Hidden Speakeasies

According to New York’s police commissioner, New York City had 32,000 illegal speakeasies during Prohibition. Four of them were located on the same block as police headquarters. Obviously, hiding was not the issue. Bribery was. These speakeasies were no secret to anyone. I’ve made sure that in my Roaring Twenties mysteries, the speakeasies are in plain view and operating pretty openly. I also put the occasional policeman in the speakeasy, either for a drink or to pick up his weekly “tip.”

I also make sure the plot includes a cop or two on the take. (No offense intended, Officer . . . heh, heh. . . ) One of my main characters is a young policeman who is honest, and even he turns a blind eye at the routine corruption all around him.  

Prohibition Exhibit Coming to Your City?

Here’s some good news! The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia (on Independence Mall) is opening an exhibit called American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, thanks to a grant from the NEH. Opening day is October 19 and the exhibit lasts until next April. After that it will tour many cities, including Seattle, WA; St. Paul, MN; St. Louis, MO; Austin, TX; and Grand Rapids, MI. (More to come, they say, and I hope there will be one close to me.) Read the entire (long) press release below. 

The era of flappers and suffragists, bootleggers and temperance lobbyists, and real-life legends like Al Capone and Carry Nation will come vividly to life in the National Constitution Center’s world-premiere exhibition American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.

Spanning the dawn of the temperance movement in the early 1800s, through the Roaring Twenties, to the unprecedented repeal of a constitutional amendment during the Great Depression, this first comprehensive exhibition about Prohibition will explore America’s most colorful and complex constitutional hiccup. American Spirits will debut at the Center fromOctober 19, 2012 to April 28, 2013, before embarking on a nationwide tour.

The tour will extend into 2016, bringing the exhibition to cities across the country, including Seattle, WA; St. Paul, MN; St. Louis, MO; Austin, TX; and Grand Rapids, MI.  [Complete tour schedule to be announced at a later date.]

American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition is created by the National Constitution Center and curated by Daniel Okrent, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.  Okrent collaborated with filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick on the documentaryProhibition, which aired on PBS in fall 2011.

“Prohibition left an indelible mark on America, redefining the role of the federal government and leaving its mark on everything from our personal habits to our tax policies,” said exhibition curator Daniel Okrent.  “And though it may have been a wild card in our constitutional history, it came into being through the invention and deployment of political tactics and strategies still in play today.”

“American Spirits reveals the real stories behind hit dramas like HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and also provides timely perspectives on current constitutional debates about the government’s role in our lives,” said National Constitution Center President and CEO David Eisner.  “From the ratification of the 18^th Amendment to its repeal with the 21^st Amendment, we can learn powerful lessons from this fascinating and politically charged story.”

The 5,000-square-foot exhibition will feature over 120 rare artifacts, including:

• Original ratification copies of the 18^th and 21^st Amendments
• A hatchet used by Carry Nation during one of her barroom-smashing raids
• A Prohibition Bureau Badge issued by the Department of Justice in 1931
• Temperance propaganda, including pamphlets, school lesson manuals, speeches, and hymnals
• The phone used by Roy Olmstead, the defendant in the landmark Olmstead v. United States wiretapping case, to run his bootlegging empire
• Flapper dresses, cocktail couture, and other women’s and men’s fashion accessories from the 1920s
• Original home manufacturing items used for making moonshine, homebrewed beer, and other illegal and highly potent liquor
• One of the first crates of Budweiser produced after the “Beer Act,” which passed in April 1933 and changed the legal limit for “intoxicating” beverages to 3.2% per volume to allow for the return of beer production.

Interactive elements and immersive environments will bring to life the sights, sounds, and experiences of the time period.  Wayne Wheeler’s Amazing Amendment Machine, a dazzling 20-foot-long, eight-foot-tall carnival-inspired contraption, will trace how the temperance movement culminated in the 18^th Amendment.  In addition, visitors can:

• Sit in a pew of a recreated early 1900s church to learn about the rise of the Anti-Saloon League and take a quiz to find out if you would have been a “wet” or a “dry”
• Test their knowledge of what could and could not be consumed under the rules of the 18^th Amendment during the “Is it Legal?” interactive touchscreen game
• Explore a re-created speakeasy complete with a bar, dance floor, bandstand, and powder room and learn how to dance the Charleston
• Play the role of a federal Prohibition agent chasing rumrunners in a custom-built video game where you drive your own speedboat
• Join gangsters in a criminal lineup for a memorable photo opportunity.

Visitors will have an opportunity at the end of the exhibition to explore the legacy of Prohibition in today’s regulatory landscape.  Displays will show why and how laws differ from state to state and how the idea of drinking responsibly has evolved since the 1930s to reflect what we know about alcohol today.

