Webinar: From the 18th to the 21st: The Records of Prohibition (BCG)

Title: “From the 18th to the 21st: The Records of Prohibition”
Presenter: Judy G. Russell, JD, CG, CGL (LegalGenealogist.com)
Date viewed: December 15, 2020 (1h15m)
Permalink: https://familytreewebinars.com/download.php?webinar_id=1286

Summary:

The 18th amendment took effect in January 1920 and ushered in more than a decade of Prohibition until repealed by the 21st Amendment in December 1933. In those few years, so many records were created for juice joints and bootleggers, revenuers and Untouchables—producing a gold mine for researchers.

Notes:
I attended this webinar due to having at least one branch of the family in the bootlegging business. I don’t know much about them yet, but I thought it would be fun to get more background info on what exactly they were doing in the 1920s.

The majority of this webinar was the history of Prohibition– the lead up to it starting in the 1700s, through the temperance movement, to the repeal. It’s a good overview of the different external forces leading to the main event, as it were, and it gives some good insights on what people were thinking way back when.

The last part was an overview of different resources available for genealogists. Most of them are focused on legal documents, because those are the ones that a) have stuck around, b) been digitized, and c) are available for researchers through various means. There were some really good ones mentioned that are outside of the normal range of genealogy research websites, which I appreciated. It’s always good to get more info on where to search outside the box, as it were.

The presentation came with a syllabus which is basically a very well-written essay and a 25 item resource list; I’ll be adding it to my documents for later use.