Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City

New
Paperback
2008
$35.31

In 1919, the United States embarked on the country's boldest attempt at moral and social reform: Prohibition. The 18th Amendment to the Constitution prohibited the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol around the country. This noble experiment, as President Hoover called it, was intended to usher in a healthier, more moral, and more efficient society. Nowhere was such reform needed more, proponents argued, than in New York City--and nowhere did Prohibition fail more spectacularly. Dry Manhattan is the first major work on Prohibition in nearly a quarter century, and the only full history of Prohibition in the era's most vibrant city. Though New Yorkers were cautiously optimistic at first, Prohibition quickly degenerated into a deeply felt clash of cultures that utterly transformed life in the city. Impossible to enforce, the ban created vibrant new markets for illegal alcohol, spawned corruption and crime, fostered an exhilarating culture of speakeasies and nightclubs, and exposed the nation's deep prejudices. Writ large, the conflict over Prohibition, Michael Lerner demonstrates, was about much more than the freedom to drink. It was a battle between competing visions of the United States, pitting wets against drys, immigrants against old stock Americans, Catholics and Jews against Protestants, and proponents of personal liberty against advocates of societal reform. In his evocative history, Lerner reveals Prohibition to be the defining issue of the era, the first major culture war of the twentieth century, and a harbinger of the social and moral debates that divide America even today.

Synopsis

In 1919, the United States embarked on the country's boldest attempt at moral and social reform: Prohibition. The 18th Amendment to the Constitution prohibited the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol around the country. This noble experiment, as President Hoover called it, was intended to usher in a healthier, more moral, and more efficient society. Nowhere was such reform needed more, proponents argued, than in New York City--and nowhere did Prohibition fail more spectacularly. Dry Manhattan is the first major work on Prohibition in nearly a quarter century, and the only full history of Prohibition in the era's most vibrant city. Though New Yorkers were cautiously optimistic at first, Prohibition quickly degenerated into a deeply felt clash of cultures that utterly transformed life in the city. Impossible to enforce, the ban created vibrant new markets for illegal alcohol, spawned corruption and crime, fostered an exhilarating culture of speakeasies and nightclubs, and exposed the nation's deep prejudices. Writ large, the conflict over Prohibition, Michael Lerner demonstrates, was about much more than the freedom to drink. It was a battle between competing visions of the United States, pitting wets against drys, immigrants against old stock Americans, Catholics and Jews against Protestants, and proponents of personal liberty against advocates of societal reform. In his evocative history, Lerner reveals Prohibition to be the defining issue of the era, the first major culture war of the twentieth century, and a harbinger of the social and moral debates that divide America even today.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 360
Edition: Annotated
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 11 Nov 2008
ISBN 10: 0674030575
ISBN 13: 9780674030572
Book Overview: Prohibition represented the most ambitious attempt to legislate personal behavior in the history of the United States. And New York City was ground zero in challenging this new moral code. Michael Lerner's account not only illuminates New York's centrality to the debates over alcohol; he demonstrates how Prohibition in New York produced some of the leading actors of the century - Al Smith, Fiorello LaGuardia, Jimmy Walker and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This enthralling and vivid account will be required reading for anyone interested in modern America. -- Timothy J. Gilfoyle, author of A Pickpocket's Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York Michael's Lerner's Dry Manhattan brings vividly back to life the story of the Prohibition years in New York City. Lerner is especially skilled at unearthing the small details that illuminate the larger truths about this contentious era, and these vignettes help to make Dry Manhattan a fascinating and rewarding book. -- Tyler Anbinder, author of Five Points Dry Manhattan is a pioneering work that changes our view of Prohibition in radical ways, from a bizarre episode to a conflict similar to modern day abortion, a debate that exposed major cultural divisions in America. In a compelling story, Lerner shows that the fight over prohibition was not about drinking, but over broader values, over competing visions of what kind of nation we were to be. -- Robert Slayton, Chapman University

Media Reviews

Lerner's book is a serious work, suggesting that there are still lessons to be learned from the 13 years, 10 months and 18 days of a utopian American delusion. There remain a number of Americans today who are filled with similar angry visions, longing to make them into law. - Pete Hamill, New York Times Book Review Dry Manhattan is in all important respects exemplary, a singularly useful and revealing contribution to our understanding of a time from which the nation probably never will recover. - Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World

Author Bio

Michael A. Lerner is Associate Dean of Studies at Bard High School Early College in New York City.