USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -What is bootlegging ? In U.S. history, bootlegging was the illegal manufacture, transport, distribution, or sale of alcoholic beverages during the Prohibition period (1920–33), when those activities were forbidden under the Eighteenth Amendment (1919) to the U.S. Constitution.

Detailed explanation-2: -The people who illegally made, imported, or sold alcohol during this time were called bootleggers. In contrast to its original intent, Prohibition, a tenet of the “Jazz Age” of the 1920s, caused a permanent change in the way the nation viewed authority, the court system, and wealth and class.

Detailed explanation-3: -Etymology. From bootleg +-er. Originally a nickname given to smugglers in King George III’s reign, derived from the smugglers’ custom of hiding packages of valuables in the legs of their large sea-boots when dodging the king’s coastguardsmen.

Detailed explanation-4: -Finally, bootleggers took to bottling their own concoctions of spurious liquor, and by the late 1920s stills making liquor from corn had become major suppliers. Bootlegging helped lead to the establishment of American organized crime, which persisted long after the repeal of Prohibition.

Detailed explanation-5: -Image courtesy of Library of Congress A World War I veteran, George Cassiday became legendary for his bootlegging activities in the House and Senate Office Buildings during the Prohibition Era.