Prohibition: How it Happened, Why it Failed, and How it Still Affects America Today

America has a strange relationship with alcohol. Certain drinks represented the darkest parts of the national psyche. Rum was once associated with slavery because sugar cane plantations that made rum were only profitable with chattel slavery. Whisky and hard cider were omnipresent in the 19th century, turning able-bodied men into drunkards who couldn’t support their families and left them to starve.

But it was Prohibition that is strangest of all. America successfully outlawed alcohol, the first and only modern nation to do so. The unintended consequences were enormous: from physicians falsifying alcohol’s positive effects so they could write prescriptions for “medicine” and make a handsome profit, to record numbers of men converting to Judaism so they could administer alcohol in rabbinical ceremonies.

Here to untangle the Gordion knot of alcohol in America’s past is Cody Wheat from the Shots of History Podcast.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Cody on Instagram: @shotsofhistorypodcast

https://shotsofhistory.com

Cody’s email: shotsofhistorypodcast@gmail.com

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This article is part of our larger selection of posts about American History. To learn more, click here for our comprehensive guide to American History.