Arlington-based historian Garrett Peck is the author of The Prohibition Hangover: Alcohol in America from Demon Rum to Cult Cabernet (2009) and of the recently published Prohibition in Washington, D.C.: How Dry We Weren’t.
The Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner interviewed Peck at the Woodrow Wilson House in D.C.’s Kalorama neighborhood on May 19, on the occasion of his new book’s official launch. The Wilson house features one of the largest known Prohibition-era wine cellars, which still holds bottles from President Wilson’s personal collection of fine wines.
In part one of this interview, Peck explained how he researched the book and noted some of the surprises he encountered as he wrote it.
3,000 speakeasies
In remarks at his book launch party, Peck noted that prior to Prohibition – which, according to his book, actually began two years earlier in D.C. than in the rest of the country, thanks to the Sheppard Act passed in 1917 – there were 300 saloons in the city of Washington. During Prohibition, there were at least 3,000 speakeasies (illegal drinking establishments), an increase by a factor of ten.
The explosive growth is easy to explain, he said.
It makes sense “from an economic standpoint,” he explained.
“It was an economic opportunity for a lot of people. People still wanted to drink.”
The law of supply and demand meant that, “if there are people who want to drink, there are going to be people to meet that supply.”
According to Peck, “Plenty of people realized, ‘Hey, I can make a good living selling booze to people, whether it’s in my apartment or if I set up a club.’ Here in D.C.,” he explained, speakeasies were located in “a lot of apartments or [in] a room above a business so it looked like it was legit.” Many of these were hidden in plain sight, as shown on a widely-seen map published in 1930 by Rufus Lusk.
Local Prohibition history
While he prefers to “stick with DC” because it’s the city he knows best, Peck acknowledges that Prohibition in Washington, D.C. could be the start of a series of volumes of local history along the lines of “Prohibition in St. Louis,” “Prohibition in Milwaukee,” or “Prohibition in Buffalo.”
“I would certainly encourage historians in those other cities to explore those questions, especially where they know in fact there was a huge Prohibition culture,” he said, adding:
“I think Cleveland could write a story, Detroit could certainly write a story, Boston. Each one could definitely tell its own story about how the mayhem unfolded in their particular city. I would encourage that. I think the History Press would love to see more proposals like that.”
Peck noted that his book, Prohibition in Washington, D.C., is available for purchase in the gift shop of the Woodrow Wilson House and also available through on-line booksellers like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
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