A dry state was a state in the United States in which the manufacture, distribution, importation, and sale of alcoholic beverages was prohibited or tightly restricted. Some states, such as North Dakota, entered the United States as dry states, and others went dry after the passage of prohibition legislation or the Volstead Act. No state remains completely dry, but some states do contain dry counties.
Prior to the adoption of nationwide prohibition in 1920, state legislatures passed local option laws that allowed a county or township to go dry if it chose to do so. [1] The Maine law, passed in 1851 in Maine, was among the first statutory implementations of the developing temperance movement in the United States. [2]
Following Maine's lead, prohibition laws were soon passed in the states of Delaware, Ohio, Illinois, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New York; however, all but one were repealed. [3] The debate over prohibition increased in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as the drys, including the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the National Prohibition Party, the Anti-Saloon League, and others, continued to support temperance and prohibition legislation, while the wets opposed it. [3] By 1913 nine states had statewide prohibition and 31 others had local option laws, placing more than 50 percent of the United States population under some form of alcohol prohibition. [3]
Following two unsuccessful attempts at national prohibition legislation (one in 1913 and the other in 1915), Congress approved a resolution on December 19, 1917, to prohibit the manufacture, sale, transportation, and importation of alcoholic beverages in the United States. [4] The resolution was sent to the states for ratification and became the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. On January 8, 1918, Mississippi became the first state to ratify the amendment and on January 16, 1919, Nebraska became the 36th state to do so, securing its passage with the required three-fourths of the states. [5] By the end of February 1919, only three states remained as hold-outs to ratification: New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island. [3]
The National Prohibition Act, also known as the Volstead Act, was enacted on October 18, 1919. Prohibition in the United States went into effect on January 17, 1920. [3] Nationwide prohibition was repealed in 1933 with the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment on February 20 and its ratification on December 5. [6]
This table lists the effective dates each state went dry and any dates of repeal that do not coincide with the end of national prohibition in 1933.
State | Dry date | Repeal date | Ref |
---|---|---|---|
Maine | 1851 | 1856 | [7] |
Vermont | 1853 | 1902 | [8] |
Kansas | November 23, 1880 | 1948 | [9] [10] |
Iowa | July 27, 1882 | 1894 | [11] [12] [13] [14] |
North Dakota | November 2, 1889 | 1932 | |
South Dakota | November 2, 1889 | ||
Oklahoma | September 17, 1907 | April 7, 1959 [lower-alpha 1] | [15] [16] |
Georgia | January 1, 1908 | 1938 | [17] [18] |
Mississippi | December 31, 1908 | 1966 | [10] |
North Carolina | January 1, 1909 | 1937 | [10] [19] |
Tennessee | July 1, 1909 | 1939 | [10] [20] |
Alabama | July 1, 1915 | [10] | |
Oregon | January 1, 1916 | [10] | |
West Virginia | July 1, 1914 | [10] | |
Washington | January 1, 1916 | [10] | |
Montana | December 31, 1918 | [10] | |
Nebraska | May 1, 1917 | [10] | |
Indiana | 1918 | [21] | |
Michigan | April 30, 1918 | [10] | |
Florida | December 9, 1918 | ||
Kentucky | November 1919 [22] | [23] | |
Texas | May 1919 | 1935 | [24] |
Virginia | November 1, 1916 | [10] | |
South Carolina | December 31, 1915 | [10] | |
Idaho | January 1, 1916 | [10] | |
Colorado | January 1, 1916 | [10] | |
Arkansas | January 1, 1916 | [10] | |
Arizona | January 1, 1915 | [10] |
Low-alcohol beer is beer with little or no alcohol by volume that aims to reproduce the taste of beer while eliminating or reducing the inebriating effect, carbohydrates, and calories of regular alcoholic brews. Low-alcohol beers can come in different beer styles such as lagers, stouts, and ales. Low-alcohol beer is also known as light beer, non-alcoholic beer, small beer, small ale, or near-beer.
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage, transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic beverages. The word is also used to refer to a period of time during which such bans are enforced.
The Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution established the prohibition of alcohol in the United States. The amendment was proposed by Congress on December 18, 1917, and ratified by the requisite number of states on January 16, 1919. The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment on December 5, 1933, making it the only constitutional amendment in American history to be repealed.
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was an act of the 66th United States Congress designed to execute the 18th Amendment which established the prohibition of alcoholic drinks. The Anti-Saloon League's Wayne Wheeler conceived and drafted the bill, which was named after Andrew Volstead, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who managed the legislation.
