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Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City

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Lerner's fascinating book brings the period of prohibition to life -- from the early days of temperance campaigning, to prohibition's final undoing more than a decade later. Stories of individual people on all sides of the issue bring the book to life, making the it fun to read. And Lerner doesn't try to draw parallels to present day politics -- he lets you do that for yourself.

In an engaging, well-flowing narrative, Lerner covers prohibition from beginning to end, focusing on New York City. It was there that the dry campaign won an improbable victory, deftly manipulating the political system to secure a ratification that was not supported by popular opinion. Lerner describes a series of failed efforts to enforce prohibition in New York City. He shows how bigotry against immigrant groups was used to maintain support for prohibition. He chronicles a political climate in which anti-prohibition politicians were effectively silenced by prohibition advocates. And most interestingly, Lerner describes the role that women played in ultimately bringing prohibition to an end.

The book is meticulously researched (and heavily footnoted), but does not have the dry, academic feel of many history texts. Instead, Lerner enlivens the pages with anecdotes from prohibition agents, bartenders, managers of speakeasies, "jazz age" journalists, and New Yorkers of all social statuses.

If you read the footnotes, you will see that he draws these vignettes from an incredible variety of primary sources -- police records, notes of prohibition campaigners, newspapers and magazines of the day, court records and more. The effect is a rich tapestry of personal stories -- one that flows with his narrative and truly reflects the diversity of New York city.

Lerner wisely avoids drawing comparison to current-day politics. Instead, he leaves it to you to connect the dots. There are powerful lessons about how our political system can be manipulated, and how attempts to legislate morality in a democracy are misguided. But he leaves these conclusions for you to make.

Fascinating and informative -- definitely worth a read.

This is a well-narrated account of the era that delves deeply into the dynamics of the city, while connecting it to the broader social and political scene of the times. The book often focuses on the failings and discontent with the prohibition movement, giving a much richer perspective of why it failed. This coupled with the political details and stories of corruption made implications on the problems of dictating social choice, leaving the reader with much to think about.

I do not generally read much non-fiction, so at times I found a few spots a little dry, but overall the inclusion of lively anecdotes and keen insights made it an enjoyable and informative read for anyone interested in the subject.

I had been looking for a book that told the story of Prohibition and Repeal. At first, I was concerned that the focus on the experience in NYC would not give me a good feel for how the Great Experiment played out nationally but that very focus made the politic clashes, moral arguments, failures of enforcement and gradual consensus about the need to repeal prohibition become more real by showing how the experience in NYC was central to attitudes that came to drive the national debate (even the most ardent Prohibitionists in the south and mid-west realized that they had to make Prohibition work in NYC if it was to be preserved nationally).

The book is clearly an adapted version of a doctoral thesis though the writing is non-technical and the story compelling, with the range of reactions to Prohibition fully captured by Mr. Lerner's focus on some very interesting people, organizations and social groups. The book may be slightly more interesting for the history buff (full disclosure, that's me) than the general reader but even a general reader will come away with an enjoyable and well-written account of a fascinating period in American history.

Very interesting book about the prohibition era in New York City and the conflicks it created between the prohibitionists and city and state leaders. Great historical information laced with many amusing anecdotes.

The prohibitionists knew what they were up against in denying alcohol to Americans, but they also knew they would have no greater difficulty in enforcing sobriety than when they tried to do so in New York City. New Yorkers, it was said, spent literally one million dollars a day on booze in 1913, more than the nation spent on the salaries of public school teachers. They drank it up at over three times the rate of the national average. So prohibitionists paid special attention to New York City, and actually moved it into the "dry" column for the 18th Amendment to be passed in 1919. After that, New York City was one of the spurs to making prohibition unfashionable, and ridiculous, passé, and then obsolete. The story of prohibition's rise and fall in Gotham is told in _Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City_ (Harvard University Press) by Michael A. Lerner, a New Yorker well acquainted with the realms of the city involved in drinking and the ethnic groups it still harbors, many of whom had a special interest in keeping the city dry or wet. Lerner makes a convincing case that as we consider popular depictions of the "Roaring Twenties," we are likely to find amusing the governmental attempts to keep America from drinking, but there was more to it than just the prohibition of booze. Prohibition defined how much the government might try to reform its citizens, and it defined the politics of the times. There is no understanding, for instance, how New Yorker Franklin D. Roosevelt became president without taking prohibition into account. Lerner's book, a well referenced and compellingly written account of a national mistake, fittingly concentrates on New York, for Prohibition failed there in a spectacular fashion because of the cultural makeup of the city, and its attitude toward being told what to do.