To complement the exhibition, the Center is developing a variety of engaging activities and resource materials for students, teachers, and families that illuminate the amendment process, the role of liquor in American history, and the cultural revolution of the 1920s.  Daniel Okrent, Ken Burns, and Lynn Novick will lend their voices and commentary to a special iPod audio tour that will guide visitors through the exhibition.  Additionally, a theatrical performance – a hallmark of the Center’s exhibition experience – will take place inside the speakeasy.  There, an actor playing the role of a bartender will explore the impact of the speakeasy on fashion, music, and culture during the Roaring Twenties.

A series of evening events and themed parties will further engage audiences in this colorful cultural moment.  Guests ages 21+ can get a sneak peek of the exhibition prior to its public opening during the “Bootlegger’s Ball” on Thursday, October 18, 2012, when the Center’s Grand Hall Lobby will be transformed into a speakeasy complete with a live jazz band.  Two additional parties are planned for Thursday, February 14, 2013 and Thursday, April 4, 2013.

The Center also is partnering with local businesses including Resorts Casino in Atlantic City, Sugar House Casino, Eastern State Penitentiary, and the Moshulu Restaurant on special themed packages for groups.  Marketing and promotional support is provided by Philly Beer Week.

Admission to American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition is $17.50 for adults, $16 for seniors and students, and $11 for children ages 4-12.  Group rates also are available.

How to Smuggle Liquor into the Country during Prohibition?

How to smuggle liquor into the country during Prohibition? Let me count the ways . . .  

There was the tunnel method.

The sea route was popular.

There was always the garter flask.

You could wear in in, on your back of inside your pants leg.

You could bring it inside a watermelon.

Or drive it into the country from Canada across the frozen river or lake. Ooops.

Then there was the air route.

Canadian Smuggling

The Detroit River separates Windsor, Canada, from the U.S. by less than a mile. This was a funnel or sorts, with 75% of all smuggled Canadian liquor coming across the river. When the river froze in the winter, it was even easier–a car or truck could drive across or a man could pull a sled loaded with hooch. Of course, sometimes there were problems . . .

Canada also made drinking alcohol illegal, but the government shrewdly allowed its manufacture “for export only.” This industry brought lots of jobs and money to Canada.

In THE IMPERSONATOR (due to be published Fall 2013 by St. Martin’s/Minotaur), one of my characters smuggles liquor from Canada, but he does it in the Northwest, where Canadian Sam Bronfman, founded of Seagram’s, cornered the market on making booze and shipping it to America. Many smuggled it into the country over land; others came by sea. Part of the mystery is how my bootleggers got their liquor into Portland. 

Who Bankrolled the Mob in the Twenties?

Of course there was crime before Prohibition, even organized crime, but it was smaller, local, and less powerful in the days before Prohibition. Prohibition made crime Big Business. Violence skyrocketed. Murders increased by 80%. 

Gangsters in the major cities who had once made their money from prostitution and gambling now had something much more lucrative–liquor. They didn’t give up the gambling, etc., they just grew into the new opportunities like any other business expanding into new ventures. But now they were funded by the vast majority of “respectable” Americans.

I can’t help but see the parallel between then and now, when so many “respectable” Americans today are funding international organized crime syndicates through their use of illegal drugs. The more I’ve learned about the horrors of Prohibition, the more I’ve come to believe that similar action needs to be taken with drugs, starting with marijuana. I’m following with interest the news from the few states that are experimenting with de-criminalizing this drug. 

Where Could You Buy Booze?

Before Prohibition, you bought liquor at saloons and liquor stores. During Prohibition, you could buy liquor almost everywhere. 

According to one newspaper, potential sales spots included, “saloons, restaurants, night clubs, bars behind a peephole, dancing academies, drugstores, delicatessens, cigar stores, confectioneries, soda fountains, behind partitions of shoeshine parlors, back rooms of barbershops, from hotel bellhops, from hotel headwaiters, from hotel day clerks, night clerks, in express offices, in motorcycle delivery agencies, paint stores . . . importing firms, tearooms, moving van companies, spaghetti houses, boardinghouses, Republican clubs, Democratic clubs, laundries . .”  

In the third novel of my Roaring Twenties series, one of my regular characters buys a drug store and legally sells liquor from it, liquor by the pint as per doctors’ prescriptions. Of course, being a scoundrel, he is not content with “legal” sales and has a scam in mind . . .

