Kitty Pryde-Barton (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
throughaphase) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2013-09-22 11:01 pm
throughaphase) wrote in fandomhigh2013-09-22 11:01 pm
Entry tags:
Modern American History- Monday- 2nd period
When the students got to the Danger Shop today, they'd find themselves in a speakeasy. Big woop, their teacher was twenty and ran a bar that they could drink in. She'd run a speakeasy in an AU last year. This was no big deal.
"Today we're covering the 1920's," Kitty began, passing out this week's handouts. "So after World War I, America was doing pretty well for itself. We were a world power. We were having an economic boom. We were getting more industrialized, skyscrapers were starting to go up in the cities, and at the same time we were putting restrictions on immigration and the KKK was an accepted thing so we still had a way to go as a nation. And in October of 1929 the stock market crashed, but we'll be getting more into that next week, so for now let's say it just wasn't good.
"The things the 20's are most known for are probably being the flapper era, and for Prohibition," she went on, gesturing at the bar around her. "In 1919 the Eighteenth Amendment passed, putting a ban on alcohol. Some states would let you have it and drink it in your own home, but bars were a no-no, and there were restrictions on sales to buy it and have it in your own home. As you can imagine, this didn't go over so well. People began smuggling and bootlegging alcohol, selling it on the down low, and you could find hidden bars like this in ordinary businesses if you knew where to go, where you'd give a password. And a lot of the alcohol production and smuggling and handling was done by gangsters, a lot of if centered in Chicago, where Al Capone eventually controlled ten thousand speakeasies. So while Prohibition was supposed to be better morally and healthwise, crime was a big thing, workers at legitimate alcohol manufacturers were out of work, and people were drinking anyway. It turned out to be so unpopular that it was repealed with the Thirty-First Amendment, and while some states didn't change their laws until like, the sixties, at least things started getting back to normal.
"We're going to do a little talking, so you can order yourself a drink, and ironically all the things you get in this speakeasy will be non-alcoholic because it's morning and we're in class, but that's something we're all going to have to live with."
"Today we're covering the 1920's," Kitty began, passing out this week's handouts. "So after World War I, America was doing pretty well for itself. We were a world power. We were having an economic boom. We were getting more industrialized, skyscrapers were starting to go up in the cities, and at the same time we were putting restrictions on immigration and the KKK was an accepted thing so we still had a way to go as a nation. And in October of 1929 the stock market crashed, but we'll be getting more into that next week, so for now let's say it just wasn't good.
"The things the 20's are most known for are probably being the flapper era, and for Prohibition," she went on, gesturing at the bar around her. "In 1919 the Eighteenth Amendment passed, putting a ban on alcohol. Some states would let you have it and drink it in your own home, but bars were a no-no, and there were restrictions on sales to buy it and have it in your own home. As you can imagine, this didn't go over so well. People began smuggling and bootlegging alcohol, selling it on the down low, and you could find hidden bars like this in ordinary businesses if you knew where to go, where you'd give a password. And a lot of the alcohol production and smuggling and handling was done by gangsters, a lot of if centered in Chicago, where Al Capone eventually controlled ten thousand speakeasies. So while Prohibition was supposed to be better morally and healthwise, crime was a big thing, workers at legitimate alcohol manufacturers were out of work, and people were drinking anyway. It turned out to be so unpopular that it was repealed with the Thirty-First Amendment, and while some states didn't change their laws until like, the sixties, at least things started getting back to normal.
"We're going to do a little talking, so you can order yourself a drink, and ironically all the things you get in this speakeasy will be non-alcoholic because it's morning and we're in class, but that's something we're all going to have to live with."
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