William H. Anderson was the Anti-Saloon League's man in Maryland, and in 1914 he was reassigned to New York City, with much public fanfare, for he was the fellow that aimed to make the city dry. Anderson was able to use prejudice against Jews, Catholics, and Germans to enlist interest in Prohibition, and World War I helped his cause. It worked, in the short term. Anderson was skillful at aggressive lobbying, and wrote that his success was from "outguessing and outgeneraling the foe... hard hitting and merciless fighting." It was an admission that he wasn't taking part in what was supposed to be a national push toward moral reform. Indeed, his anti-Catholic remarks were linked to his other diatribes supporting the Ku Klux Klan, diatribes which brought the Anti-Saloon League into public scorn. It was even worse when he was indicted for doctoring the League's finances, and then imprisoned for forgery. Drinking New Yorkers must have snickered at Anderson's fall; they had been disrespecting his efforts since Prohibition began. Prohibition created an atmosphere of bribery and corruption, and policemen were forced to monitor drinking rather than more serious crimes, so the cost of policing went up, not down as the drys had promised it would. Those who wanted to drink just did so in new ways, and New Yorkers enjoyed the novelty. There was a pleasant game of hide-and-seek as drinkers found new speakeasies, which might be hidden in cellars or atop skyscrapers. Some were bare-bones establishments that passed out liquor until the law closed them up and they moved to the next empty basement; some were glittering nightclubs. Drinking was a cornerstone of the "pleasure ethic" of 1920s New York, and bootleggers were eager to supply to gentlemen and socialites whatever was in fashion. New Yorkers who didn't drink had a new reason to begin. Lerner tells the story of humorist Robert Benchley, a teetotaler before Prohibition, who went to a speakeasy and ordered a cocktail, proclaiming, "Let's find out what all the fuss is about." Where the Women's Christian Temperance Union had insisted that women would spearhead the dry movement, the flappers and the other women of New York took to the new adventure of covert speakeasy drinking, and some establishments specialized in sweet, colorful women's cocktails. Pauline Sabin, a wealthy New Yorker who had supported Prohibition until she saw the horrors of its unintended consequences, founded the Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform. Lerner credits her, and former governor Al Smith, as doing the most to bring about Prohibition's end.

The drys had worked hard to get the Prohibition amendment passed, but the work was all power plays and had little to do with a national democratic urge toward reform; this was the chief reason that once the amendment was enacted, the dries could do little but stammer indignantly as New Yorkers ignored it. Their other difficulty was that the dries knew all about the problems connected with alcohol but failed to understand any of the problems connected with its prohibition. Other New Yorkers could see those problems easily, and there was a general dismay that the federal government would try to regulate the private lives of its citizens (I wonder if New Yorkers had a general personality that was more liable to feel this indignation than other Americans did?). Lerner has filled his book with colorful characters and stories, and it is a good reminder of the hazards of governmental attempts to improve individual moral behavior.

Cheers to Michael Lerner's brilliant delve into Prohibition in New York City! Dry Manhattan gives a riveting taste of how it was in 1920s Prohibition-`dry' (or not so dry indeed) NYC.

Dry Manhattan takes us along through the beginning of Prohibition to it's repeal, catching us up in the Roaring Twenties along the way, but even more notably bringing out the undercurrents -the lead-up to and the backdrop of the `dry', speakeasy-nightclub-bootlegging-flapper-filled scene. Dry Manhattan offers a candid view of the crux of Prohibition, what was really behind it and what was really at peril.

As Lerner shows, despite the 18th Ammendment and the `dry' instigators/enforcers trying to make the city (or rather the country) dry, NYC remained wet; the cities inhabitants found ways around Prohibition -other subterfuges, ways of acquiring what was `by law' denied them. Reading the descriptions of some of the speakeasies, nightclubs, saloons, cabarets and the clever means (secretive passwords, membership cards, peepholes... ) used to gain entry and ultimately attain a drink makes me want to zoom back to some of the Flapper fave's -Tonys, the Park Avenue, and to the One East Tenth Street saloon the Casino, or to Jack Bleeck's Artists and Writers and watch the foment begin (and play out). I would also love to visit a nightclub or two and sip a cocktail with some of the notable players Mr. Lerner introduced me to -Gov. Alfred E. Smith, Mayor Jimmy Walker, and most especially Texas Guinan and Pauline Sabin (really before this I didn't know who these ladies were -sad shocking omission from prior history courses and recquired reading).

