Small- town life and city life was very different in the 1920's, and there were a lot more people moving into the cities. The cities had a lot more tolerance for drinking, gambling, and casual dating which seemed to be sinful in the strict small- town life. Also the city streets were a lot more crowded by stranger in the city rather than in small- towns were you knew most people walking down the street. Another thing was that the city life was more competitive and everyone was judged more on their accomplishments rather than their background. Lastly their was a bigger range of races and nationalities in cities, than in small-towns. The cities had tons of African- Americans, Italians, Swedish, Polish, and so on, while it was a lot less common in small towns.
2. Why do you think the Eighteenth Amendment failed to eliminate alcohol consumption?
There were many reasons that the Eighteen Amendment failed to eliminate alcohol consumption. For one the majority of the people were Protestants in the South and West, and people affiliated with the church, who thought that drinking was a sin. While there was those who thought of drinking as a sin, there was also a lot of immigrants who came to America, where drinking is a part of their culture and after World War I a lot of people just wanted to relax and enjoy themselves. On tip of it all the Prohibition was not enforced properly, and even though the Prohibition Bureau in the Treasury Department was established it was underfunded therefore it was not enforced properly.
3. How did criminals take advantage of Prohibition?
During the Prohibition, people found creative ways to get alcohol, and one way was from bootlegger, who got their name form hiding alcohol in the leg of the boots, and they would smuggle in alcohol from places like Canada and Cuba. A lot of gangs also go involved with the selling of alcohol and bootlegging, which started a lot of organized crimes in the cities. An example is of Al Capone, a gangster, from Chicago, who got sixty million dollars a year form bootlegging and killed off his competition of selling alcohol. In the 1920's it was reported that there was 522 bloody gang killing in Chicago, due to the Prohibition.
4. What was the conflict between fundamentalists and those who accepted evolution?
Fundamentalists were Protestants that believed in a non-symbolic interpretation of the Bible and did not believe in the scientific knowledge of evolution. Fundamentalists believed that the answer to everything was in the Bible, because the Bible was inspired by God, and they rejected Darwin's idea of evolution and thought it was a lot more believable that God created every living thing in six days. Eventually in the Mid-West fundamentalists gained followers who started to call for laws to prohibit teaching evolution. The first law to prohibit the teaching of evolution was passed in Tennessee, and the ACLU backed up anyone who wanted to challenge that, which is what John T. Scopes did and he was arrested for it. His court case because an interest nation wide and John Scoped was found guilty and had a fine of a hundred dollars but the law banning the teaching of evolution was soon repelled.
5. How might the overall atmosphere of the 1920s have contributed to the failure of Prohibition?
The atmosphere in the 1920's was very chaotic, there were a lot of Protestants in the country that were trying to make their religious believes into laws, such as the Prohibition and outlawing teaching of evolution. During this time women were also fighting for their rights, and there was a lot going on. Don't forget that World War I is just coming to an end and debts are being paid, soldiers are coming home, and the mess that World War I created was just starting to be cleaned up. During the 1920's a lot of people wanted to relax and take it easy because the stress of World War I is over, but the government still had a lot going on. If there was less going on in American during the time of the Prohibition the government would have been able to pay more attention to the Prohibition and fund it better, making it so it was enforced correctly, which did not happen.
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