Alan Glikman
Professor Hoffman
IDC1001H
12/5/17
Life During the Prohibition Era
January 29, 1919
Dear Journal,
This morning started out pretty normal. I got out of bed, had my usual cup of coffee with a plate of raisin oatmeal. I showered, then put on my slacks, my shirt, and my suit jacket and went out to go get my shoes polished before I went to my pub. The sweet, kind lad polished my shoes to perfection for a discount of 2 cents. As I pulled up to the pub in my Mercer 5 series Raceabout that morning, I saw the entire front door covered in bright orange papers. I sat in my car puzzled for a minute wondering what these signs could’ve been regarding. When I finally got out of my car, I was able to clearly read: CLOSED: For Violation of National Prohibition Act by order of the United States Court. They had really banned alcohol, what was I going to do? I knew there was no way that I was going to close down my bar entirely because then I would be losing a ton of money, so I decided to contact a close friend of mine, Mike Hannigan. His bar had recently been closed down too and when he told me about it I simply couldn’t believe it. Now that it has happened to me, I needed to do something about it.
That afternoon, as Mr. Hannigan and I sat down for a meal at our favorite café two blocks down from my pub, we discussed our future plans. I wanted to find out how he was handling himself due to the economic loses we were both now facing. When I asked him, he seemed to have a very puzzled look on his face. He told me that he wasn’t ready to give up the liquor business so he found a way to continue selling liquor, keep his costumers with smiles on their faces, and keep his place from completely shutting down. Instead of a pub, Mr. Hannigan turned the first floor into a dining area, which served absolutely no alcohol. The bar, which people now called “a speakeasy” in order draw out any suspicion towards buying or consuming any alcoholic beverages, was actually located downstairs under the dining area. Mr. Hannigan actually created a set password in order to keep secret agents and anyone from the government out of the bar. People who knew the password would come to the dining area, sit down for a bit and then walk over to the waiter, who was actually a doorman and knew the password to the downstairs pub. Slang words such as coffin varnish, white mule, horse liniment, monkey rum, panther sweat, and rot gut were all used as terms for different alcoholic drinks so that people could fool law officials and the government from finding out about speakeasies. To attract more business, Hannigan hired jazz bands and women to dance and sing all night and entertain the guests. To transport liquor to his bar he used hip flasks, false books, coconut shells, hot water bottles, and garden hoses. His suppliers stored the illegal liquor in carriages with babies perched on top and in carpenter’s aprons. He even had some men who hustled liquor over the border in boxes of eggs, draining the eggs of the original content and refilling them with liquor.
When I heard all of this information, I was astonished. I couldn’t believe my ears. It is still possible for me to keep my bar alive and keep my family financially stable. Now I just had to plan to empty out my basement, set up an entire new restaurant upstairs, call up all of the liquor suppliers, and hire some new staff, staff whom I know I could trust. I thanked Mr. Hannigan for helping me out and giving me all these ideas, now it is time for me to put in the work. My next week is going to be so packed and busy. My one concern is just to not get caught. I am risking everything making this decision, but it is the only thing I have left to do. I will write back to you tomorrow, hopefully with good news and everything running smoothly.
Sincerely,
Alex Sans
May 10, 1930
Dear Journal,
Wow, what a crazy night last night was. We had a guest arrive at the pub. I am talking about a really special guest, an amazing extravagant human being. Amelia Earhart stopped by at the pub, I mean speakeasy, and I was able to sit down and talk to her about her amazing experience. We had such a great time last night; we had an excellent jazz group performing, the music was off the hook, overall it was just an amazing vibe and experience. It was such an honor to have a woman of such great renown visit the bar. Just a couple of years ago, she had become the very first women to fly solo above 14,000 feet in 1922 as well as attain many other accolades and accomplishments over the past few years.
The night started off like its usual self, we opened the night as just a common restaurant and we’re serving dinner upstairs. For the first half of the night, I was standing at the doorway of the staircase permitting people to enter the downstairs bar if they knew the pass-code. My business partner, Gabriel Wales was bar-tending downstairs. During the beginning half, the night was going relatively slow downstairs, no one was attempting to come down for the real party. A close friend of mine sat down with his girlfriend at one of the dining tables and persistently gave me the look. After he sat for about ten minutes, I called him over and Mr. Robert Dennison informed me of some news that sounded too good to be true. Mr. Dennison came over to me, we shook hands and exchanged the common small talk including, “How was your day? How is business going? How is everything at home?” Then, startling me Robert bent over and whispered into my ear, “I heard Earhart is in the city. The great, amazing Amelia Earhart has arrived in New York City and a ol’ pal of mine, Max Scott bumped into her down at Central park earlier today and invited her to your speakeasy.” Robert continued on informing me on how Max told Amelia about my stunning pub and the extravagant jazz bands we have performing nightly. Max called my speakeasy the true heart of nighttime life down in New York City. After this I let Robert and his lady down into the bar and was waiting eagerly to see if it may be true, if Amelia Earhart may actually have come into my own pub.
Toward the middle of the night me and partner switched places for he went up to the door to make sure that everything was running smoothly upstairs and took charge of letting people into the speakeasy while I went down to the pub and took charge of the bar. Tons of people were entering the pub so I completely lost track of time and of the idea that Amelia Earhart was supposedly coming to the pub tonight. I was serving drink after drink not looking up at the crowd or at anything going on at the pub during that time. “One white mule” a woman called out from the complete opposite end of the bar cutting off every other customer that was standing in front of her. I immediately called back in a nasty tone telling her that there are other costumers in front of her and that she has to wait just like anyone else because I was fed up and tired. As she called back I looked up and realized that the women I had just reacted to so poorly was the Amelia Earhart. As I approached her side of the bar I quickly began to apologize and fix her drink for her. “I am so sorry Ms. Earhart. I know you are super busy tonight with your friends but I was just wondering if a celebrity such as yourself would be able to sit down for a little and talk to me about her accomplishments over the past few years.” She readily accepted my apology and sat down with me a couple of minutes later.
