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Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Prohibition

Updated on May 03, 2023. Originally added on Mar 31, 2016 by Kathy Pinna

Do you know what cow shoes, bootlegs, moonshiners, John Barleycorn, and stills are? Have you seen what these things really looked like?

Discover for yourself what life was like during Prohibition with this collection of photos showing life from the 1920s until the early 1930s when people could legally drink again.

Did you know: The Temperance movement, active throughout the 19th and early 20th century, led to Prohibition. Alcoholic beverages (their "sale, production, importation, and transportation") were banned from January 17th, 1920 through December 5th, 1933. While you couldn't distill or sell alcohol, you could drink it - if you could find it!

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Photos of the Prohibition Era

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New Prohibition Fashion

Just a little after a week of Prohibition!
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A little flask in your garter - such a handy way to carry your bathtub gin.

Destroying beer by the case

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In Philadelphia, they didn't take a hatchet to one bottle - they destroyed whole cases.

Cows have shoes?

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A revenooer shows off "cow shoes". Moonshiners would fasten these wood blocks to their shoes so that the agents couldn't track them to their still. Ingenious!

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1920's pun - bootlegger

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Big boots - bigger flask in 1922.

Kind face - but she carried a hatchet!

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Carry Nation, known for entering taverns and using a hatchet to destroy bottles of alcohol.

Is someone sneaking a sip?

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In Illinois, they confiscated a load of beer - is the man in the middle trying to sneak a sip?

Let's toast the end!

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Band leader Ted Lewis and a bevy of beauties toasting the end of Prohibition in 1933.

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Prohibition art?

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With today's mindset, we can't tell what this art is supposed to say. Do you know?

He's gonna get you

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Chief Prohibition Inspector - doesn't he look like he's serious about his job?

John Barleycorn's grave

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In Connecticut, they took Prohibition seriously.

What are you - wet or dry?

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Sandy McClay
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shared on 12/09/2013

How would you have voted on Prohibition?

Thrilling chase!

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A couple of bootleggers caught after a car chase in 1922.

Drunk driving?

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A bootlegger ran a borrowed Stutz into a tree at 70 mph - he was killed and his corn liquor was confiscated.

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Hooch smelling pooch

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Instead of bombs or drugs, dogs were used in 1922 to smell liquor - and steal it!

What a waste!

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Pouring alcohol into NYC sewers, 1921. Were there drunk alligators in the sewer?

Home still?

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This is a small still, most likely used for home use.

Largest still in captivity!

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A 1922 photo of the largest still confiscated to that date.

Beer model?

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This 1914 photo of a "beer model" for Gimbel's Department store stumps us. She's not holding a beer so was this a special name for a model at the time? Help!

Not a beer model!

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She's holding a bottle of beer but she's helping destroy 80,000 pint bottles.

Nurse smugglers!

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These two Navy nurses were tried for smuggling liquor into the U.S. during Prohibition.

Liquor Traffic Must Go

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Virginia Sammis
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shared on 04/29/2012

What a wonderful photo!

Drinking on the job?

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Washington D.C. prohibition officers raiding a restaurant in 1923.

Exit demon rum . . .

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A morality play in 1919: "Exit demon rum - enter drug habit."

"Prohibition Group"

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This photo from 1922 shows that even after Prohibition was passed, people were still advocating against "demon rum".

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