Ken Burns: Prohibition

Republican Herbert Hoover, credited with the booming economy, is re-elected by a landslide, and meekly calls for an inquiry into the problems of Prohibition enforcement. A growing number of men and women across the country, however, begin to believe that only repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment could end the escalating crime, corruption and hypocrisy that has followed in its wake.

When Prohibition went into effect in 1920, society found ways to get around it.

A wave of ideological fervour sweeps the US, with many beginning to see alcohol as a scourge and an impediment to a Protestant utopia of clean and righteous living.

In the early 1920s, while some Americans attempt to honour the Prohibition law, millions more chafe at its unintended consequences.

By the close of the 1920s, many blame the law for the rise of criminal syndicates, promiscuity, and a sense that the entire government is corrupted.