How women were smuggling alcohol during prohibition

In the days of Prohibition in the United States to smuggle alcohol on a party or a meeting with someone was not so much for the desire to drink, as rebellious way to express their protest against what is happening. And if men of bootleggers were constantly under the close attention of police, ladies advantage of the situation and invent ever new ways to transport alcohol, taking advantage of their immunity.

A woman wears a free cut coat, revealing two tin containers with alcohol, tied to her feet.

Estella Zemon (left), and model show how to hide a bottle with rum and pass by the guards during Prohibition. March 18, 1931

In the mid-1920s underground movement bootleggers has become a truly huge scale. Police was torn, trying to track every suspicious male company, as well as those who have already been under suspicion. Bootleggers secretly transported alcohol from one place to another, sometimes boxes, sometimes in small portions. Alcohol was brought from other countries, secretly making it in the most distant rooms of houses and redeemed for fabulous money.

Arrested woman in Minneapolis, April 10, 1924

Estella Zemon shows overhead belt-apron, which allows to carry bottles of alcohol passing guards. 18 March 1931.

Police attention was mostly focused on the male population, but women were not inferior to their husbands and brothers in creativity. In addition, the fashion of the time, which implies layered skirts, dresses, coats and accessories are numerous, gave an incredible field for manipulation. And yet neither the police nor the security institutions did not searched women. Well how to not take advantage of this! So the prohibition in some way has created a new trend in fashion, and the girls began to compete, who is more inventive in hiding alcohol.