Viewing The Noble Experiment in Minnesota. Thomas L. Olson: Book Review of Elaine Davis, "Minnesota 13: Stearns County

The Noble Experiment in Minnesota. Thomas L. Olson: Book Review of Elaine Davis, "Minnesota 13: Stearns County

Alcohol prohibition in the United States, as proscribed by the Constitution's 18th Amendment, lasted just 13 years and failed utterly. Yet it is the subject of countless books and articles--both popular and scholarly. It has also been the stuff of endless fiction and motion pictures. And it continues. Perhaps it's the drama of larger-than-life mobsters. Perhaps it's also because in a sense, in the way we approach seeming problems, prohibition never ended. Nowadays it's not alcohol production and use but rather the use and perceived misuse of drugs, mild to high-powered, which results in extraordinary jail time for violent and casual offenders alike. Then, and now in some places, we finally came to grips with laws that do more damage than good.

But then as now, the story of a law and its unintended consequences is not confined to its big-name players. Elaine Davis' "Minnesota 13" tells us a great deal about the prohibition years from 1920 to 1933 in Stearns County, Minnesota, a place where people needed to make a living, legal or not, and where the law of prohibition ran directly counter to the ethnic, cultural, and social traditions of the inhabitants. They were, probably in the main, people who did not want to be reformed, whether by local do-gooders or the federal government. In this thoroughly researched and well told story there is much for all of us to consider.

The book is reviewed by Thomas L. Olson, the author of "Blockbusters: Minnesota's Movie Men Slug it out with Studio Moguls, 1938-1948," one of the most frequently downloaded articles on the Minnesota Legal History Project website.

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