Buying in With Bootleg: Working Class Families, Prohibition, and the Prosperity of the 1920's

Jan Reiff, UCLA

September 20, 2002, 3:00-5:00 pm

This essay explores bootlegging and crime as vital economic activities that generated income working class families needed to sustain themselves and to participate in the emerging consumer culture of the 1920's. Focusing on Chicago's far south side, the paper also explores how these communities concealed the history of covert criminal economic activities in ways that make it difficult for historians to understand the importance of activities like bootlegging. Finally, it points to broader questions about the relationship between work, home, and community in the inter-war era.

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