One historical trend that has been shown throughout economic times of distress is the rise of crime. As noted in both lectures, the Depression wasn't just a few months like other panics, it had lasted until the later parts of the 30's. Really, we would expect crime to rise during this time period, but surprisingly it fell. During the Great Depression when unemployment plagued 1/4th of the nation, crime began to drop. The main explanation for this has been linked to families who grew closer in terms of looking after their own. But looking back to the "Roaring Twenties" which had great economic success, crime was high. This was a result of prohibition, but it is repealed in 1933. Initially, some see the Depression with criminal figures such as Bonnie & Clyde, John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Pretty Boy Floyd it seems that these are exceptions to the big picture. What I find more interesting is that during the Depression there are some generous criminals. Al Capone, who had been in the business of bootlegging and a notorious gangster opened up a soup kitchen in 1929 immediately following the stock market crash providing thousands with food and clothes each day. Overall, this period there are still unanswered questions about to really why crime declined everywhere in the United States.
Below is one of the many soup kitchens opened during the Depression as well as the rate for homicides throughout the 20th century.
Sources:
http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_3_crime-decline.html
http://worldstuff.net/famous-depression-era-bank-robbers.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97234406
http://chicagohs.org/history/capone/cpn2.html
https://www.msu.edu/~szandzi2/alcapone/legacy.html
http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/graphs/10.htm
This was a very interesting post Michael. It is interesting to see the other side of bootlegging. Even though it was against the law these bootlegger treated it like any other business. They worked hard and made money. However, there industry was dirty and therefore, they had to play dirty to succeed. Such, is life. I feel like the mafia as portrayed in famous movie such as the Godfather glorify the family attribute of the criminal lifestyle. This was a different look at organized crime that could be easily attributed to this period of time. So to conclude, I like how you wrote about organized crime in a more positive light.
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ReplyDeleteI wonder how the bootlegging industry was so successful in the Prohibition Era? Unless government workers were also involved in selling/buying of illegal alcohol, then it would seem unlikely that the sale of alcohol was so widespread, but in comparison to the modern drug trade it make sense. Also, if the buying and selling of alcohol was so popular/widespread, and therefore demonstrating a large group of drinkers, how did the Prohibition Act get passed anyway? Maybe it was simply the idealistic mindset of the time that Americans could go without alcohol, however at the individual level this would prove false.
ReplyDeleteMehr,
ReplyDeleteThough production and consumption of alcohol was illegal at the time, human tendency to go to great lengths to get what one wants was most likely the driving force of the success of the bootlegging industry. Alcohol wasn't so much seen as illegal; to people, there was now an extra hurdle to get over to get to alcohol (which is why they held speakeasies). In addition to the sociological impulse to consume alcohol (despite its status as illegal), also keep in mind that we're talking about the Roaring Twenties here (picture all of the people dancing, celebrating, hosting parties, etc.). People were keen on celebrating America's successes and advances. Alcohol (literally) flowed like wine.
It also probably wasn't government workers involved in the sale and purchase of "illegal" alcohol, but more the gangsters of major American cities (like Chicago), like Al Capone who were taking advantage of the increasing demand for alcohol.
Remember, there were speakeasies at the time.
Your question as to how Prohibition was passed is an interesting one to consider. The initial passing of the Prohibition Act has to do with Temperance organizations that blamed alcohol for societal failures. I don't want to make this comment too long, so you can read about how Prohibition got passed (in spite of the popularity of alcohol) here: http://history1900s.about.com/od/1920s/p/prohibition.htm
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ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting post, Michael. I think it's interesting that you said that during the Depression, crime rates dropped because "families grew closer in terms of looking after their own." Many families did grow closer during the depression. However, there's always another side in history, and though many families grew closer, many did not. Many new families were not being started/were delayed, as men waited until they had a steady job before proposing to a women and starting a family. As a result of less marriage occurring, the birth rate also dropped sharply. The divorce rate also fell, for the "simple reason that many couples could not afford to maintain separate households or pay legal fees." Some men chose the "poor man's divorce"- they simply ran away from their marriages. It seems that though the families that stuck together became closer as result of the Depression, leading to lower crime rates. However, the Depression was hard on young people, in many cases delaying them from starting families and continuing on with their lives.
ReplyDeleteSources:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/learning_history/children_depression/depression_children_menu.cfm
http://www.ushistory.org/us/48e.asp
Michael, I share Ryan and Sitara's opinion of this post as well.
ReplyDeleteI think I might have an idea for why bootlegging was successful under the Prohibition Amendment. First of all, the Volstead Act(Prohibition of alcohol)'s main opponent were the people of eastern cities, which is mainly populated by immigrants/people who have immigrants as parents(grandparents and beyond). The textbook mentions that "For many 'wet' foreign-born people, Old World styles of sociability were built around drinking in beer garden and corner taverns"(752). Other than the urban areas in the East, "dry" amendment was heavily supported in the South and the Midwest. From what we know about the white supremacy/nativist/KKK activities emerging nationwide during this period, we can conclude that the Easterners(except the WASP) really didn't have a say in a lot of things, although we cannot assume that this was the case for the Volstead Act.
The lack of alcohol, eventually turned the people to purchase them out of illegal means and the main source was, as Michael mentioned, from the gangs in populated urban areas. A famous quote of Al Capone(of Chicago) says that "Everybody calls me a racketeer. I call myself businessman. When I sell liquor, it's bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on a silver tray on Lake Shore Drive, it's hospitality." While bootlegging was looked over as illegal and criminal in the mind of people, prohibition could not stop the Americans from continuing their lifestyle of heavy drinking.
Another thing I would like to mention is the book The Great Gatsby regarding bootlegging. It is shown in Jay Gatsby's many parties that the people who are there are celebrities and people of high government positions. Although we cannot presume of the facts from a fictional story as what really happened, we know that Fitzgerald was from the Roaring Twenties and this is a high possibility.This just shows how seriously the Prohibition Amendment really was. While we can conclude that the Prohibition Amendment was ultimately successful in decreasing the alcohol consumption, it also increased the criminal activities in America through the means of bootlegging.
Source:
American Pageant Textbook
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volstead_Act
The Great Gatsby
hmm i didn't get that Michael was talking about why bootlegging was so successful here, i saw this post as him questioning the correlation between the depression and criminal activity. while criminal activity, like Michael said, was related to a rise in crime during the 20's due to the gang activity and the need for secrecy and protection, he was questioning the reason for its decline during the depression years. Like Michael, i find this fact quite curious, as i would have predicted a rise in crime rather than a drop. I did some research and i found that at the time of the drop in crime, about 1934, there were a number of things that may have been contributing factors. the ones i saw as the most self explanatory and as having the most obvious affect. The first of these of course was Prohibition. With the re-legalization of alcoholic beverages, a whole sector of organized crime was made legal. The second was a new focus on persecuting repeat offenders, rather than petty opportunity crimes. By not reporting every minor break in and theft the number of reported crimes (which is what we are looking at for crime rates) decreased. So Michael, when you look deeper, the decrease in criminal activity had nothing at all to do with the economic situation, as many are led to believe, but with the policies of the time.
ReplyDeletesources:
http://d2crimewave.blogspot.com/2009/03/if-you-call-cat-dog-is-it-dog.html
http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_3_crime-decline.html