Legal Alcohol During the Prohibition Years in Illinois and the Country.

Prohibition began on January 16, 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect. Most people think that Prohibition meant there was no legal alcohol. There were lots of exceptions. And those exceptions were quickly abused.

For example:
1. Churches and synagogues could buy and serve sacramental wine at Communion or with a certification from a Rabbi. Suddenly, a lot more wine was being purchased by religious organizations. The number of Rabbis also increased dramatically.

2. Hospitals could order alcohol for cleaning purposes. The hospitals that used to order rubbing alcohol by the quart now ordered it by the boxcar. (Note: there was a way to chemically change rubbing alcohol into drinking alcohol.)

3. Patent medicine had always had a large percentage of alcohol. That percentage grew larger. And physicians were prescribing a lot more medicine. Sometimes doctors got a couple dollars kickback for every prescription they wrote for a certain liquor.

Men working in a storage facility surrounded by Old Grand-Dad Whiskey and Old McBrayer Whiskey boxes, bottled by the American Medicinal Spirits Company, Chicago, 1933. The A.M.S Company were producers of "medicinal whiskey" during the era of Prohibition.

Whiskey could be obtained by prescription from medical doctors. The labels clearly warned that it was strictly for medicinal purposes and any other uses were illegal. Still, doctors freely wrote prescriptions, and drug-stores filled them without question, so the number of "patients" increased dramatically.

4. The industrial use of alcohol was still legal. Many industries needed a lot more alcohol than they used to.

5. People could legally make hard cider, beer, or wine at home for home use only, so Pabst and Anheuser Busch sold malt extract and other products for home brewing. California grape growers sold wine grapes, which had never fetched more than $30 to $105 per ton. The price spiked for a short time in 1924 to $375 ($6,115 today) per ton!

5a. Vine-Glo was a grape concentrate brick product (aka wine brick) sold in the United States during Prohibition by Fruit Industries Ltd, from 1929. It was sold as a grape concentrate to make grape juice but the packaging included a specific warning that told people how 'not' to make wine from from the brick. Watch the video below.

Wine Bricks & Prohibition

6. People could still drink any alcohol they had leftover from pre-prohibition days. Knowing that many individuals and private clubs stocked many years' worth of alcohol in anticipation.

7. Alcohol was legal on ships that were outside the 3-mile limit. Needless to say, this technicality was exploited by everyone, including the State-owned shipping line. 

Prohibition was repealed on December 5, 1933.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Robert Pershing Wadlow, World's Tallest Man, Alton, Illinois. (1918-1940)

Robert Pershing Wadlow, born February 22, 1918, to normal parents in Illinois, Robert Wadlow weighed a healthy almost nine pounds. While this may seem like a typical start to life, who could have guessed that the baby would one day be known as the Giant of Illinois.

By the time Robert turned one year old, he was already over three feet tall and weighed 45 pounds.

His growth spurt started in infancy and kept growing throughout his life, thanks to a hyperactive pituitary gland problem. The condition caused his system to produce an abnormal amount of human growth hormone, and Robert would continue to grow until the end of his short life.

In his early teenage years, he was well over seven-feet tall, which, combined with his quiet disposition, earned him the nickname "gentle giant." He was a Boy Scout enjoying photography and learning to play the guitar.

 

 

In high school, Robert was popular and active in many extracurricular activities, even serving as the advertising manager for the yearbook. He was wholly accepted by his peers. However, he lost that acceptance when he attended college and struggled with the stares, and it bothered him so much that he dropped out and returned to his parents quite penniless.

That is when his brief stint with Ringling Bros. began. His 1937 contract was brief and had strict conditions and terms. First, Robert would only attend shows at Madison Square Garden and the Boston Garden. He would display himself only two times a day for three minutes. He refused to allow any exaggeration of his height via media releases or standard height-enhancing sideshow trickery like platform shoes, top hats and trick photography. Furthermore, Robert would only display himself in the center ring and refused any association with the sideshow. Despite all of these restrictions, Robert proved to be incredibly popular.

Robert was so popular that following his time with Ringling Bros., he signed a fabulous contract with The International Shoe Company. The deal included quite a bit of travel and personal appearances, and in just under a year, Robert had made over 800 appearances and traveled over 300,000 miles.

