One reason why the 1920s are sometimes called the Roaring 20s is because this was an exciting time. It was a time when people were doing more things for fun than they ever had before. It was a time when American culture was changing from its old, staid, rural ways to ways that were newer, more urban, and more exciting. Prohibition was, oddly enough, part of this change that made the 1920s “roar.”
You might think that Prohibition would have made America less fun and exciting. After all, it made things like bars illegal and so there was no way to consume alcohol legally in public places. However, this is not what happened. Instead, people continued to drink. Instead of drinking in prosaic, legal bars, they drank in illegal speakeasies. For many people, this made drinking seem even more fun and more daring. People were no longer just going out and drinking. Now, they were actually having to break the law. This made drinking much more exciting than it would have seemed before Prohibition. In this way, Prohibition actually helped make Americans feel that this was an exciting decade. It made going out and having a drink seem much more like a rebellious adventure than it would have before. This helped make the 1920s a “roaring,” exciting, and rebellious time.
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