Chesapeake Rumrunners of the Roaring Twenties

Chesapeake Rumrunners of the Roaring Twenties
Author: Eric Mills
Publisher: Cornell Maritime Press/Tidewater Publishers
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2000
Genre: History
ISBN:

It was a whiskey-soaked age that was supposed to be dry. Prohibition may have been the law of the land, but hte Chesapeake Bay country was awash in a sea of illegal alcohol. The marshes were teeming with hidden stills, and bootleg liquor was smuggled throughout the waterways and the adjoining countryside by daring men in fast boats and faster cars. Chesapeake Rumrunners of the Roaring Twenties is a saga of people--watermen and steamer captains, mob raketeers and "legitimate" buisnessmen--all of them wanting part of the action. In the maze of Bay waters, boats played a key role in that action, many disguised as workboats but built for speed and the ability to out-maneuver the law. On the other side, Billy Sunday and an army of temerpance crusaders campaigned tirelessly to encourage Prohibition, while federal agents and Coast Guardsmen shared the impossible task of enforcing it.

Pirates & Patriots, Tales of the Delaware Coast

Pirates & Patriots, Tales of the Delaware Coast
Author: Michael Morgan
Publisher: Algora Publishing
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2005
Genre: Atlantic Coast (Del.)
ISBN: 0875863388

Libraries, archives, and museums reveal clues to the colorful characters lining the history of Delaware, from its earliest colonial days to the invention of the "beach resort" and the founding of the nation's "Summer Capital" to World War II and the present. Author Michael Morgan brings together this kaleidoscopic view of the men of the sea and the beachfront tycoons who shaped Delaware and its role in the development of America, in war, politics, and business, from the Europeans' arrival at Cape Henlopen until modern times. While the intrepid patriot Henry Fisher and the infamous serial killer Patty Cannon are not known beyond the boundaries of southern Delaware, others such as William Penn, Captain Kidd and the DuPonts enjoy more widespread reputations. Here, tales of shipwrecks and rumrunners combine with the politics of slavery and suffrage to illuminate the history of one corner of the United States, a microcosm that synthesizes light on various facets of the development of the United States in a broader context. * Michael Morgan pens a weekly column, "Delaware Diary," in the Delaware Coast Press and has authored many stories for The Baltimore Sun, Maryland Magazine, Civil War Times Illustrated, America's Civil War and other periodicals for the past 15 years. He is a frequent guest speaker at historical societies in Lewes, Georgetown, and other towns along the Delaware coast.

Rumrunners

Rumrunners
Author: J. Anne Funderburg
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2016-11-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1476626707

In 1920, the 18th Amendment made the production, transportation and sale of alcohol not merely illegal--it was unconstitutional. Yet no legislation could end the demand for alcohol. Enterprising rumrunners worked to meet that demand with cunning, courage, machineguns and speedboats powered by aircraft engines. They out-maneuvered the U.S. Coast Guard and risked their lives to deliver illicit liquor. Smugglers like Bill McCoy, the Bahama Queen, and the Gulf Stream Pirate, along with many others, ran operations along the U.S. coastline until Prohibition was repealed in 1933. Drawing on legal records, newspaper articles and Coast Guard files, this history describes how rumrunners battled the Dry Navy and corrupted U.S. law enforcement, in order to keep America wet.

The Spectral Tide

The Spectral Tide
Author: Eric Mills
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2009-09-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1612515576

Now, for the first time, comes a long-overdue book that presents all of the U.S. Navy’s rich cargo of paranormal phenomena. There is the great Stephen Decatur, whose mournful apparition still stalks the halls of his famous home, said to be one of the most haunted spots in Washington, D.C. USS The Sullivans, now a floating museum, is the source of much disturbing spectral activity—poltergeists opening locks, hurling objects, and turning on radar that’s no longer under electrical power. Then there are the repeated sightings of the handsome USS Lexington ghost, “polite . . . kind . . . smartly dressed in a summer white Navy uniform.” From translucent sails to phantom crews, from a flaming ghost ship to the infamous psychic anomaly at the U.S. Naval Academy to battleships where the dead still linger, this book offers no less than a haunted history of the U.S. Navy.

