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Prohibition Dbq

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Prohibition, Bootlegging, and Rum-running in Erie
The Prohibition Era was a time when alcohol was illegal and there was a lot of crime, violence, and mobs/ gangs. Prohibition was when the 18th Amendment was put into place, which is the banning of alcohol. Prohibition had occured because two main groups Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and the Anti-Saloon League (ASL), that had protested against alcohol because they thought it was bad. They had been protesting because they thought it would stop “combat abuse” and family abuse. One female that had been an enduring symbol was Carrie Nation. Carrie Nation had been part of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. “She became an early member of the WCTU and after a conversation with Jesus …show more content…
Some people had figured out a way to get alcohol for people who wanted it, or at least a place to get the alcohol. These places were called speakeasies. The Speakeasies were used for the illegal distribution of alcohol. And for people to get alcohol when they want it. Many people had used them because they wanted to unwind after work, they wanted to have a drink, or they wanted to drink their problems away. That’s what most of them wanted to do anyways. The speakeasies had made the prohibition kind of last longer but also shorter. It made it last longer in the way that they didn’t get really found out about the speakeasies. But it also made it shorter in the way that, they had made it go away because crime went up and people took more notice to it and it ended the …show more content…
The Semple family had gotten involved in the bootlegging and rum-running business. They had supplied the alcohol for the speakeasies. The Semple’s had a whole operation for the rum-running business. The Semple’s had gotten into the business from the oldest brother Joe Semple. Joe Semple was the oldest of the brothers. He got into the business by doing work for the Purple Gang (a ruthless Jewish mob). The work he had done was fixing their boats and cars. Joe had taught himself to fix cars and boats. After highschool, Joe had enrolled in the University of Detroit. Where he had fixed the boats and cars for the Purple Gang because he didn’t have any money for his needs, and while he had fixed the boats and cars he had gotten insight into what the business looked like. Joe had figured that it would be pretty easy seeing how he had seen the inner workings of the rum-running business. After a year of college Joe dropped out and had left Detroit and returned to Erie. Joe had recruited his brothers help to start the bootlegging business. The Semple brothers had formulated a way to get the alcohol. Which was to buy the alcohol from Canada. They would go across Lake Erie to get the alcohol in Canada where it was still legal. Joe Semple had gotten 38 people involved in the business to help him. The brothers had three boats that each of the boats had 12-cylinder, 500-horsepower liberty engines. Liberty engines are very fast

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