New years eve 1919 .. party cloudy in Pottsville .. according to weather records, it turned blustery and much colder as the clock struck midnight and the 19-teens turned into the roaring 20s..
As we get set to embark on yet another crusade into a new decade of roaring 20s, it’s always fun to look back at who we were 100 years ago in time. Because you know for sure if life still exists in 2120 we’ll be doing the same about today’s modern time…
The Pottsville REPUBLICAN blared a headline NEW YEARS GREETINGS WITH A BOLD MESSAGE ‘MAY 1920 BE THE GREATEST!
The headlines that cold January 1, 1920 morning, weren’t so chipper..
The “reds” were going to be wiped out, according to the Attorney General at the time.. this was the first elements of what would become known as a decades long red scare that culminated in Senator Eugene McCarthy holding hearings in the 1950s..
As the revelers partied in Times Square, news from New York was peaceful.. two thousands police lined streets but made little to no arrests that year, despite lots of tales of public intoxication and high prices for wine corking in the streets.
News from the nation also presented a more somber tone.. a wave of wood alcohol poisoning was taking place across the United States that year, and the front page of the REPUBLICAN reported that it would be a full day before authorities became aware of the number of deaths from the fad that year..
The mood was bright in WIKES BARRE with the TIMES LEADER hoping that old political arguments were over and a happier city was going to result..
The paper on January 1, 1920, illustrated the party atmosphere of hope the 20s were bringing.. Crowds filled bars and restaurants in the city.. many spent money “lavishly” as they ushered out the teens..
The Associated Press ran a dispatch on January 1 1920 stating that parades and fun filled American streets.. it called the celebration in New York ‘hilarious’ .. Hilarious did not have exactly the same meaning then as it does now.. now it’s LOL-ing or ROTF-ing.. then it was being uproarious or merry..
The AP also reported President Woodrow Wilson spent hours in his wheelchair on the South Portico of the White House and ate a ‘moderate meal.’
While Post Malone and BTS will greet our new decade there is an elephant in the room of history… Prohibition.
So many news releases and dispatches about the ‘hilarious’ people getting zozzled (that’s another word in the flapper era for drunk) exist.. But didn’t prohibition also take place?
Yes.. the driest era in history.. Except for those little hidden underworld locations where you had to have special knocks at doors at the speak easy..
This AP news article about the crowds in New York reference that very thing.. Prohibition was set to commence in 1920 .. on January 17th to be exact.. but tons of people still purchased alcohol in advance to the new law that would last until 1933 in order to get drunk for 1920..
The roaring 20s of the 1900s are built on this idea of illegal alcohol.. secret speakeasys.. And yes Prohibition sure put a blue nose on fun in this era .. *blue nose: A web blanket.
On November 18, 1918, prior to ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment, the U.S. Congress passed the temporary Wartime Prohibition Act.. this was supposed to save grain for the war effort.. The Wartime Prohibition Act took effect June 30, 1919, with July 1, 1919 becoming known as the “Thirsty-First”..
It wasn’t until years after the roaring 20s that alcohol was dispensed again–during a Great Depression no less!!
On March 22, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the Cullen–Harrison Act, legalizing beer with an alcohol content of 3.2% (by weight) and wine of a similarly low alcohol content. On December 5, 1933, ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment..
Speakeasys were abundant around the nation… including the city of Pottsville.
This report appeared in 1930, just as the roaring 20s ended and the era of prohibition was coming to an end in America… This post from June 17, 1930:
And the rest was history..
There is some weird irony as we end the teens.. the age limit to buy cigarettes has just increased from 18 to 21.. they are not banned, it certainly has created a new prohibition based somewhat on age.
The new law enacted last week by Congress also applies to electronic cigarettes and vaping products that heat a liquid containing nicotine.
We are all in history now, as the ball readies to drop and you choose the party and people you plan to attend New Year’s Eve with.
This is a big one.. We are leaving the teenage years of our lives.. we are ending a year.. and ending a decade. And beginning a raucous trip into yet another roar of the 20s… we don’t have Coolidge but we have Trump.. let’s hope our new 20s won’t end the same way the 20s of 100 years ago did. Because I quite frankly don’t see a map where a Roosevelt can save us!
This is what the Pottsville Republican wrote on the eve of 1920..
So mind your potatoes.. watch out for the foot juice.. and tell the teens to just go chase yourself!
