Episode 172 - To curtail social ills like alcoholism, family violence, and other unsavoury behaviours, religious and puritanical proponents of the Temperance Movement demonized alcohol throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.

After numerous U.S. states had become ‘dry’ outlawing the production and sale of alcohol in the years prior, in 1919, the United States ratified the 18th amendment to their constitution, which banned the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within the country’s borders. As hoarded supplies quickly began to run dry over the next ten years, Americans looked outside their borders to keep the liquor flowing into the country. 

Scores of Canadians stepped up, flouting the laws to move alcohol across the 49th parallel. Many were entrepreneurs with a daredevil spirit, a means of transportation and a desire to make a quick buck, but others were psychopathic, dangerous, mob-connected killers. We’ll talk about a couple of them here.

Mike Browne's new book, MURDER, MADNESS, AND MAYHEM: Twenty-Five Tales of True Crime and Dark History, is available this November from Harper Collins Canada! You can pre-order your copy now: https://bit.ly/3oSnKXS

Sources:
[Prohibition: An Interactive History – Mob Museum]
[Women Led the Temperance Charge – Prohibition: An Interactive History]
[Captain Jack Randell]
[Captain Jack Randell - Classic Sailboats]
[The Sinking of The I’m Alone]
[Heaving To Is a Valuable Skill for All Sailors]
[Story of the I’m Alone | Decora-chan | Prince Edward Island]
[Ernest Hemingway - Biographical - NobelPrize.org]
[The Whisky King - Trevor Cole - eBook]
[Molls of a mobster | Maclean’s | OCTOBER 5, 1987]
[Biography – STARKMAN, BESHA (Tobin)]

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