Prohibition

[Point of Order]

Anyone watch this tonight? It's Ken Burns' latest on PBS. I'm learning so much. School children all over the country were being taught that alcohol could lead to spontaneous combustion -- wow!

 

[User 11148]

Well, I've crashed and burned on many a Saturday night ...

 

[Blitz]

Yes, I was about to post a thread on the show but wasn't sure if might be showing just here in San Antonio on KLRN.
Great show, which I was watching but am now recording for replay.
San Francisco had the Barbary Coast, New Orleans had Storyville, Manhattan had its own (but I can't remember what they said it's name was). Seattle had Skids Road.
Very cool doc.

 

[Point of Order]

Yes, I was about to post a thread on the show but wasn't sure if might be showing just here in San Antonio on KLRN.
Great show, which I was watching but am now recording for replay.
San Francisco had the Barbary Coast, New Orleans had Storyville, Manhattan had its own (but I can't remember what they said it's name was). Seattle had Skids Road.
Very cool doc.

Mid-town Tenderloin, denounced by its critics as Satan's Circus.

 

[holy bull]

In the future, please deliver more specific detail in thread titles. I almost had a heart attack.

 

[Blitz]

Yeah, it was Tenderloin they mentioned.
They showed a blueprint of the area of that spot, or I think it was Chicago's area, where they counted 154 whorehouses, X number of peep shows, X number of gambling halls, X number of saloons, etc, etc,

There was one guy that they said oversaw the entire expanse (Kenna was his name, I think).

It was an awesome set of statistics and a glaring, definitive snapshot of life in the big city during the days when the big cities were setting their roots.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

They'll go into George Remus big-time, tonight . . . the biggest bootlegger no one ever heard of (unless, of course, you've seen the BBC's Prohibition series, which did an excellent job and profiled Remus, at length . . . )

 

[hondo]

In the future, please deliver more specific detail in thread titles. I almost had a heart attack.

I'm with you. Bad times don't seem as bad as long as there's Bacardi.

 

[Shoeless Joe]

I didn't see this but did watch Boardwalk Empire last night.

 

[YankeeFan]

Yeah, it was Tenderloin they mentioned.
They showed a blueprint of the area of that spot, or I think it was Chicago's area, where they counted 154 whorehouses, X number of peep shows, X number of gambling halls, X number of saloons, etc, etc,

There was one guy that they said oversaw the entire expanse (Kenna was his name, I think).

It was an awesome set of statistics and a glaring, definitive snapshot of life in the big city during the days when the big cities were setting their roots.

Fun book about that time in Chicago:

http://www.amazon.com/Sin-Second-City-Ministers-Playboys/dp/1400065305

 

[Ronnie "Z-Man" Barzell]

It never really dawned on me how much of a role anti-German sentiment during World War I had with this becoming law.

Also, Carrie Nation was a total lunatic.

 

[Evil Bastard (aka Chris_L)]

In Boston the area was known as Scollay Square. Just prior to the Revolutionary War British map-makers referred to the area as Mount Whoredom (City on a Hill indeed!)

 

[cyclingwriter]

I thought it was fascinating. Can't wait for the next two nights. Nice part at the end about how people actually thought banning alcohol would cure all of society's ills overnight.

On a personal note, I have friends from Portland and was texting during the parts that ripped on the city's alcoholic past.

 

[Greenhorn]

I don't have cable at the moment, so I wasn't able to watch, but Prohibition is one of my favorite subjects in American history.

On the books thread I mentioned Daniel Okrent's book on the subject which I believe was used in part for the doc. The book was pretty solid.

 

[Football_Bat]

It never really dawned on me how much of a role anti-German sentiment during World War I had with this becoming law.

Also, Carrie Nation was a total lunatic.

Not as much as Carrie Bradshaw.

 

[baskethead]

I thought it was outstanding. I had been looking forward to it, and then forgot about it and was just flipping around when I came upon it, which lead to an "Oh ****, that's right." So missed about the first 45 minutes or so but learned a lot.

 

[cyclingwriter]

I don't have cable at the moment, so I wasn't able to watch, but Prohibition is one of my favorite subjects in American history.

On the books thread I mentioned Daniel Okrent's book on the subject which I believe was used in part for the doc. The book was pretty solid.

It's on PBS.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

I didn't see it, because there was too much else on TV at that time. But one thing I wonder is why the hell no one stood up and claimed that their freedom was being violated by being denied a drink?

 

[Hank_Scorpio]

Is the first part going to be online this afternoon?

 

[Stoney]

But one thing I wonder is why the hell no one stood up and claimed that their freedom was being violated by being denied a drink?

What makes you think "no one" did? There were plenty of "wets" who did exactly that, just like there are some folks who do that for marijuana today--doesn't matter if opposing political forces are stronger. There's no inherent right to any chemical substance.