History Comics: The Prohibition Era: America's War on Alcohol

History Comics

by Jason Viola, Roger Langridge (illustrator), Christine Sismondo (Introduction)

Turn back the clock with History Comics! In this volume we visit the Prohibition Era and see how the business of booze became a criminal enterprise!

In 1919, the United States ratified an amendment to the Constitution that outlawed the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol. As a hard-fought dream for a better world became federal law, society soon began facing an onslaught of new problems: clever bootleggers, corrupt enforcers, crowded prisons, and violent gangsters. Walk through the hidden hallway of a Jazz Age speakeasy to uncover the moral panic over alcohol and excess that we continue to grapple with today.

Genres: Graphic Novels, History, Nonfiction, Middle Grade

128 pages, Hardcover

Published October 22, 2024

Reviews

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

An engaging survey of a failed experiment from American history that is just rife with unintended consequences. And this is the sort of history that America keeps repeating as righteous morality police try again and again to ban things that a large number of people want to have available, be it marijuana and other drugs or abortions, books, or gay marriage.

The book is narrated by John Barleycorn, a fictional personification of alcohol that's been around for centuries, and it manages to cram in quite a few other public figures from Johnny Appleseed and P. T. Barnum to Al Capone and Eliot Ness to Bill W. and Dr. Bob of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A robust exploration of America's long history of anti-alcohol crusades, all leading up to ten years of prohibition. Lots of good information in this short book, but it really has to twist to explain drinking (and overindulging) to a young audience. The politics too probably aren't going to be fun reading for the target market.

But I'm an old, so I enjoyed it just fine!

[Becky B · Rating 3 out of 5]

A graphic novel history of the Prohibition Era in America. What led to alcohol being outlawed, what happened as a result, and what led to the amendment being repealed.

I thought this was a decent history of the era and fair look at both sides of the issues involved in it. I did find it a touch disappointing that they didn't explain why people drank mild beers and such so often in the past (because they didn't know about water impurities or how to purify water, but they knew a lot of water made people sick). Overall, this is a very informative read and much more entertaining than the average textbook. (Also, I learned a couple things I never knew before....like the link between rum runners and NASCAR.)

Notes on content:
Language: None
Sexual content: None, though it talks about flappers and them pushing common moral boundaries, no details though.
Violence: Mob violence is a huge part of the era and deaths from that is talked about (only implied in illustrations).
Ethnic diversity: Characters represent the multicultural makeup of America.
LGBTQ+ content: None specifically talked about
Other: Occasional alcohol consumption and alcoholism are talked about a lot, obviously. The book does a good job of differentiating between the two. Racism is talked about as the rise of the KKK ties into Prohibition.

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. This book was generally well done and covered a huge amount of information that spanned the Temperance movement’s connections to abolition and women’s suffrage to the rise of political machines and organized crime. It explained the neuroscience of alcohol and the brain as well as withdrawal and discussed cultural implications of alcohol use. It was a nice blend of history and science and generally explained what happened realistically and methodically. Some of the discussion is likely to go over the heads of some readers - particularly lower middle grade, but overall, it’s an interesting and pragmatic read. There is a bit of blood and murder depicted (mobsters, gangsters, etc.), but it’s not graphic. I found it to be an entertaining overview of a complex era.

[Ms. Yingling · Rating 5 out of 5]

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Even though I live in the Dry Capital of the US, Westerville, Ohio, I would disagree only with the author's assertion that everybody thinks they know about Prohibition. Fifty years ago, certainly. There were people around with active memories of the time, and more representation in books and films. We also need to remember that today's tweens and teens seem to have only the vaguest sense of the past. Westerville sadly started to allow alcohol to be sold again in 2004, and I would imagine that most of my students don't know that it was ever banned.

That being said, this is a fantastic book. It is absolutely packed with a myriad of details, so much so that I'm not even sure where to start. The book itself starts with what alcohol actually does in the body, which I can't say I knew in so much detail. It talks about the history of alcohol in the world and the US, touching on topics like the amount of beer consumed by the average person in Colonial times, and even a bit about Johnny Appleseed and fermented cider. The fact that alcohol was often problematic in families is definitely addressed, as is the political reasons behind Prohibition. We do see famous players during this time, like Carry A. Nation and Al Capone on the cover, and Speakeasies definitely get a thorough exploration, which even manages to tie in the women's movement.

These History Comics are all extremely well done and informative. I, for example, learned that saloons were sort of like settlement houses for me, who could come to get loans, jobs, food, and various kinds of help, but that they were funded by breweries that had political interests, so in exchange for help, the men would vote however they were told to vote. I knew about the political corruption in cities in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but I didn't know about it on this grassroots level.

This is told from the perspective of "John Barleycorn", a concept that is well explained at the beginning of the book, and it's a fun way to personalize and approach the topic for young readers, but I would have been fine with a more straightforward approach. I wasn't all that happy with the way that Carrie Nation was illustrated, but she was portrayed in a fairly sympathetic fashion, when she so easily could have just been the punch line to a joke. My grandmother was in the Women's Christian Temperance Union because she was a very religious Presbyterian, and I've always found it odd that some people don't know that Prohibition was partly a feminist and family safety issue, since men would often drink up the family's earnings and then become abusive. This issue is addressed and treated fairly.

