PROHIBITION.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Album of photographs showing raids on illegal moonshine stills during and after Prohibition. A collection of photographs documenting the seizure of illegal moonshine stills in Connecticut and Florida during Prohibition and following its repeal. The photographs are from the library of Ralph A. Johnson, a revenue agent for the Bureau of Prohibition and its successor, the Bureau of Alcohol Tax Unit.Moonshining flourished under Prohibition, and even after its repeal, its cheapness - and, to some, its taste - ensured it continued. Across the New England countryside, farms housed industrial-sized moonshine operations. The first nine images show an immense moonshine still, with vats and equipment, inside a Connecticut barn raided by the Bureau of Prohibition on 14 July 1932. Johnson is shown standing next to an unidentified, well-dressed man, perhaps the moonshiner.The remaining five images depict a large still in Florida seized by the Alcohol Tax Unit in 1933, showing large copper stills connected to barrels above cooking fires, glass carboys for the product, and barrels with stove-in tops. Taken by Ernest Kirbell (signed in the negative), a crime photographer with the Connecticut State Police Department, these images document the continued profitability of moonshining after Prohibition's repeal.

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