In honor of Women’s History Month
Originally posted March 2022
You might’ve heard of Al Capone and the “Real” Bill McCoy, famous alcohol smugglers during Prohibition. There’s certainly enough mention of men in mob-boss movies and other popular forms of media, like Interior of a crowded bar moments before midnight, June 30, 1919, when wartime prohibition was enacted in New York City.
Most people, however, go through life never hearing about Cleo, Moonshine Mary, or Esther Clark. Gertrude “Cleo” Lythgoe supplied Bill McCoy with rum from her business in the Bahamas before commissioning boats herself. Her estimated fortune? The modern-day equivalent of $15 million. She is now regarded as one of the many “Queens of the Bootleggers.” While Esther Clark was not the greatest, she was the first; nicknamed the “Henhouse Bootlegger,” Esther Clark stored liquor in her chicken coop in Kansas. While not as loved or celebrated as the suffragettes or flapper girls, the women behind the curtain’s impact on the American alcohol scene was immense.
Many women like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton used the early 20s to campaign for women’s suffrage. Once successful, as we all know, women voted to begin Prohibition. While it’s easy to now identify Prohibition as the catalyst for the American alcohol BOOM, we shouldn’t wave those women off as naïve, silly, or downright incorrect. A change in perspective here is critical. For example, it was illegal to serve women in bars, leading to stark gender differences in the drinking industry. Most of the time, women weren’t allowed to be in bars for fear of involvement with “unpleasant” activities.
Furthermore, serving laws were lax, leading to massive overconsumption in the male population and serving alcohol to children. Plagued by alcohol-fueled domestic violence, the suffragettes hoped to create safer home environments by slowing the consumption of drinking in the US. Instead, they started the era of mob bosses, speakeasies, and moonshine we now associate with the Roaring ’20s. The lack of government involvement in the alcohol industry led to a highly profitable black market tied to organized crime. While Prohibition didn’t do much in changing the overall quantity of alcohol consumed, it did drastically change HOW people drank. Considering all the patrons of speakeasies were breaking the law regardless of gender, women were now more welcome to infiltrate (and later dominate) the bar scene. The result coincides directly with the Flapper Girl visual of this time – it’s true, most women weren’t mob bosses, but not all 1920’s women were church-goers devoted to their husbands and bonnets either. Women were directly involved with all aspects of Prohibition, not just the implementation (and later repeal) of written law. What’s hard to picture now is the general societal belief of the time that women simply could not be involved with crime. Women, as homemakers, tended to be involved with homebrewing (as discussed in our previous article,) and many women turned to illegal creation and supply of alcohol to support their families. Quickly, women proved to be relatively advantaged socially, now politically, and most definitely (although accidentally) culturally during the Prohibition era. The male mob bosses favored flashy murders and being the talk of the town, while the quiet, secretive female bootleggers avoided incriminating themselves. During this era, it was illegal for male police officers to search women in all jurisdictions. It was insulting to the point of unlawful to accuse a woman of such a dastardly crime as smuggling booze, a norm the mob quickly exploited by hiring women to do nothing but sit in cars carrying illegal goods.
As the Boston Daily Globe recounts, “No one wanted to hold up an automobile containing women,” giving women a distinct advantage in smuggling. At one point, women bootleggers were feared to outnumber men 5 to 1. The majority of bootleggers were never caught, and historical records are incomplete. However, we do have to mention Moonshine Mary, a known female bootlegger convicted for murder, killing a man. Her weapon of choice? Tainted liquor.
Interesting, huh?
Other Things to Check Out:
Bourbon: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of An American Whiskey by Fred Minnick who also wrote this article
Grunge Article – Mina Elwell (3/17/2022)
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