That said, despite being a history buff, I learned a lot from reading Lerner's book; above all I didn't realize that prejudice and class bias played such a large part in Prohibition (though might have, probably should've, guessed it). I also especially appreciated how the author gives due credence and due pages to the women, flapper and otherwise, who were so central to the repeal of the 18th Ammendment. Also, spotlight on the quotes -the quotes are gems! I especially liked "We Prefer Brewers of Beer to Brewers of Bigotry." (p. 124) Sums it up perfectly.

An attempt to squash the freedom of a girl, a guy to drink failed miserably. Dry Manhattan shows how people became active participants and rallied together against these limits on personal liberty to ultimately repeal the doomed and dired 18th Ammendment. Really, what were they (the drys the Prohibitionists) thinking? A must-read thumbs up.

Michael Lerner's book is an enjoyable read and very informative too. There are many lessons to be learned from our past as conservatives today look to the government to control our social behaviors once again. Lerner doesn't make the connections here, that is for us to do.

I especially like how he highlights the coalition that worked to repeal Prohibition. It reminds me of the power of a democratic society when various constituencies come together to make the government responsive to people's needs. We can definitely benefit from applying some of the organizing strategies from WONPR (Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform) as we work to bring about change in society today.

Prohibition was repealed on December 5, 1933, long before I ever pulled the tab on my first beer. I imagine there are few people alive today who were of drinking age at that time, but Michael Lerner's 308-page history, "Dry Manhattan," brings the speakeasy back to life.

Lerner details Prohibition as experienced in New York, a city both surprisingly responsible for the passage of the 18th amendment and for its ultimate repeal 14 years later. Behind the public tilt toward outlawing the manufacture, transportation and sale of liquor in the United States was a highly effective campaign by the Anti-Saloon League, whose tactics ushered in the modern era of pressure politics and issues-oriented lobbying.

In the turbulent wake of the First World War, even those who were skeptical of the government's intrusive moralizing went along with the dry lobby, which extolled the supposed virtues of sobriety. Before long, however, the underlying anti-ethnic and anti-urban bigotry of the dry movement came into view. It was most evident in the reality of the enforcement of the 18th amendment, where working-class saloons were targeted while "wealthier New Yorkers were given preferential treatment," according to the author.

Enforcement action soon overwhelmed federal and city authorities as New Yorkers of all stripes simply defied the law. By 1925, there was a backlog of 15,000 Prohibition-related criminal cases in the New York federal court that the U.S. district attorney estimated would take 10 years to clear. Drinking became more than defiance; it came to define the Jazz Age as a symbol of sophistication and style. By the end of the 1920s, the U.S. had become the world's largest importer of cocktail shakers.

Among the most deleterious effects of Prohibition was to engender a thorough disregard for the law. Corruption, bootleggers, black markets and criminal gangs came to the fore in the 1920s and by close of the decade, even law enforcement leaders had concluded the experiment was a dismal failure.

The death knell for Prohibition came from the Depression, for even as bread lines grew, the federal government continued to expend its shrinking resources on ineffective enforcements efforts. Those resources were further impaired by the lost tax revenue on the legal sale of alcohol.

The stage was set for repeal, but it would take another powerful political movement to counter the dry lobby, even though it had been by then discredited by its own corruption, failure and prejudice. The Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform (WONPR), established in 1929, became the locomotive that pulled anti-Prohibition politicians into office in 1932.

It had long been assumed that women, under the umbrella of temperance movements and personified by activists such as Carrie Nation, would remain loyal to the drys. But the women of New York had seen enough by the early Thirties. The WONPR successfully organized women all across the U.S., from all walks of life, and claimed the moral high ground from the drys. "WONPR saw the need to protect American families and children from the most dangerous consequences of the failed Prohibition experiment, namely excessive drinking, violence, organized crime, declining respect for the law, and hypocrisy," writes Lerner.

In the very well researched and well documented "Dry Manhattan," Michael Lerner takes us through the nuances of a modern political story whose sensible outcome we can celebrate 75 years later with a classic cocktail. I'll take mine straight up.

This book does a fine job of presenting well-researched historical material (on prohibition in New York City) to a general audience. It also has a terrific title! Good descriptions of the politics and cultural significance of the battles between drys and wets, and excellent insight into New York City culture of the time. Lerner might give a little more attention to the revisionist prohibition history that argues that, by and large, prohibition actually reduced drinking (he acknowledges the research but doesn't really counter it in detail). Overall, a very fine book recommended for specialists and general readers.

A well written look at prohibition that provides good perspective from the wet and dry, working class and society and black and white sides. It flows smoothly with excellent portraits of the key figures in the city and the nation and is filled with entertaining anecodotes about this unusual time. Well worth a read.