Advance ticket sales have ended but plenty of additional tickets remain available at the door.
Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “Speaking of Speakeasies,” a discussion of prohibition and its boozy effects, with Allen Pietrobon, assistant professor of history at Trinity Washington University.
The 1920 Constitutional amendment prohibiting the consumption of alcohol was billed as a solution to the nation's most pressing social issues, including alcoholism, childhood malnutrition, and domestic violence. Instead, it uncorked a vibrant cultural rebellion and a host of new social problems, with its heady effects still felt today.
Come learn in depth about this chapter of American history at Crooked Run Fermentation, the perfect place to celebrate Prohibition’s status as a distant memory. Serving up the historical knowledge will be Professor Allen Pietrobon, who has given several excellent Profs and Pints talks and earned a substantial following among the company’s fans.
He’ll discuss how attempts to circumvent or profit from Prohibition gave crime new meaning, provoking a 12-year-long gang war that made Al Capone a household name. Women became more liberated, unleashing a sexual revolution, and jazz transformed from an underground expression of the African American experience into the soundtrack of a new generation.
Among the questions Professor Pietrobon will tackle: Considering that even the president himself drank in violation of the law, why bother with prohibition? How had alcohol become such a problem that the U.S. banned all “intoxicating beverages”? Why did the ban fail so spectacularly? How did this period change America? (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: Liquor is dumped into a sewer after a raid in New York City. (Library of Congress photo.)