Prohibition has also become associated with racism, and this book even unpacks that information in a fair way, which I appreciated. There is a helpful timeline at the end of the book, but no index. It's understandable-- the index would probably add another 15 pages to the book-- but regrettable, because an index would make this much easier to use for research.

The Prohibition Era: America's War on Alcohol had even more information than the traditional nonfiction book BootlegMurder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition (2011) by the fantastic and sadly missed nonfiction author Karen Blumnenthal. I'm not entirely sure how many of my students will actually make it all the way through the book, but I buy these comics because they are so informative.

[Murray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Told from the point of view of John Barleycorn of how the effects of alcohol on families at the end of the 19th century into the 20th century led to the Temperance movement in America that was also tied into the Suffrage movement that eventually led to the 18th Amendment, but American's especially immigrants, the well to do, and crime syndicates found ways around the law to make sure alcohol still flowed, but the governments poisoning of alcohol and rise in crime family violence against one another led to the repeal of Prohibition 14 years later. Recommended for 12-14 year-olds interested in American history or for reluctant readers to do not like to read regular nonfiction text. I don't think the fictional narrator added anything and the book does not have regular chapter breaks, which some young readers might find frustrating.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was extremely well done. I loved how it showed the issues from all sides, and how at the end it pointed out that banning alcohol didn't solve the problem people were hoping it would. Alcoholism was the true problem, and it is an addiction, and addiction is an illness. An alcoholic is someone who needs help and support for their illness, and banning alcohol doesn't cure an illness.

There were so many interesting points and characters. The section on gangsters and how crime rose because alcohol was banned was extremely interesting. It was very sad that ultimately the misguided notion of banning alcohol actually hurt minorities and people who were trying to earn an honest living.

Really great book. I think it would be good reading for high schoolers taking U.S. History.

[ribbonknight · Rating 4 out of 5]

This does a great job of arguing that alcohol has helped shape American history since the Mayflower, and uses a lot of historical facts to explain why.

The Prohibition of alcohol had a lot of political reasons for coming into being, and affected a lot of other issues in kind. And, once enacted, it had a lot of unforeseen consequences that eventually led to it being the only constitutional amendment to ever be rescinded (so far).

The use of comics to tell history is helpful for dense information, allowing the reader to more easily digest the wide narrative of alcohol’s impact over time. This made me think about political history in a different lens, which I very much appreciate.

[Sesana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciate how straightforward this graphic novel is. There's no silly framing story, and while the narrator is personified as John Barlyecorn, he's generally very unobtrusive. Perhaps this is because there's an awful lot to cover if you want to do anything like give a decent history of Prohibition. Definitely doesn't cover everything it possibly could, but it definitely covers well more than I had thought it would be able to.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series of books does an incredible introducing and engaging upper elementary and middle school readers to key periods and events in American history. The graphic novel style helps to provide support to the reader as well as engaging them visually. This book had so much information that I had to go back and reread a couple of sections to keep it all straight but I’m amazed by what I also learned that I didn’t know!

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alcohol has touched nearly every life around the globe in some way. In American lives, most of us know something about the prohibition era. But even I wasn't aware of just how many facets it had, and still has, in our lives. The ways it shaped and moved along, to still affect us. I'm recommending this one to my own readers to get a better understanding of our history and how it can affect our futures.

[Shirley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly thoughtful comic history of Prohibition for young readers. It covers the history of alcohol in general and touches on Wayne Wheeler, Carry Nation, Al Capone, women's suffrage, and the KKK. It can be difficult to tie a complex history together in a relatively short comic for kids, but they did a really good job.

[Mitchell Friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A straight history, and a pretty good one. Obviously much of this I've read before. But this made good choices of what and how to cover and how to tie it together. And the art kept the story moving along, except maybe for the Hummingbird flying the Washington's Monument to Mars.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series really does bring history to life! I’m really enjoying all of these.

[Jeremy Vetock · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am impressed at how this hit all the major beats of the roaring 20s with fairness and style. Having alcohol as a character was pretty genius too,

[Ashley Holbert]

The Prohibition Era in America's history is a weird time.

[Andréa]

Note: I received a digital review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

[Miranda Fillenwarth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has been my favorite in the History Comics series so far! I honestly didn’t know much about Prohibition before, and this book made learning about it actually fun.

I loved the style, especially how they made alcohol into a “character” that pops up throughout the story. It was super creative and kept me interested.

What surprised me were the specific ways Prohibition affected history: it helped organized crime bosses like Al Capon, and how the government lost millions in tax revenue from alcohol sales. And surprisingly, the Ku Klux Klan used Prohibition as part of their platform to gain political power by promoting “moral” values. Plus so much more that I genuinely didn't think or know Prohibition affected.

The way the book shows how everything eventually flipped was creative, even though that is literally how history happened. It’s kind of ironic. So many people fought to make alcohol illegal, and then later, a lot of them realized it caused even bigger problems and wanted it legal again. The book does a great job showing that shift without it feeling boring or too textbook-y. It made the ending feel satisfying and even a little funny in a full-circle kind of way.

if you want a fun, creative way to learn about this wild chapter in history, definitely give this one a read.