Part 2 of this Ken Burns’ production examines the problems of enforcement, as millions of law-abiding Americans become lawbreakers overnight
The Prohibition “A Nation of Scofflaws” airs Friday, September 12 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streams live on the WXXI app.
On January 16, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution goes into effect, making it illegal to manufacture, transport or sell intoxicating liquor. Episode Two, A Nation of Scofflaws, examines the problems of enforcement, as millions of law-abiding Americans become lawbreakers overnight. While a significant portion of the country is willing to adapt to the new law, others are shocked at how inconsistent the Volstead Act actually is. Many had believed that light beer would still be available, but the Act defines “intoxicating beverages” as anything containing a half of one percent of alcohol. Under these draconian terms, even sauerkraut is illegal.
Exceptions and loopholes in the law make a mockery of it: a family can legally make wine at home but not beer, a friendly doctor’s prescription is all that’s needed for whiskey, and anyone claiming to be a rabbi can buy, and sell, “sacramental” wine.
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Episode 3: A Nation of Hypocrites airs Friday, September 19 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV
In the mid 1920s, an unprecedented winning streak continues on Wall Street, and it feels to many like the good times will go on forever. Americans during the Jazz Age, writes F. Scott Fitzgerald, are “a whole race gone hedonistic, deciding on pleasure.” Prohibition, with its moralistic underpinnings, begins to feel anachronistic at best. In Episode 3, A Nation of Hypocrites, support for the law diminishes as the playfulness of sneaking around for a drink gives way to disenchantment with its glaring unintended consequences.
Episode 1: A Nation of Drunkards, aired Friday, September 5 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV
Americans have argued over alcohol for centuries. Since the early years of the American Republic, drinking has been at least as American as apple pie.
As Episode 1: A Nation of Drunkards begins, clergymen, craftsmen and canal-diggers drink. So do the crowds of men who turn out for barn-raisings and baptisms, funerals, elections and public hangings. Tankards of cider are kept by farmhouses’ front doors, and in many places alcohol is considered safer to drink than water. Alcohol, along with its attendant rituals and traditions, is embedded in the fabric of American culture.