speakeasy

A speakeasy was an establishment which illegally sold alcoholic beverages during the period of United States history (and the Canadian history) known as Prohibition (1920–1932, longer in some states). During this time, the sale, manufacture, and transportation (bootlegging) of alcohol was illegal.

The term may have come from a patron’s manner of ordering an alcoholic drink without raising suspicion—bartenders would tell patrons to be quiet and “speak easy,"^[1] or from the ability of patrons to talk of alcohol without having to fear that government officials would be listening.

Speakeasies became more popular and numerous as the Prohibition years progressed, and more of them were operated by people connected to organized crime. Although police and Bureau of Prohibition agents would raid them and arrest the owners and patrons, the business of running speakeasies was so lucrative that they continued to flourish throughout America. In major cities, speakeasies were often quite elaborate, offering food, live music, floor shows, and striptease dancers. Corruption was rampant—speakeasy operators routinely bribed police to leave them alone or to give them advance notice of raids.

Blind pig and blind tiger are terms for an establishment similar to a speakeasy.

Blind pigs

The term blind pig (or blind tiger) originated in the United States in the 1800s; it was applied to establishments that sold alcoholic beverages illegally. The operator of an establishment (such as a saloon or bar) would charge customers to see an attraction (such as an animal) and then serve a “complimentary” alcoholic beverage, thus circumventing the law.

“In desperate cases it has to betake itself to the exhibition of Greenland pigs and other curious animals, charging 25 cents for a sight of the pig and throwing in a gin cocktail gratuitously.”^[2]

The difference between a speakeasy and a blind pig was that a speakeasy was usually a higher-class establishment that offered food, sex, music, or entertainment, or even all three. In large cities, some speakeasies even required a coat and tie for men, and evening dress for women. But a blind pig was usually a low-class dive where only beer and liquor were offered.

Estimates of the number of blind pigs in some major American cities in the mid-1920s are:^{[citation needed]}

• Chicago, Illinois: 10,000
• Detroit, Michigan: 15,000
• New York City, New York: 30,000–100,000

Hidden secrets

In many rural towns, small speakeasies were operated by local business owners as a way of making extra money. These family secrets were often kept even after Prohibition ended. For example, in 2007 secret underground rooms thought to have been a speakeasy, were found by renovators on the grounds of the Cyber Cafe West in Binghamton, New York.^[3] They also found one in a family house in Washington DC.

Prohibition

The federal Volstead Act, which was passed with new authority from the Eighteenth Amendment, put Prohibition into effect on January 16, 1920. It lasted for almost 14 years. After years of lobbying by the temperance movement (mainly by the Anti-Saloon League and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union), the states had passed laws forbidding the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcoholic beverages.

The first state to go entirely “dry” was Kansas in 1881. States that did not go dry were called “wet states.”

See also

• Alcohol laws of Kansas
• Dive bar
• Prohibition
• Prohibition in the United States
• Shebeen
• Smokeasy

References

Bibliography

• Loretta Britten, Paul Mathless, Ed. Our American Century Jazz Age: The 20’s. 1998. New York: Bishop books inc., 1969.
• “The Dry Years” The Roaring Twenties Encyclopedia. 2007 Ed.
• The Twenties: The American destiny. London: Orbis Book Publishing Corporation Ltd. 1986.
• Kahn, Gordon, and Al Hirschfeld. (1932, rev. 2003). The Speakeasies of 1932. New York: Glenn Young Books. ISBN 1-557-83518-7.