Cultural Conflicts of the 1920s

Prohibition

• 18th Amendment – Prohibits the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating beverages.

• Defined the separation of values in the country and in the cities.

Bootlegging

• Originates from drinkers who would hide flasks in their boots.

• In the 1920s it was used to describe anyone who could supply alcohol.

• Bootleggers would either transport the alcohol from Canada or Mexico.

• They would also run distilleries and make their own alcohol to sell.

Moonshine

Speakeasies

• Illegally operated bars that would buy the alcohol from bootleggers.

• Primarily located in cities.

• A patron of the bar would need a membership card or a password to enter.

Organized Crime

• Regimented organizations that participated in one or many illegal ventures.

• Bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, and racketeering.

• Racketeering – means of controlling a neighborhood or city.

• A racketeer would offer protection to people or businesses in exchange for a tribute.

Organized Crime

• If the tribute was not paid the person or business would face consequences.

• In American cities gangland wars ravaged neighborhoods.

• In Chicago alone 157 bombs targeted at homes and businesses were set off in one year.

Paul Kelly, a.k.a. Paolo Antonio Vacarelli

Big Jim Colosimo

Johnny "The Fox" Torrio

The Four Deuces

Al Capone comes to Chicago

Big Jim mudered – Torrio Reigns

Hymie Weiss and Bugs“The North Side Gang”

Torrio Dead? Capone Reigns

Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti

Valentine's Day

The Untouchables

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/US-IL-Chicagoland-Chicago_Heights.png

Meyer Lansky

Charles "Lucky" Luciano

Frank Costello

Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel

Machine Gun Kelly

Thompson Gun

Bonnie Parker

Clyde Barrow

Bonnie and Clyde

The Modern Version

• "The American people . . . had expected to be greeted, when the great day came, by a covey of angels bearing gifts of peace, happiness, prosperity and salvation, which they had been assured would be theirs when the rum demon had been scotched.   Instead they were met by a horde of bootleggers, moonshiners, rum-runners, hijackers, gangsters, racketeers, trigger men, venal judges, corrupt police, crooked politicians, and speakeasy operators, all bearing the twin symbols of the Eighteenth Amendment--the Tommy gun and the poisoned cup." – Herbert Asbury –author of Gangs of New York