Prohibition, the subject of Ken Burns’s latest PBS documentary, began in 1920. The New Yorker came along five years later. Here’s a cartoon from the third issue.
In some cartoons, the rum-runners and illicit drinkers were more refined—the people who the editors hoped were reading the magazine.
The rallying cry of the temperance movement was “The Saloon Must Go!”
And where it went was underground, hidden away beneath the stairs of countless brownstones.
Speakeasies were remembered fondly after the repeal of Prohibition.
One legacy of the speakeasy, its password protocol, may have kicked off the knock-knock joke craze, maybe with a joke like this.
“Knock Knock!”
“Who’s there?”
“Lemmy.”
“Lemmy who?”
“Lemmy in, I’m thirsty!”
Probably a lot funnier if you’re drunk.
