What lead up to the Volstead Act?

Alright, so I am just going to state the obvious about what was going on at the time of prohibition. As previously stated, prohibition was preceded by the temperance movement. Women were gaining power in the political arena, and the 18^th amendment was passed just one year before women received the right to vote. I would like to take this time to clarify that while it was by Congress in 1919, the 18^th amendment did not take effect until 1920. There was a bit of confusion in some online sites that I was looking through for secondary sources.

Andrew Volstead, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, sponsored the Prohibition bill. Consequently, it is referred to as the Volstead Act. While this believed strongly in wonderful things such as anti-lynching and civil rights laws, he was not reelected after Prohibition passed.

In the early 1900s there were many immigrants entering from Eastern and Southern Europe. At the time, as with every group in American history, these immigrants were looked down upon. They were seen as lower class outsiders; not Americans. They were treated with far less respect than Western European immigrants were. According to the College of Humanities and The Ohio State University, “the leaders of the prohibition movement were alarmed at the drinking behavior of Americans, and they were concerned that there was a culture of drink among some sectors of the population that, with continuing immigration from Europe, was spreading.”As stated by Robert William Fogel, during the rise of the temperance and prohibition movements there was a “shift from emphasis on personal to social sin; rise in belief that poverty is not the personal failure, but a societal failure that can be addressed by the state….” There was a belief amongst many religious zealots that all of society’s shortcomings could be solved by a ban of alcohol. We see the idea of poverty being a societal failure with the implementation of New Deal programs such as welfare, social security, and various public work programs. Fogel also reveals that alcohol was successfully prohibited in 13 states by 1879.

I know I should not be having trouble finding information on what was going on during this time period, but I am. It isn’t so much a lack of information, though. Trust me, I am finding plenty. It is just that the process of sifting through the information, then analyzing what I have found that I am finding difficult. Yes, I know this is the kind of thing historians must do all of the time. But it makes it so much harder when the library books you need have been checked out. I have found far more local information in a couple days at the Livermore Heritage Guild than I have been able to find from weeks worth of researching (sadly, bookless) general Prohibition information. Though I cannot find information to support it yet, I strongly believe that Prohibition was either forced upon the masses, or people honestly did think it was a good idea then snapped their heads out of a cloud.

I will make no point in hiding that I believe alcohol prohibition is a ludicrous idea, and should never have taken place. Looking back in history, I find this particular era in history to be interesting simply due to my thought that this is something that never should have happened.Specifically, my thoughts are, “How on Earth could something like this have possibly passed? What were they thinking?” The more the government tries to control what people do, the less freedoms we have. Didn’t we just try to get out from under the thumb of a controlling monarch that we felt had no right to tax us without representation? As more things become illegal, it is easier to step outside of legal limits, creating more criminals. Organized crime really took off during Prohibition, supplying Americans with what they craved most: the alcohol they were not allowed to have. If Prohibition had never happened, would organized crime have taken off so well during the early 1900s?