This guide focuses on the alcoholic beverage industry in the United States with a strong emphasis on historical resources, including a section on resources related to the Temperance Movement & Prohibition.

The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation (popularly known as the Constitution Annotated) contains legal analysis and interpretation of the United States Constitution, based primarily on Supreme Court case law. This regularly updated resource is especially useful when researching the constitutional implications of a specific issue or topic. It includes chapters on the 18th Amendment and the 21st Amendment.

This guide offers a selection of images from the Prints & Photographs Division collections about Prohibition in the United States, around 1920-1933.

This site discusses prohibition and links to related documents.

On October 28, 1919, Congress passed the Volstead Act providing for enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified nine months earlier. Known as the Prohibition Amendment, it prohibited the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” in the United States.

On December 27, 1900, Carry Nation brought her campaign against alcohol to Wichita, Kansas, when she smashed the bar at the elegant Carey Hotel. Earlier that year, Nation had abandoned the nonviolent agitation of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in favor of direct action that she called “hatchetation.” Since the Kansas Constitution prohibited alcohol, Nation argued that destroying saloons was an acceptable means of battling the state’s flourishing liquor trade.

Prohibition ended in Washington, D.C. on March 1, 1934. The Washington Post reported that "Somehow, after 17 years without it, Washingtonians seemed to hold their liquor quite well." One reason might be that the nation's capital had been far from a model dry city, hosting up to 3,000 speakeasies since Prohibition began. As documented in a new book by Garrett Peck, even Congress had its own bootleggers, especially "The Man in the Green Hat."