This week marks the one hundredth anniversary of the ban coming into impact. On January 16, 1920, Nebraska grew to become the thirty sixthe state to ratify the 18th Modification, the required three-quarters of the 48 states within the Union, which bans the sale of “intoxicating liquors.” America’s “noble experiment” started the following day when the Volstead Act went into impact, establishing enforcement provisions.
This legislative achievement, the fruits of temperance and nativist actions almost a century within the making, inadvertently gave rise to an unlawful smuggling business, a transnational smuggling commerce, organized crime syndicates, and an attendant wave of violence. On the identical time, speakeasies facilitated the rise of jazz and a type of girls’s liberation, personified within the flapper, very completely different from something the suffragettes had imagined. On the U.S.-Mexico border under San Diego, a parallel historical past was unfolding—one in all battle between enterprise pursuits and ethical reformers. At stake was the definition of American nationwide identification in an period of mass immigration, speedy technological innovation, and sweeping cultural transformation. What wouldn’t it imply to maneuver ahead as an American?
In 1920, Mexico emerged from a decade of revolutionary turmoil and sought income to finance city growth for state formation within the sparsely populated northern border area. Baja California territorial governor Abelardo Rodríguez supplied enterprise concessions to American vice entrepreneurs displaced by federal alcohol and state playing bans to function saloons, race tracks and casinos south of the road. Tax revenues from these firms might finance the development of highways, waterworks and different infrastructure. Enticed by distinctive employment alternatives and better wages, migrants from Mexico’s inside flocked to the border, taking Tijuana from a modest border city of 1,200 individuals firstly of Prohibition to a burgeoning metropolis of over 12,000 by the point the border closed. 1933 was withdrawn.
The emergence of a Mexican “sin metropolis” so near residence fueled considerations amongst Southern California’s ethical reformers. When San Diego’s enterprise pursuits proposed constructing a freeway to the border on the eve of Prohibition in 1919, temperance advocates, anticipating the approaching vice resorts, sought to dam this “street to hell.” On this the guardians of American ethical civilization failed, however they quickly discovered optimism of their alliance with Republican Congressman Phil Swing. As Tijuana grew to become a well-liked vacation spot for thirsty People skirting bans at residence, Swing managed to get the U.S. federal authorities to impose a curfew on People re-entering California on the San Ysidro gate. In 1924, customs and immigration officers instituted a 9 p.m. closing hour, forcing day trippers to hurry residence or stay in Mexico till 8 a.m. the following morning. Inside two years, in response to rising outrage over the continued debauchery under the road, Swing managed to push its closing time even additional to six p.m. Thus, one of many first main border enforcement campaigns at this port of entry was designed to keep away from controlling migration. or smuggling – though these had been excessive priorities – however relatively to discourage the publicity of Americans to Tijuana’s morally corrupting influences.
On this centennial of one in all America’s best social experiments, it is value reflecting on what these occasions can educate us concerning the present political local weather. The story of the battle between ethical reformers and enterprise pursuits on the U.S.-Mexico border throughout Prohibition raises a central paradox of American nationwide identification. On the one hand, People have historically outlined their nation as a individuals held collectively by an adherence to widespread beliefs, not the least of which is a dedication to “free market” rules. Then again, market practices have frequently challenged different concepts about membership on this nationwide group. San Diego’s ethical reformers had been bona fide champions of conventional American market values. However when put into follow on the worldwide frontier, these forces appeared to threaten different cherished beliefs—austerity and morality—that the guardians of this rising civilization believed had been solely starting to awaken.
In the present day, People are way more involved about who and what’s crossing the border north from Mexico than about who’s heading south for an evening out. However just like the ethical battle in San Diego in the course of the Prohibition years, the border points that propelled Donald Trump to the White Home evoke a perceived disaster of American nationwide identification. In an period of globalization, speedy technological change, new waves of immigration and attendant cultural transformations, People need to know what it means to be American on the earth their kids and grandchildren will inherit. Viewing the present second in historic perspective can present some helpful instruments for locating stability amid all of the uncertainty.
Malone is a Ph.D. candidate within the Division of Historical past at UC San Diego and the Evaluations Editor for the Journal of San Diego Historical past.