Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
Bootlegging in the Great Gatsby
16
Bootlegging in the Great Gatsby by Oscar and Nalin
What is bootlegging?
Background
The 18th amendment restricted the sale, manufacturing, and transportation of alcohol to reserve resources for the war. Bootlegging became the illegal action of selling, manufacturing, and transportation of alcohol. After the war ended, the 21st amendment repealed the 18th.
Relation to The Great Gatsby
In Gatsby
We can infer that Gatsby is a bootlegger from his suspicious 'new' money - as Tom says, "A lot of these newly rich people are just big bootleggers," and Gatsby's attitude towards prohibition. Also according to Tom, Gatsby bootlegs alcohol by selling it in his drug stores.
Fitzgerald shows how many people simply ignored prohibition when Nick goes to Gatsby's party: "champagne was served in glasses bigger than finger-bowls"(46).
Interesting Facts and History
Interesting Facts
- Al Capone made his fortune by bootlegging. He made an $800,000,000 per year.
- When making alcohol, lead stills with lead soldering were used. It gave off acetate lead, a dangerous poison that caused the death of many people.
- Roy Olmstead, a cop who arrested bootleggers, saw how sloppy they were, and decided to do it better. He was later arrested by the cops as a result of illegal wiretapping and brought his case to the Supreme Court. However he lost and after spending 5 years in jail, he was pardoned by Franklin D. Roosevelt.
- Dutch Schultz or “The Dutchman” made a fortune through bootlegging in Brooklyn. A failed hit on him ended up with four children getting shot and one dying(the Baby Massacre). In order to escape law enforcement, he took all of his cash and precious gems($83 million in today's money), put them in a trunk and buried it along the banks of a river after jumping off a train near Phoenicia. It's rumored to still be there today.
- https://www.britannica.com/topic/bootlegging
- https://listverse.com/2014/09/03/10-fun-stories-about-americas-bootleggers/