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America, 1920–1973: Opportunity and Inequality

A divided society: prohibition, organised crime and racial tension

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 1 section A

Overview

Prohibition and the speakeasies, Al Capone and the St Valentine's Day Massacre, why the ban ended in 1933, the immigration quotas and life for new immigrants, the Jim Crow laws, the Ku Klux Klan, the Red Scare and the case of Sacco and Vanzetti.

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Key term

What did the Eighteenth Amendment ban, and how did Americans get round it?

Key term

What became illegal across America in 1920 under the Eighteenth Amendment?

Key term

What were speakeasies and bootleggers?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What became illegal across America in 1920 under the Eighteenth Amendment?

    Model answer

    Making, selling or transporting alcoholic drink, although drinking what you already owned was not itself a crime.

  2. 2

    What were speakeasies and bootleggers?

    Model answer

    Speakeasies were illegal bars hidden behind ordinary doorways, and bootleggers were the criminals who smuggled or distilled the drink they sold.

  3. 3

    Which gangster grew rich and powerful from the illegal drink trade in Chicago?

    Model answer

    Al Capone, who controlled the city's supply through bribery and murder yet was eventually jailed only for tax evasion.

  4. 4

    What happened in the St Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929?

    Model answer

    Seven members of a rival Chicago gang were machine-gunned by Capone's men, and the shock helped turn opinion against the ban on alcohol.

  5. 5

    Why was the ban on alcohol abandoned in 1933?

    Model answer

    Demand had never fallen, there were far too few agents to enforce it, bribery was widespread, and the country needed the tax revenue during the Depression.

  6. 6

    What did the immigration quota laws of 1921 and 1924 do?

    Model answer

    They fixed a yearly limit on newcomers from each nationality, favouring northern and western Europeans and almost shutting out southern and eastern Europeans and Asians.

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