That night, Amelia described to me when she bought her first airplane, a Kinner Airster. She showed me pictures and it was like nothing I have ever seen before, I was astonished. She then described to me how she set the altitude record of 4,267 meters and received an official international pilots license. That point in her life changed her and made her into the women she is today with all the achievements she now has. She knew that day that she could never stop her passion of flying and I respected her for that. Here and there we joked around about her taking me out to fly one day. She then went on to tell me about her experience a few years later. She was given the opportunity to fly across the Atlantic. Although she was only a passenger in the plane and not allowed to fly the plane herself the way she described her experience seemed as if she was the pilot, it was unreal.
After last night, the bar became super popular. This morning I already had people calling my phone waking me up asking me details regarding the pub. I would have to go back to Sam, my supplier, tomorrow morning and tell him that it was time to restock the egg cartons with liquor again and bring them over to the pub. Since people knew that people like Amelia Earhart were entering my bar and having such a good time, they knew they couldn’t miss out on a chance like that. My pub had become the best and most known speakeasy in town among the residents. My only concern now is that the pub doesn’t get to packed and noticed by people who shouldn’t be involved and could get me into big trouble. Other than that, I am living the life right now and can’t wait to go back to the bar tonight and see how things go and what other celebrities I could possibly be seeing tonight.
December 6, 1933
Dear Journal,
Yesterday, the twenty-first amendment was finally passed repealing the eighteenth amendment making alcohol legal again! My pub can finally be restored to its original spot back upstairs. No more worrying everyday whether or not I’ll get caught. Mr. Hannigan actually got caught recently and was charged with a crime. All of his liquor was destroyed, business was padlocked and he was forced to pay an enormous fine, all for nothing since everything he was doing is now legal.
Thank god! I’m so lucky to have made it through this treacherous time hiding and dealing with all this illegal activity. I don’t understand what the government was thinking, they just wasted everyone’s time including my own the past 13 years. My wife will finally feel safe again, not having to worry about my every move or getting caught by the government.
Surprisingly last night, when the citizens first heard this news no one went overboard and got drunk over their head. Everyone remained orderly and it seemed as though it was just like any other night during prohibition. Hopefully things remain this way and nothing goes out of control so alcohol can remain legal. I believe the government has learned their lesson and won’t be making the same mistake again. I will write to you tomorrow morning and tell you how business goes tonight.
December 16, 2017 at 11:43 am
Hey Alan! I enjoyed reading your story because analyzing prohibition through the perspective of a bar owner is a really interesting idea and I haven’t seen it approached in this way before. I found that it really showed that the people setting up these illegal speakeasies were truly not doing it out of contempt for the law or because they were such pathetic alcoholics but in many cases it was just so they could continue to make a living for their families. Your story definitely addresses the seminar theme of morals and norms because I find it hard to believe that what bar owners were doing at the time was truly immoral when they were just continuing what they had been doing their entire lives and their intentions were not foul.
December 17, 2017 at 1:24 am
Your story about a bar keep from the prohibition era is so inventive and full of interesting period details. I enjoyed the perspective from which the story was told and found the time jumps made it very easy to follow. The underground culture that the prohibition spawned particularly in New York city is quite notorious. I believe the rebellious spirit of the time was captured quite well in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, if inflated for the sake of story. It is quite a remarkable moment in U.S. history as though the prohibition itself was a glorious failure, it did spawn a culture of drinking and partying that marked the 20s and dare I say made them roaring.
December 17, 2017 at 10:02 pm
Dear Alan,
My first impression upon reading your story was that approaching a discussion of Prohibition from the perspective of a bartender was quite unique – I’ve certainly never read an account, real or fictional, of the era from a pub owner, which is interesting now that I think of it, considering that this was a group of people that really had to get creative to avoid going into poverty.
What most drew me into your story was the amount of research that clearly went into it. Your story is sprinkled with a variety of interesting factoids, for instance various “secret” names of alcoholic beverages from the time, or a description of how Amelia Earhart set the altitude record of 4,267 meters and received an official international pilots license. These bits of information keep your story incredibly informative in addition to interesting, and show that you took care when writing historical fiction.
On a final note, although this may be unique to me, the last entry surprised me by reminding me that Prohibition was repealed after only 13 years, meaning that the ban of alcohol could have easily come and gone during a restaurant owner’s career. We tend to discuss Prohibition as an “era,” which makes it easy to forget that the government recognized the extent to which this ban was ridiculous fairly quickly.
December 18, 2017 at 11:54 am
Alan, this was a very interesting approach to the Prohibition Era. I have always heard about the speakeasies and the mafia’s involvement with illegal alcohol trade(Italian mafia), but I never read anything from a pub owner’s perspective. What initially attracted me to your story was how sudden the closure was to the man. He expected this to be like any other day, polishing his shoes etc. however, he soon found that day to be one of the worst. Another great thing about this historical fiction, is the amount of effort you put into researching facts from that time. It does not seem like you wrote this paper from general knowledge. For instance, your incorporation of the airplane and its model was very unique and added a detailed historical aspect to this fictional story.
December 19, 2017 at 12:59 am
Your historical fiction piece is quite eye-opening. I am interested in the way you portray the character through the use of multiple journal entries. I felt that the perspective you took as a bar owner during the Prohibition Era is quite intriguing. With that being said, I feel that we did not cover the Prohibition Era in New York City so much and I think I will end up researching it on my own. I especially enjoyed the part when you described the speakeasy in character. Overall, the approach you made in this historical fiction story is unique and I enjoyed reading it.