Prohibition and Gangsters
The Progressive era also saw the peak of the Temperance movement and the passage of the 18th Amendment prohibiting the sale and manufacturing of alcohol in the United States in 1920. By then Chicago had grown into a major metropolis and the ill effects of the amendments ratification were felt particularly hard in the city. The thirst for liqour was still there and gansters like Al Capone stepped in to quench it. Eventually in 1933 the 18th Amendment became the only one ever to be repealed with the passage of the 21st Amendment and the Berghoff Bar became the first to recieve a liqour license in Chicago. Unfortunately the crime wave across the United States did not stop with the repeal of Prohibition.
By 1933 the United States was years into the Great Depression and a new class of criminal gained national headlines and folk hero status. Bonnie and Clyde, "Baby Face" Nelson and John Dillinger became psuedo-celebraties for committing strings of bank robberies during the height of the Depression. They paid a dear price for their choices and fame as one by one they were gunned down by law enforcement. Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed in Louisianna, Dillinger shot dead outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago and Chicago born George "Baby Face" Nelson killed in a shootout know as The Battle of Barrington. The Great Depression and much of the crime during that period of history would eventually come to an end with the onset of WWII.