up until this time the ideal role of women was to get married, have kids, and stay home to keep the house in order, and leaving the men to run the country. All of this was about to change. In 1920 Carrie Catt, who was the head of the National Woman Suffrage Association set up the League of Women Voters. This organization worked to educate voters, as it still does today. It also worked to guarantee other rights, such as the women to serve the jury. Women fought to get equal rights with the help of Alice Paul. She proposed Equal Rights Amendment that stated that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account