American Smuggling as White Collar Crime

American Smuggling as White Collar Crime
Author: Lawrence Karson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2020-09-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000160971

When Edwin Sutherland introduced the concept of white-collar crime, he referred to the respectable businessmen of his day who had, in the course of their occupations, violated the law whenever it was advantageous to do so. Yet since the founding of the American Republic, numerous otherwise respectable individuals had been involved in white-collar criminality. Using organized smuggling as an exemplar, this narrative history of American smuggling establishes that white-collar crime has always been an integral part of American history when conditions were favorable to violating the law. This dark side of the American Dream originally exposed itself in colonial times with elite merchants of communities such as Boston trafficking contraband into the colonies. It again came to the forefront during the Embargo of 1809 and continued through the War of 1812, the Civil War, nineteenth century filibustering, the Mexican Revolution and Prohibition. The author also shows that the years of illegal opium trade with China by American merchants served as precursor to the later smuggling of opium into the United States. The author confirms that each period of smuggling was a link in the continuing chain of white-collar crime in the 150 years prior to Sutherland’s assertion of corporate criminality.

True Crime: Maryland

True Crime: Maryland
Author: Ed Okonowicz
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2009-06-10
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0811741710

From its settlement in 1634 to its important proximity to the nation's capital in the present, Maryland has served as a crossroads of America, influencing critical events, not the least of which have been numerous crimes.

Contraband Cocktails

Contraband Cocktails
Author: Paul Dickson
Publisher: Melville House
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2016-05-31
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 1612194591

Americans weren’t supposed to drink during Prohibition—but that’s exactly when “cocktail culture” came roaring to life. The Bloody Mary, sleek cocktail shakers, craft mixology, and hundreds of other essentials of modern drinking owe their origins to the Dry Years. In Contraband Cocktails, Paul Dickson leads us on a fascinating tour of those years—from the “Man in the Green Hat” making secret deliveries to Capitol Hill, to The Great Gatsby’s Daisy pouring Tom a mint julep at the Plaza, to inside the smoky nightclubs of the Jazz Age—Dickson serves up an intoxicating tale of how and what Americans drank during Prohibition. Chock-full of scandalous history, cultural curiosities, and dozens of recipes by everyone from Ernest Hemingway to Franklin D. Roosevelt—along with a glossary of terms that will surprise the most seasoned bartender—Paul Dickson’s Contraband Cocktails is the perfect companion to any reader’s Cocktail Hour.

Baltimore Prohibition

Baltimore Prohibition
Author: Michael T. Walsh
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2017-12-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 1439663572

Explore the fasciniating history of Prohibition in one of the places where it was most defied-- Baltimore, Maryland. There was perhaps no region more opposed to Prohibition than Baltimore and Maryland. The Free State was defiant in its protest from thoroughly wet Governor Albert Ritchie to esteemed Catholic Cardinal James Gibbons. Maryland was the only state to not pass a "baby" Volstead enforcement act. Speakeasies emerged at Frostburg's Gunter Hotel and at Baltimore's famed Belvedere Hotel, whose famous owls' blinking eyes would notify its patrons if it was safe to indulge in bootleg liquor. Rumrunners were frequent on the Chesapeake Bay as bootleggers populated the city streets. Journalist H.L. Mencken, known as the "Sage of Baltimore," drew national attention criticizing the new law. Author Michael T. Walsh presents this colorful history.

Delaware Prohibition

Delaware Prohibition
Author: Michael J. Morgan
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2021
Genre: History
ISBN: 1467147443

Prohibition attempted to kill John Barleycorn, the personification of intoxicating drinks, but in Delaware the notice of his death was premature. Government agents tried in vain to stop bootleggers and rumrunners, who fed the speakeasies that quenched the thirst of the people of the First State. Against the backdrop of the Roaring Twenties, bootleggers sped up and down the new Du Pont Boulevard, while enforcement agents, such as the Bible-thumping "Three Gun" Wilson, tried in vain to stop them. The stock market crash and the Great Depression ended dry laws and brought about the resurrection of Barleycorn. Local author Michael Morgan recounts the dramatic tales of this unique period of Delaware history.

The Nation's Capital Brewmaster

The Nation's Capital Brewmaster
Author: Mark Elliott Benbow
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2017-10-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 147662934X

Christian Heurich (1842-1945) was not only Washington D.C.'s most successful brewer, he was the world's oldest, with 90 years' experience. He walked across central Europe learning his craft, survived a shipboard cholera epidemic, recovered from malaria and worked as a roustabout on a Caribbean banana boat--all by age 30. Heurich lived most of his life in Washington, becoming its largest private landowner and opening the city's largest brewery. He won a "beer war" against his rivals and his beers won medals at World's Fairs. He was trapped in Europe while on vacation at the start of both World Wars, once sleeping through an air raid, and was accused of being a German spy plotting to assassinate Woodrow Wilson. A notably odd episode: when they began to tear down his old brewery to build the Kennedy Center, the wrecking ball bounced off the walls. Drawing on family papers and photos, the author chronicles Heurich's life and the evolving beer industry before and after Prohibition.