The Dark Heart of Prohibition

Prohibition has often been romanticized as a time of speakeasies and flappers, fun-filled nights dancing and partying without a care in the world. People get images of booze-filled parties and glamorous couples gathering poolside from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby or romantic notions of beautiful women with bobbed haircuts and blaring jazz music playing into the wee hours of the morning. It is called "The Roaring Twenties" after all.

The reality was far darker. Prohibition had a devastating human toll, leading to an increase in violence, organized crime, and deaths related to alcohol consumption. To fully understand how Bourbon King George Remus rose to power, we must examine Prohibition, from its impact on the lives of countless Americans to the socio-economic havoc it had on the nation as a whole. Thirteen dry years that were wetter than anyone could have imagined and a large swath of death and destruction with two world wars as bookends.