Prohibition Exemptions: How to get legal alcohol during the Twenties

People think that Prohibition meant there was no legal alcohol. WRONG! There were lots of exceptions. And those exceptions were quickly abused. For example:

1. Churches and synagogues could buy and serve sacramental wine at Communion or with a certification from a rabbi. Suddenly, LOTS more wine was being purchased by Catholic, Episcopalian, and other churches and Orthodox congregations. The number of rabbis increased dramatically.

2. Hospitals could order alcohol for cleaning purposes. Suddenly, hospitals that used to order rubbing alcohol by the quart now ordered by the boxcar.

3. Patent medicine had always had a large % of alcohol. That % grew larger. And suddenly, physicians were prescribing LOTS more medicine. Sometimes doctors got a couple dollars kickback for every prescription they wrote for a certain liquor. 

4. Industrial use of alcohol was still legal. Suddenly, lots of industries needed lots more alcohol than they used to.

5. People could legally make hard cider, beer, or wine at home for home use only, so Pabst and AnheuserBusch sold malt extract and other products for home brewing. California grape growers sold wine grapes, which had never fetched more than $30 per ton, for up to $105. The price spiked for a short time in 1924 to $375/ton!!  6. People could still drink any alcohol they had leftover from pre-Prohibition days. Knowing that, many individuals and private clubs stocked many years’ worth of alcohol  in  anticipation. I use this bit in my second mystery, SILVER SCREEN MURDERS, when I mention that Mary Pickford’s mother bought an entire liquor store to stock her basement. Also in the first book, THE IMPERSONATOR, has the wealthy Carr family drinking wines and alcohol from their cellar and Mrs. Carr assures Jessie that it was pre-Prohibition wine. (It wasn’t, but that’s another part of the story.) 

What Was America’s Fifth Largest Industry in the Twenties?

I don’t know what the fifth largest industry in the U.S. is today, but in 1920, at the start of Prohibition, it was alcohol. When you tallied up all the breweries, distilleries, and wineries in the United States, and all the support industries like barrel makers and glass bottle manufacturers, and threw in all the bars, saloons, private clubs, and caterers who served the stuff, you come up with the fifth largest industry in the country. Think of the jobs lost when Prohibition went into effect! Think of the family businesses destroyed . . . like this one:

Christian-Moerlein, one of the countries largest breweries until Prohibition (Cincinnati)

Of course, not all liquor, beer, and wine producers went out of business. Some wineries made grape juice and Communion wine, the only wine still allowed for religious reasons.  (The demand for Communion wine skyrocketed, but an even better way to get it legally was with a prescription for medical reasons, which also skyrocketed.) Some saloons turned into restaurants; others became speakeasies and sold alcohol illegally. Some breweries produced malt extract, a legal product that could be used in the home to make beer; others hung on by selling nonalcoholic beverages. But thousands and thousands of jobs and businesses disappeared. Sure, some started up again after this stupid law was repealed, but it was too late for most. 

Vaudeville Performers: Love ‘em and Hate ‘em

Vaudeville performers, like those in touring theatricals, were adored on stage and snubbed off it. Lumped together with other itinerants like gypsies, hobos, and vagabonds, they were met with suspicion and distrust wherever they went. They were assumed to be criminals–pickpockets, fakers, shoplifters, grifters. Many hotels refused to take in vaudeville players or actors. Those that did were the lowest quality, usually with one shared toilet per hall and located near the train station. These would cost around a dollar a night. Performers usually tried to save the dollar by taking a night train, traveling on Saturday night after the last performance of the week and arriving in the next town on Sunday. Boarding houses often took up the slack. Most vaudeville performers stayed in boarding houses for a week at a time, eating breakfast and sometimes dinner there, if their schedules allowed. 

Circus and carnival workers, called carnies, were even more distrusted, but they had an advantage: they didn’t have to search for lodging at every stop. They lived in wagons that traveled with the show. 

Crooked Feds and Cops

Everyone knows that Prohibition brought about several unintended consequences, one of them the rise of organized crime. Less known is that it also brought about a huge increase in corrupt policemen and other law enforcement agents. Why? 

During Prohibition, thousands of federal agents were hired to enforce the new laws against selling alcohol.  In spite of this, historians estimate that only about 5% of all illegal liquor produced in the U.S. was ever intercepted. Were these agents stupid or lazy or ill-equipped? No, they were bought off! You have only to look at the numbers to see why. 

Federal agents made $1,800 a year. There was so much money to be made in bootleg liquor that they could easily be bribed. An agent could make $500 in one day just by letting his underworld contact know he was going to phone in sick, thereby allowing area shipments to move without anyone worrying about getting caught. Not just federal agents, but police, too, were bribed too, with money, liquor, women, or all three. All they had to do was look the other way. And to most people, it didn’t seem like a real crime–something that had been legal forever was suddenly illegal with the stroke of a pen.