Thursday, March 1, 2018

Winter trek, Part III: The American Prohibition Museum

The American Prohibition Museum in Savannah is packed tightly in the cluster of shops in City Market, which is probably why I wasn't strongly drawn to it my first two visits to the city. It's also why the attraction usually has at least one employee -- dressed in period garb -- outside the main entrance ... so that passers-by take notice.

With five days to explore Savannah this time around, we made a point to spend a day or two looking closely at some of the attractions we'd notice previously, but had simply walked past.

The Prohibition Museum impressively more spacious than it appears from the outside. It is packed with historical fodder. The most informative stuff is the plethora of newspaper clippings framed in wall hangings -- headlines screaming the pros and cons of the enactment of the 18th Amendment -- the U.S. government's decision to ban the manufacture, sale and distribution (but not the consumption) of alcoholic beverages.

The ban, which took effect in 1919, was a buckle to a strong religious lobby -- led by the Women's Christian Temperance Union -- which argued that alcoholic beverages had become the bane of existence to American families. The organization claimed that too many men were spending inordinately large percentages of a household's income on their addiction to spirits, impoverishing families in the process.

While there is plenty of historical artifacts commemorating the emotional reaction to the start of Prohibition in 1919, there is a good amount, too, celebrating its repeal with -- passage of the 21st Amendment -- in 1933. (I've always wondered whether a large percentage of Americans understood the "why" behind the name of the 21st Amendment franchise liquor stores.)

There is a lot of materials devoted to how organized crime exploited the "dry" spell to rake in millions trafficking in illegal production, sales and distribution of booze ... and the secretive consumption of spirits in establishments known as speakeasys.


There is a point in the museum, too, where visitors can get pictures taken of themselves holding Tommy guns standing against a wall next to life-size re-creations of Prohibition gangsters Al Capone, Bugs Morgan and Machine Jack McGurn. That's what you see in the photo leading off the post. These re-creations are of high quality; I took closeups of Moran and Capone and dropped them into the text here.

Many years ago, probably when I was in grade school, I recall the subject of Prohibition coming up at home, probably while we were watching an old movie classic on television. My father, who did not turn 21 until November 1931 -- two years before the repeal -- tried to explain to us kids what it was about. I don't remember having the presence of mind to do the math and figure he would have been old enough to sneak drinks in those two years before repeal, much less ask him about it. I sure would like to do that today. My mother was almost a full eight years younger than Dad, so she wouldn't even have been a teenager when the repeal came along.

The subject has always intrigued me, although today, in the 21st century, I rarely think about it ... unless something like a Prohibition Museum presents itself.

The museum charges $12 for admission; for another $5, you have the option to buy a ticket for a modest cocktail in the museum's "speakeasy" near the end of your visit.

To view a larger and sharper version of any image here, just click on the photo. To see a full gallery of images from my visit to the museum, click on the link in this sentence.

Photo geek stuff: All images were taken with my iPhone X, with minimum editing done post-processing (mostly to cull detail in heavily shadowed areas).

Above: Outside in the City Market plaza, if the museum staffer decked out in period clothing doesn't get your attention, perhaps this Roaring Twenties era automobile will. 

Above: A period media image blown up for a display on many of the walls in the museum.

The people here are fake, but that's real fluid pouring from the whiskey barrel.

Above: Many visitors to the museum were stopping to do selfies and/or pictures holding a sign provided by the museum to stand alongside these protesters. 

Above and below: Examples of media coverage and cartoon editorializing on the subject of Prohibition.


The boy above hawks a promotional flier for vociferous pro-Prohibition advocate Billy Sunday, a former Major League Baseball player turned evangelist. The museum provided a short video clip of Sunday (first below) in one of his tirades about the evil of not only liquor, but of all of Savannah. The city was the first community to ban spirits (1908) in the United States, but it was not a popular decision. Opposition to it in Chatham County (where Savannah is located) was vehement, in fact, that it spawned a movement for the county to secede from the union. A wall mural devoted to the city's role in Prohibition appears below the Billy Sunday image.  



Above: The museum's displays incorporate many forms of media. The one above is a hologram positions behind some period props. 

Above: One room is devoted to portraits of the prominent figures in the Prohibition movement.

Above: A revealing image showing spirits being dumped into the street from upper-floor windows. 

Above and next two below: Some displays devoted to the rise of the emergency and thriving of illegal liquor trafficking.



Above: I believe this display was in the area devoted to the Roaring Twenties and Charleston dance craze.

Above and below: Two shots of the area reproducing what a speakeasy might have looked like. Some visitors are enjoying their free cocktails. You are welcome to order refills ... for cost, of course. 


Above and next two below: Displays reflecting the nation's excitement after Prohibition was repealed.



Above and below: Examples of merchandise for sale in a gift shop attached to the museum. The shop also carries non-Prohibition paraphernalia. 


Next up: Telfair Academy, Savannah

Previous posts in this series: 

Savannah at night

Savannah in daylight


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