Prohibition's Proving Ground

Prohibition's Proving Ground

Joseph Boggs

$24.9524.95
Examines the impact of the automobile during the tumultuous dry years in this trans-border region.
PPG Prohibition's Proving Ground The University of Toledo Press

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Prohibition’s Proving Ground examines the tumultuous dry years in this trans-border region through its thriving motorcar culture. In the 1910s local automobile factories churned out affordable vehicles that put many Toledo-Detroit-Windsor corridor residents on wheels for the first time, just as a wave of prohibitionist sentiment swept the area.

State, provincial, and federal dry laws soon took effect in Ontario, Michigan, and Ohio, and native rumrunners fully utilized the area’s robust automobile culture to exploit weaknesses in prohibition legislation and enforcement. Ultimately, the noble experiment failed on the TDW corridor.

Its failure can be partly attributed to controversial policing practices that angered area motorists suspected of bootlegging. Local sheriffs, troopers, and dry agents could not stem the tide of motorized professional smugglers who increasingly perpetrated brutal crimes in the region’s rural roadways and city streets.

Product Details

Title: Prohibition's Proving Ground: Cops, Cars, & Rumrunners in the Toledo-Detroit-Windsor Corridor

Author: Joseph Boggs

Genre: History

Paperback: 237 pages

Publisher: The University of Toledo Press

ISBN: 978-1-7332664-5-1

News Coverage & Reviews

Michigan Public Radio interview "Convergence of cars and alcohol made the Detroit-Windsor-Toledo triangle a bootlegging hotspot"

Monroe News article "Book details Monroe County's rum-running days"

Featured Release from UT Press

By Joseph Boggs

Prohibition's Proving Ground

Cops, Cars, and Rumrunners in the Toledo-Detroit-Windsor Corridor

Prohibition’s Proving Ground examines the tumultuous dry years in this trans-border region through its thriving motorcar culture.

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