Prohibition in Joplin, Missouri

On January 17, 1919, the Joplin Globe reported on the don of Prohibition in America as Missouri became the 37th state to ratify the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, effectively banning the sale of alcohol. The 36th state, Nebraska, brought the country to the three-fourths majority required to make it official.

Prohibition was in place by January 1920, ushering in the era of roaring speakeasies and notorious gangsters. 

Just a decade earlier, in January 1910, the temperance movement initiated the "hardest fought election ever held in Joplin," in which wets narrowly defeated drys to keep Joplin saloons in business. 

Once the Great Depression hit in 1929, economies needed a boost, the government needed tax dollars, and, perhaps, weary Americans just needed a drink. Prohibition was repealed in 1933. 

Full versions of these and many other front pages and historic photographs can be found in the Joplin Globe's new hardbound, large-format book, "Greater Joplin Through Our Eyes: 120 Years of Front Pages & Photos from the Globe and its Readers."