Prohibition’s Failure in Pittsburgh

In late 1920, one year after the Eighteenth Amendment had become law in the America, Pittsburgh was considered "the wettest spot in the United States" by Washington Prohibition leaders.1 Though not as romanticized as New York or Chicago, Pittsburgh provided more than its fair share of gangsters, open saloons, speakeasies, stills, and corrupted officials to the nation's Prohibition enforcement woes. Pittsburgh's disregard for the temperance amendment is in many ways not surprising. With its large population of recent immigrants, heavy industry, ward politics, and large size, the city faced the same cultural and political problems with enforcement as did the other major northeastern industrial centers, such as New York, Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit