Broads and Bootlegging: A Brief History of Women during the Prohibition Era

The following is a guest post by Megan Luebberman, an intern with the Creative Digital Projects of the Law Library of Congress. She recently graduated with her bachelor’s in English at Vanguard University of Southern California and hopes to work as a writer and editor on stories that will inspire others.

The 1920s are often characterized by a party scene. Illicit speakeasies, or secret bars, came into being all over the United States, even in Washington, D.C., in defiance of the 18th Amendment, which banned the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors.” Law enforcement saw an increase in criminal gang activity and attempted to enforce the ban on alcohol despite being outnumbered and outmanned. Rather than encourage sobriety and morality, the prohibition of alcohol seemed to cause an increased interest in drinking and partying. Many found creative ways of evading law enforcement and creating secret bars to drink and dance at. Ultimately, the drinkers of America prevailed over prohibition and it came to an end with the 21st Amendment.

Women saw an expansion in their social abilities, allowing them to participate in such social gatherings. Before the introduction of speakeasies, women were often barred from going to saloons and were not expected to drink in public. Once speakeasies were created, genders were no longer segregated from drinking together. Females were suddenly allowed to dance and drink in public and some women even owned speakeasies themselves.

The irony in the increase of female drinkers and partiers was that many women had advocated for Prohibition with their new right to vote. Both the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Women’s Suffrage movement had worked together to ban the consumption of alcohol. Women’s rights movements in the 1920s shifted and transformed in several regards, beginning with Prohibition, followed by their right to vote the next year, and continuing with their personal autonomy, showcased by their involvement in illegal bars and other social changes. Despite originally rallying for Prohibition, some women had a change of heart after the 18th Amendment came into effect, and their participation in speakeasies eventually opened up a wide variety of significant social, entrepreneurial, and legal opportunities for women. The female experience of Prohibition helped shape the history of gender roles and created avenues in the public sphere.

Societal Changes- Shifts in Social Expectations for Women

Before Prohibition, saloons were primarily male-dominated spaces, though some establishments did have ladies’ entrances for women with separate rooms to drink in. The creation of speakeasies allowed women to partake in drinks among men in public spaces without any enforced separation of genders. The social taboo of women drinking, dancing, and dressing less modestly in more public ways became broken as society began to see more and more women delve into the wild atmosphere of speakeasies, which were taboo themselves.

As perceptions changed, some establishments even catered directly to their female patrons. Certain restaurants offered table service to women uncomfortable at the bar top so that they could still drink but sit properly at a table. Meanwhile, bootleggers and gangsters alike welcomed the revenue from any individual, regardless of gender.

Bootlegging- A Business Opportunity for Women

In addition to attending speakeasies, many women found themselves in an active role against Prohibition as bootleggers. Most ran operations out of their own homes on a small scale, some making profits that rivaled a man’s yearly salary in a matter of weeks. The Colorado Encyclopedia states that:

“[i]n the 1920s, women held every sort of illegal job pertaining to booze, from running kitchen stills to peddling booze, tallying sales records, and smuggling alcohol within and across borders. Some women got so deep into bootleg crime rings that they committed murder.”

Other more well-known women owned and ran entire speakeasies, becoming successful entrepreneurs in the process. Helen Morgan ran several speakeasies around New York while working as a performer on Broadway. Texas Guinan, another actress, was one of the most well-known speakeasy hostesses and icons – running speakeasies for gangsters before opening her own speakeasies later on. Women continued to stand out in the speakeasy scene as owners, hostesses, and performers all in one.

Law Enforcement – Women on Both Sides

Women becoming prominent bootleggers, let alone being involved with mafia organizations, was seemingly unprecedented by society – so much so that even law enforcement treated female criminals differently simply because of their gender. In court, there are accounts of judges letting female criminals go or giving them very small punishments for their bootlegging crimes. Because of this, they were less inclined to get arrested or punished, therefore women became ideal to use in the mafia. According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives:

“[i]ncreasing numbers of bootleggers would use women to help smuggle their alcohol as several states had laws preventing male agents from frisking or otherwise searching female suspects, creating the urgent need for female law enforcement officers.”

Prohibition also saw new opportunities for women to join law enforcement, especially to catch these female perpetrators. The very first female Internal Revenue Service agent and first Prohibition agent, Georgia Hopley, talked about a woman’s ability to catch female lawbreakers, who she thought used more tricks to avoid detection and arrest than their male counterparts.

After Prohibition ended, public opinion often still reflected that women should not drink publicly but women celebrated with “co-mingled public drinking” to mark the end of one era and the beginning of another. In 2021, 38.4% of those working in retail sales of beer, wine, and liquor were women [table 14]. Prohibition helped shift paradigms of gender roles and how society perceived women, both in the alcohol industry and in the world at large, towards where we are today.

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