Ten alternative products made by breweries during Prohibition

American businesses have become adept at producing alternative products during the global Covid-19 pandemic. Distilleries have been producing hand sanitizer…


Decades of temperance activism led to passage of Prohibition 100 years ago

All the tumult of 2020 makes it easy to forget that it is a huge anniversary in the history of…


Last call before the Dry Decade

At 12:01 a.m. on January 17, 1920, “last call” parties wrapped up across the nation, as the United States officially…


Happy New Beer’s Eve!

On the evening of April 6, 1933, lines formed outside of bars and breweries. In Chicago, WGN Radio broadcast special…


World War I played key role in passage of Prohibition

In January 1919, Albert Von Tinzler and Edward Laska published “The Alcoholic Blues,” a song describing the feelings of a…


The first mobster in Las Vegas: Part 2

Second of three parts The year 1928 initially looked good from Jim Ferguson’s standpoint. The “King of the Tenderloin” in…


The first mobster in Las Vegas: Part 1

First of three parts In the 1920s and ’30s, the U.S. government considered him a “menace to society.” Nevada law…


Temperance vs. individual liberty

In 1826, a century before Prohibition, Presbyterian minister Lyman Beecher wrote, “No sin has fewer apologies than intemperance.” Beecher founded…


The ‘Gulf Stream Pirate’ – Rumrunning leads to shooting in Prohibition Era

The Prohibition Era is at times characterized by the speakeasy, with men in suits and women in gowns drinking free-flowing…


In the 1920s, American women were Ready to Roar

In popular culture, representations of the 1920s “flapper” present a misleading image of an over-sexualized and rebellious woman breaking away…