How the end of Prohibition era rang in 1933 with major changes for Delaware
For many residents of Sussex County, 1932 was a year to forget. Mired in the Great Depression, many southern Delaware families struggled to make ends meet.
As 1932 ended, the Delaware Coast News, however, was optimistic, “We send you the Season’s Greetings. with the hope that every day of 1933 will find you a little more happy, more healthy, and more wealthy than the preceding one. We trust there is no reason why 1933 should not be the best years of a lifetime.”
One reason for the newspaper’s upbeat tone was the impending end of Prohibition.
On Jan. 16, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution took effect, banning the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages. The proponents of Prohibition contended that it would cure a litany of social ills, including broken marriages, poverty, and crime.
Instead, the roaring ‘20s were marked with rum runners, illegal stills, warring gangs, and a general disrespect for law and order. Along the coast, ships carrying illicit booze from foreign ports brazenly anchored offshore while smaller vessels ferried outlawed liquor ashore.
Although the public attention was focused on the enforcement (or the lack thereof) of the Prohibition laws, Delaware was changing in more fundamental ways.
At the start of Prohibition, home radios were the purview of electronic hobbyists, but by the 1930s, two Wilmington radio stations, WDEL and WILM, broadcast signals that could reach most listeners in Delaware, and no First State home was complete without a radio.
At the start of the 1920s, movies were silent and showed such features as “When the Clouds Roll By” starring Douglas Fairbanks, and “The Grim Game” starring the magician Houdini. By the end of 1932, the movies had learned to talk, and they featured such films as Edward G. Robinson in “Tiger Shark,” William Powell and Joan Blondell in “Lawyer Man,” and Tallulah Bankhead and Robert Montgomery in “Faithless.”
At the beginning of Prohibition, Delaware had an integrated passenger train and trolley system that enabled residents to visit Wilmington in a few hours from the most distant town in the southern part of the state. The Du Pont Boulevard’s completion in 1923 made it possible to drive the newer improved cars with enclosed cabs from Selbyville to Wilmington on a modern all-weather concrete highway.
Other roads, particularly the Route 13 corridor south of Dover, were upgraded to be on a par with the Du Pont highway. While bootleggers made extensive use of Delaware’s new roads, so did farmers trucking tomatoes, strawberries, and other crops to market.
So many vacationers drove to Lewes, Rehoboth and Bethany Beach that passenger trains to the costal towns were abandoned.
The beginning of Prohibition in 1920 coincided with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution that granted women the right to vote. Delaware women no longer stood on the sidelines and just advocated for causes, they became full participants in the electoral process when they voted.
The change in the political climate regarding the liquor laws has been attributed to the number of new female voters, who were leaders in the drive to repeal Prohibition.
The stock market crash in 1929 ushered in the Great Depression, and by the end of 1932, the prospects for an economic rebound were bleak. Nonetheless, the repeal of Prohibition was a sign that change was in the air, and the Delaware Coast News hoped “every day of 1933 will find you a little more happy, more healthy, and more wealthy.”
Principal sources
Delaware Coast News, Dec. 30, 1932.
Sunday Morning Star, Jan. 4, 1920; Nov. 27, 1932; Nov. 6, 1932; and Dec. 11, 1932
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This article originally appeared on Salisbury Daily Times: How end of Prohibition era rang in 1933 with major change for Delaware
