A fascinating look at the excesses and failures of Prohibition in the United States, and specifically in Michigan. On January 17, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment took effect in the United States, prohibiting the manufacture, sale, use, or importation of alcoholic beverages. Yet the resulting peace and tranquility predicted never materialized. The Prohibition experiment failed dismally in the United States, and nowhere worse than in Michigan. The state's close proximity to Canada, where large amounts of liquor were manufactured, made it a major center for the smuggling and sale of illegal alcohol. Although federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies attempted to stop the flow of liquor into Michigan, an astounding seventy-five percent of all illegal liquor brought into the United States was transported across the Detroit River from Canada. Using police and court records, newspaper accounts, and interviews with those who lived during the time, Philip P. Mason has constructed a fascinating history of life in Michigan during Prohibition. He regales readers with stories of the bungled efforts by officials at every level to control the smuggling and sale of illegal alcohol. Most entertaining are the creative smuggling efforts undertaken by citizens of all walks of life-the poor, middle class, and affluent, upstanding citizens and organized criminals and gang members. By 1928 Prohibition was a major issue in the presidential campaign. In 1933, with the support of President Franklin Roosevelt, Michigan's governor William Comstock, and other leaders, the Twenty-first Amendment was passed, repealing Prohibition. Michigan was the first state to ratify the amendment on April 10, 1933, and soon the Detroit River was returned to pleasure boats and fishing and commercial vessels whose holds no longer carried illegal liquor.

Between 1920 and 1933 the issue of prohibition proved to be the greatest challenge to Canada-U.S. relations. When the United States adopted national prohibition in 1920—ironically, just as Canada was abandoning its own national and provincial experiments with prohibition—U.S. tourists and dollars promptly headed north and Canadian liquor went south. Despite repeated efforts, Americans were unable to secure Canadian assistance in enforcing American prohibition laws until 1930. Bootleggers and Borders explores the important but surprisingly overlooked Canada-U.S. relationship in the Pacific Northwest during Prohibition. Stephen T. Moore maintains that the reason Prohibition created such an intractable problem lies not with the relationship between Ottawa and Washington DC but with everyday operations experienced at the border level, where foreign relations are conducted according to different methods and rules and are informed by different assumptions, identities, and cultural values. Through an exploration of border relations in the Pacific Northwest, Bootleggers and Borders offers insight into not only the Canada-U.S. relationship but also the subtle but important differences in the tactics Canadians and Americans employed when confronted with similar problems. Ultimately, British Columbia’s method of addressing temperance provided the United States with a model that would become central to its abandonment and replacement of Prohibition.

This work is an accurate, wide-ranging, and entertaining account of the illegal liquor traffic during the Prohibition Era (1920 to 1933). Based on FBI files, legal documents, old newspapers and other sources, it offers a coast-to-coast survey of Volstead crime--outrageous stories of America's most notorious liquor lords, including Al Capone and Dutch Schultz. Readers will find the lesser known Volstead outlaws to be as fascinating as their more famous counterparts. The riveting tales of Max Hassel, Waxy Gordon, Roy Olmstead, the Purple Gang, the Havre Bunch, and the Capitol Hill Bootlegger will be new to most readers. Likewise, the exploits of women bootleggers and flying bootleggers are unknown to most Americans. Books about Prohibition usually note that Canadian liquor exporters abetted the U.S. bootleggers, but they fail to go into detail. Bootleggers and Beer Barons examines the major cross-border routes for smuggling liquor from Canada into the U.S.: Quebec to Vermont and New York, Ontario to Michigan, Saskatchewan to Montana, and British Columbia to Washington.

Between 1920 and 1933 the issue of prohibition proved to be the greatest challenge to Canada-U.S. relations. When the United States adopted national prohibition in 1920—ironically, just as Canada was abandoning its own national and provincial experiments with prohibition—U.S. tourists and dollars promptly headed north and Canadian liquor went south. Despite repeated efforts, Americans were unable to secure Canadian assistance in enforcing American prohibition laws until 1930. Bootleggers and Borders explores the important but surprisingly overlooked Canada-U.S. relationship in the Pacific Northwest during Prohibition. Stephen T. Moore maintains that the reason Prohibition created such an intractable problem lies not with the relationship between Ottawa and Washington DC but with everyday operations experienced at the border level, where foreign relations are conducted according to different methods and rules and are informed by different assumptions, identities, and cultural values. Through an exploration of border relations in the Pacific Northwest, Bootleggers and Borders offers insight into not only the Canada-U.S. relationship but also the subtle but important differences in the tactics Canadians and Americans employed when confronted with similar problems. Ultimately, British Columbia’s method of addressing temperance provided the United States with a model that would become central to its abandonment and replacement of Prohibition.

Canadians have long associated Prohibition with the colorful history of the Jazz Age in the United States. But even before the American ban that was in place from 1920 to 1933, Canada initiated its own Prohibition. The so-called Cold Water Army was led by zealots and prudes preaching hellfire and damnation, but also by committed social reformers who recognized the ill effects of excessive drinking. In March 1918, the federal government banned the manufacture and importation of liquor. For the next 21 months, Canada was as dry as any law could make it, which admittedly was not very dry. Closing Time tells the story of this fascinating attempt to control the social habits of Canadian citizens. It began as a popular crusade to cleanse society of a widespread evil, but instead became an opportunity for larceny, profit, and violence on a grand scale. Employing a variety of anecdotes and illustrations, Closing Time conjures the legal and historical context of Prohibition, presenting well-rendered figures and impressive research. Comparing the past with our present-day prohibition of certain recreational drugs, Francis explores the limits of laws that forbid these indulgences — a topic that is quite relevant today.