Last year, we learned about World War 1. Now, since we’re moving up in history, it’s time for us to learn about what happened after World War 1! This time period is called the InterWar Years, as (spoiler alert!) this period ended with World War 2. The driving question of our project was ‘What makes an event significant?’ At the end of this project, we wrote an essay on a significant event that occurred during this period. This is one of the first essays I’ve written, so this was a very interesting learning experience. 

Smuggling During Prohibition- How the Absence of Alcohol Led to an Abundance of Problems

Before we could write our essays, however, we had to do some background research. We watched a couple documentaries about life during that time period. These featured various topics, including (but not limited to) the popularization of the automobile, the stock market crash and the Great Depression, and the invention of modern appliances as we know them today. 

We also got into groups to do presentations on events that occurred during that period. I worked with Jordyn and Lennart, and we presented on the Stock Market Crash of 1929. It was really interesting to do, because before that, I didn’t know very much about the stock market, or stocks in general. 

After our presentations were complete, and we’d done some background research, it was time for us to choose our topics! There were a few that I was interested in, but the one I was most interested in was Prohibition. Now, we’d done some activities that included information about Prohibition, and they had sparked my interest. While doing some more research to see if this was a topic I could write an essay about, I asked my mother if our family was connected to Prohibition in any way. To my surprise, she said yes!

As it turns out, my great-great-aunt’s husband smuggled alcohol to his Italian restaurant, and my great-grandpa was sometimes caught up in the turmoil of illegal alcohol distribution. After hearing this, I knew I had to do my essay on Prohibition; specifically, I wanted to do my essay on smuggling that occurred during Prohibition. 

A lot of those terms may make zero sense to you, and they didn’t make very much to me when I began my research. To understand these terms, I’ll explain what Prohibition was. Basically, it was a ban on the manufacture and sale of alcohol in North America. Prohibition began in Canada in 1916, and began in the U.S. in 1920. It wasn’t effective, and alcohol was illegally made across the two countries. That didn’t stop drinking though, as illegal alcohol distributors started popping up everywhere.

These people were called ‘bootleggers’, and they provided alcohol to many people and places, especially speakeasies, password-protected clubs that sold alcohol. Even much of the police force and government was corrupt, either turning a blind eye to bootlegging or participating in it themselves. But why was Prohibition significant? Well, first, it lasted a long time. Prohibition laws were repealed in Canada in 1923, and in the U.S. in 1933. The point that I argued in my essay, however, was that Prohibition was significant because it directly led to the birth of organized crime in North America. 

To argue this point, first I had to write the essay. And before I could write the essay, I had to learn about essay structure. We learned about everything, from paragraph structure, to how to fix run-on sentences. We even practiced writing thesis statements! 

Next, it was time to write the first draft. I worked on it for a long time, and I was pretty proud of it. Of course, there were some changes that could be made. I had some grammar issues, and difficulties with the subject matter. I was able to solve those problems over the course of several drafts, and the essay ended up being my best work. After many rewrites of the essay, I completed my final draft! Hooray! And to show off how much I’d learned, I did a presentation to the class. 

This presentation, however, was not like a normal presentation, where you stand up in front of your class and talk about your assignment. I did do some of that, but to spice things up, I added an activity! I wanted to show how drinking didn’t go away during Prohibition, it was just hidden. I did this by playing a game with the class! 

The rules of the game were simple— everyone gets a cup of root beer, but they aren’t supposed to drink it. One student is the ‘feds’, watching to see if the others drink their own root beer. If the ‘feds’ saw someone drinking root beer, they were out! The object of the game is to either be the last one standing, or finish your root beer first, whichever comes first. 

This game proved a lot of points; we saw a lot of things which I was able to turn into metaphors. One student hid under a table, creating the first ‘speakeasy’. The student who was the ‘feds’ even drank his own root beer while playing, which showed how deep the corruption went. All in all, it served as a great way to teach the class about Prohibition!

This project has been complicated, and has had a lot of steps and assignments. Writing this essay and experiencing this project has really helped me understand exactly what life was like between World War 1 and World War 2. I’m really glad we did this project!

Thanks for reading my blog post!