Prohibition Begins.

The cultural diversity of Americans in the rapidly changing society of the 1920s powerfully manifested itself in the political conflicts associated with Prohibition, which divided Americans according to their religious beliefs, cultural practices, and residential patterns. For almost a century reformers had longed for implementation of this "Noble Experiment," which officially began on 16 January 1920, according to the provisions of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Protestant moralists viewed this ban on the production, transportation, and sale of intoxicating liquor in the United States as a progressive reform that would root out the sins associated with alcohol consumption. The Volstead Act, passed by Congress in September 1919 to codify the newly ratified constitutional amendment, defined "intoxicating liquor" as any beverage that contained as much as 0.5 percent alcohol (thus including beer as well as hard liquor...