Between the Devil and the Deep Sea: Immigration, Prohibition and the Making of America

Abstract

With the passing of the eighteenth amendment in 1919, Prohibition became law and the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol above .5% became illegal. This law was understood to have been created to apply to all Americans, regardless of race, class or geography; a law for every citizen. However, research into the ethnocultural aspect of the Prohibition era has made it clear that the underlying and, perhaps, most important goal of Prohibition was as a tool of assimilation used by the "old stock" native-born Americans against the newer immigrant population of the United States. This nativism can be seen at the national level through the activities of the Prohibition temperance organizations and various dry movements and at the local level, in the state of Wisconsin. Wisconsin, a state historically and contemporarily known for both a thriving immigrant culture and as a leader the beer industry saw a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and local citizens groups with a mind on educating the immigrants that had settled in the state to the "American" lifestyle during the years of Prohibition.