It’s the 94th birthday of Prohibition! The Eighteenth Amendment, the Volstead Act, took effect on this date in 1920, a year after it was ratified. Congress passed the Act even though President Woodrow Wilson had vetoed it. It made the manufacture, sale, and transportation of liquor illegal.
It took almost 14 years before the 21st Amendment reversed Prohibition. It’s the first and only time an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been repealed, and you can primarily thank a woman for it. Pauline Sabin was a wealthy Republican who led the repeal movement. She predicted making liquor legal again would create jobs, weaken organized crime, and generate tax revenue.