Perhaps most importantly, the company provided Robert with free shoes – a big deal when you are a size 37 and your shoes cost over $100 a pair (over $2,075 today, 2023).

Robert broke the world record as the tallest man in history when he was 19, but he didn't stop growing. He measured in at eight feet four inches tall at the time.

In addition to custom clothing to accommodate his size— he required massive 37AA size shoes— he needed customized furniture as regular tables and chairs were not large enough.

Eventually, his hands would grow too large to participate in his favorite hobbies, but this wasn't the only downside to his larger frame. The physical toll on his health would ultimately bring his life to an abrupt and premature end.

He suffered from weak legs and commonly experienced loss of feeling and numbness in his limbs and extremities. He depended on specially designed leg braces and a cane to move around—although he never used a wheelchair.

During an infection from a blister caused by one of these ill-fitted leg braces, Robert's health took a turn for the worst. He underwent blood transfusions and emergency surgery to control the infection, but ultimately the doctors' efforts weren't enough. His condition continued to decline because of an autoimmune disorder, and he succumbed to the infection. He died in his sleep on July 15, 1940 - he was only 22 years old. When he passed away, he measured 8 feet 11.1 inches and weighed an astounding 439 pounds.

Robert Wadlow's body was viewed by 33,295 within 28 hours after his death. His funeral was attended by 40,000 mourners, and it took twelve pallbearers to hoist his thousand-pound casket. Robert was buried in Oakwood cemetery in Alton, Illinois, on July 19, 1940, and required two standard-size grave plots.

A life-sized statue of Robert Wadlow still stands in his hometown of Alton, Illinois.

The Story of Robert Wadlow.

[runtime - 26:38]

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The January 16, 1967 McCormick Place Fire, Chicago, Illinois.

McCormick Place, an exhibition center on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive, opened in November 1960. The center included a theater, several restaurants and banquet rooms, and over 500,000 square feet of exhibition space.

In January of 1967, McCormick Place hosted the National Housewares Manufacturers Association Show, which featured nearly 1,250 booths selling kitchen and household appliances. The event was scheduled to open on Monday, January 16, but, at around 2 AM that morning, McCormick Place janitors noticed smoke rising from a small fire at the back of an exhibition booth.

The janitors waited to raise the alarm and instead attempted to extinguish the fire themselves by beating at it with brooms and pieces of carpeting. The flames quickly spread to the walls of the booth, prompting the janitors to call the Chicago Fire Department. Firefighters responded immediately and, within five minutes of the first alarm, an officer on-scene ordered a second alarm.

By 2:30 AM, five alarms were sounded, bringing 94 apparatus and over 500 fire and rescue personnel to the scene. Fire fighting efforts were severely delayed, however, as four of the seven McCormick Place fire hydrants were shut off.

To attack the flames, firefighters had to draft water from Lake Michigan and rely on fire hydrants a quarter-mile away. The fire was extinguished by 10AM, around the time the N.H.M.A. show was scheduled to begin, but McCormick Place was essentially destroyed.

Initial investigations by the City of Chicago exposed several serious fire safety issues that had been overlooked by McCormick Place management. The exhibition area did not have fire sprinklers or fire walls, and fire proof materials did not protect the steel roof supports. Also, most of the electrical wiring for the booths did not follow electrical safety standards, as the facility was still using temporary electrical systems for the exhibition are as. Most tragically, one McCormick Place security guard was killed in the fire, presumably because he could not find an unlocked emergency exit. Other employees who escaped the blaze confirmed that they had never been told how to find unlocked emergency exits.

In the months following the fire, the Illinois Inspection and Rating Bureau launched a comprehensive investigation into the McCormick Place Fire and published a detailed report on its findings. The investigators did not determine a definitive cause, but it is assumed that the temporary electrical wiring started the fire. The report did, however, shine light on many of the difficulties the firefighters faced, noting how “firefighting was seriously hampered because of lack of adequate water, intense heat, rapid fire spread, early roof collapse and unstable exterior panel walls.” The report helped to bring about numerous changes to the Chicago Municipal Code, as ordinances on exhibition halls, electrical facilities, emergency exits, fire walls, and smoke and heat vents were soon revised based on the lessons learned from the McCormick Place Fire. 

by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Edited by Neil Gale, Ph.D.