2-378-269 - Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images

Enforcing prohibition, Norfolk, Virginia, USA, 1920s. Law enforcement agents examining at a cache of 191 pint bottles found underneath a sailor's mattress on a steamer putting in at Norfolk, Virginia. The sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol for consumption were banned in the United States under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, passed by Congress in 1919. The ban remained in force until the amendment was repealed in 1933. During the Prohibition era, the illicit trade in alcoholic drinks was rampant, and intimately linked with organised crime.