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Article: Bootlegging
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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BOOTLEGGING
BOOTLEGGING.
In January 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment became law, banning the manufacture, transportation, importation, and sale of intoxicating liquors in the United States. Known as Prohibition, the amendment was the culmination of more than a century of attempts to remove alcohol from society by various temperance organizations. Many large cities and states actually went dry in 1918. Americans could no longer legally drink or buy alcohol. The people who illegally made, imported, or sold alcohol during this time were called bootleggers.
In contrast to its original intent, Prohibition, a tenet of the "Jazz Age" of the 1920s, caused a permanent change in the way the nation ...