The Romanticization of Prohibition

During our studies of prohibition, I noticed that prohibition was often romanticized. When we looked at a painting depicting blacks in a speakeasy in American Literature and American Studies, everyone in the painting looked extremely happy and joyous. During this time period, the whole ideal of “American” changed. It was seen as cool and interesting to do illegal things like drink in speakeasies and to be a bootlegger. This often led to the glorification of criminals, such as Al Capone, during the time period. When people think of the 20s nowadays, they think of days of glory and wealth: times when nobody had a care in the world and only wanted to party and have fun. Since prohibition occurred during this time period of happiness, it was glorified as well. 

However, prohibition should not have been glorified as it brought up a lot of questions about what Americans believed morally.  When we read The Great Gatsby, it was clear that those that knew Gatsby were in awe of him: from his lavish lifestyle to his extravagant parties. Most of those people didn’t even care that Gatsby attained his money illegally even though they knew that he was involved in bootlegging. This shows us how Americans thought it was okay to achieve wealth in any way possible and not necessarily in the most moral way possible. Additionally, prohibition brought up a lot of issues for many people. It enforced the ideas that immigrants needed to be civilized and Germans had to be repressed by serving as Anti- Germany propaganda. Therefore, I believe that prohibition is often glorified, even thought it should not be, because the 1920s was a period of time that was greatly glorified.