General info: alcohol, women, shopping

PROHIBITION

• At midnight, January 16, 1920, the United States went dry; breweries, distilleries, and saloons were forced to close their doors.
• Enforcing the law proved almost impossible. Smuggling and bootlegging were widespread.
• Prohibition failed because it was unenforceable. By 1925, half a dozen states, including New York, passed laws banning local police from investigating violations. Prohibition had little support in the cities of the Northeast and Midwest.

1920's MATERIALISM

• Americans in the 1920s were the first to wear ready-made, exact-size clothing. They were the first to play electric phonographs, to use electric vacuum cleaners, to listen to commercial radio broadcasts, and to drink fresh orange juice year round. In countless ways, large and small, American life was transformed during the 1920s, at least in urban areas. Cigarettes, cosmetics, and synthetic fabrics such as rayon became staples of American life. Newspaper gossip columns, illuminated billboards, and commercial airplane flights were novelties during the 1920s. The United States became a consumer society.
• Cars were the symbol of the new consumer society that emerged in the 1920s. In 1919, there were just 6.7 million cars on American roads. By 1929, there were more than 27 million cars--or nearly one car for every household in the United States.

WOMAN'S RIGHTS

• In 1920, after 72 years of struggle, American women received the right to vote. After the 19th Amendment passed, reformers talked about female voters uniting to clean up politics, improve society, and end discrimination.
• Women did not win new opportunities in the workplace. Although the American work force included eight million women in 1920, more than half were black or foreign-born. Domestic service remained the largest occupation, followed by secretaries, typists, and clerks--all low-paying jobs. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) remained openly hostile to women because it did not want females competing for men's jobs. Female professionals, too, made little progress. They consistently received less pay than their male counterparts. Moreover, they were concentrated in traditionally "female" occupations such as teaching and nursing.