The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which had mandated nationwide prohibition on alcohol. The Twenty-first Amendment was proposed by the 72nd Congress on February 20, 1933, and was ratified by the requisite number of states on December 5, 1933. It is unique among the 27 amendments of the U.S. Constitution for being the only one to repeal a prior amendment, as well as being the only amendment to have been ratified by state ratifying conventions.
The Blaine Act, formally titled Joint Resolution Proposing the Twenty-First Amendment to the United States Constitution, is a joint resolution adopted by the United States Congress on February 20, 1933, initiating repeal of the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which established Prohibition in the United States. Repeal was finalized when the 21st Amendment to the Constitution was ratified by the required minimum number of states on December 5, 1933.
The Maine Law, passed on June 2, 1851 in Maine, was the first statutory implementation of the developing temperance movement in the United States.
The Bureau of Prohibition was the United States federal law enforcement agency with the responsibility of investigating the possession, distribution, consumption, and trafficking of alcohol and alcoholic beverages in the United States of America during the Prohibition era. The enumerated enforcement powers of this organization were vested in the Volstead Act. Federal Prohibition Agents of the Bureau were commonly referred to by members of the public and the press of the day as "Prohis," or "Dry Agents." In the sparsely populated areas of the American west, agents were sometimes called "Prohibition Cowboys." At its peak, the Bureau employed 2,300 dry agents.
In the United States, a dry county is a county whose government forbids the sale of any kind of alcoholic beverages. Some prohibit off-premises sale, some prohibit on-premises sale, and some prohibit both. The vast majority of counties now permit the sale of alcohol in at least some circumstances, but some dry counties remain, mostly in the Southern United States; the largest number are in Arkansas, where 34 counties are dry.
A local option is the ability of local political jurisdictions, typically counties or municipalities, to allow decisions on certain controversial issues within their borders, usually referring to a popular vote. It usually relates to the issue of alcoholic beverage, marijuana sales, and now mask wearing.
In the United States, the nationwide ban on alcoholic beverages, was repealed by the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 5, 1933.
Prohibition in Canada was a ban on alcoholic beverages that arose in various stages, from local municipal bans in the late 19th century, to provincial bans in the early 20th century, and national prohibition from 1918 to 1920. The relatively large and powerful beer and alcohol manufacturing sector, and the huge working class that purchased their products, failed to convince any of the governments to reverse their stance on prohibition. Most provinces repealed their bans in the 1920s, though alcohol was illegal in Prince Edward Island from 1901 to 1948. By comparison, the Ontario Temperance Act was in effect from 1916 to 1927.
Wayne Bidwell Wheeler was an American attorney and longtime leader of the Anti-Saloon League. The leading advocate of the prohibitionist movement in the late 1800s and early 1900s, he played a major role in the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlawed the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages.
The Webb–Kenyon Act was a 1913 law of the United States that regulated the interstate transport of alcoholic beverages. It was meant to provide federal support for the prohibition efforts of individual states in the face of charges that state regulation of alcohol usurped the federal government's exclusive constitutional right to regulate interstate commerce.
The alcohol laws of Missouri are among the most permissive in the United States. Missouri is known throughout the Midwest for its largely laissez-faire approach to alcohol regulation, in sharp contrast to the very strict alcohol laws of some of its neighbors, like Kansas and Oklahoma.
The alcohol laws of Kansas are among the strictest in the United States, in sharp contrast to its neighboring state of Missouri, and similar to its other neighboring state of Oklahoma. Legislation is enforced by the Kansas Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
The Prohibition era was the period from 1920 to 1933 when the United States prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures, and Prohibition was formally introduced nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on January 16, 1919. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933.
Rum-running in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, was a major activity in the early part of the 20th century. In 1916, the State of Michigan, in the United States, banned the sale of alcohol, three years before prohibition became the national law in 1919. From that point forward, the City of Windsor, Ontario was a major site for alcohol smuggling and gang activity.
In the United States, the temperance movement, which sought to curb the consumption of alcohol, had a large influence on American politics and American society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, culminating in the prohibition of alcohol, through the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, from 1920 to 1933. Today, there are organizations that continue to promote the cause of temperance.
Oklahoma Beer Act of 1933 is a United States public law legalizing the manufacture, possession, and sale of low-point beer in the State of Oklahoma. The Act of Congress cites the federal statute is binding with the cast of legal votes by the State of Oklahoma constituents or legislative action by the Oklahoma Legislature.