Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2021/Fall/Section018/Mary Miller 017

Overview

In 1939, Douglas Carter was tasked with writing “life histories” of society at that time. In search of a unique story, he met Mary Miller. He sought the story of her life, from farmhand to a business owner. Her interview was one of many interviews conducted by Douglas Carter and published by the Federal Writer's Project.¹

Biography

Early Life

Mary Miller was born into a farming family and was raised to tend to the needs of the farm. However, early on in life, she knew she was meant for bigger things. She left the farm and began working as a maid for a white family in the city. She was a quick learner and learned to cook and began to tend to all the family’s needs. Of which one of those needs was alcohol. At the time, due to the prohibition, the sale of alcohol was illegal. Afraid of the climate and getting caught by the police, affectionately called the “boogerman”, the white family would send Mary, an African American woman to go “fetch” the alcohol. Seeing the ever-present demand for a drink, she saw an opportunity and began sourcing her own alcohol to sell.²

Adulthood Life

Through understanding the demands of the market she began searching for the best quality “likker”. After finding the perfect mix and coupled with the best prices in town she became a bootlegger overnight. Mary did not stop there; she acquired a home and began using it as the base of her operations, as well as an underground storefront to sell alcoholic beverages from. Mary took great pride in her home; the outside always had a fresh coat of white paint and the floors always shined with fancy furniture adorning the inside. Her customers soon began affectionately calling it the ‘Clubhouse”. Her operation was brilliant, at the time the police would make rounds and knock on doors to check for illicit activities. To combat that, customers would have to state their name at the door and had to wait to be buzzed in, the beer glasses were always quickly cleaned and placed back in the cabinet. And at any given moment, Mary only ever had a gallon of alcohol at a time always placed near a sink ready to be flushed in the event of a raid. In 1939, we were at the brink of World War II, our allies had already declared war and the United States began rearming for the beginning of the war. However, despite this, the Clubhouse became a safe haven for all people, whether you were rich, poor, farmers, lawyers, doctors, mechanics, truck drivers, and many others.³

Social Issues

Female-led Crime during the Prohibition Era

Many female bootleggers often faced a lot of adversity. In a society where male gangsters and bootleggers, corrupt politicians, and law enforcement controlled the environment these females used every resource at their disposal to carve out their own sectors in the market. One of those advantages was that, unlike men, there were many state laws protecting women from being body searched. As a result, oftentimes women were able to hide alcohol and other forms of liquor on their bodies without having to worry about a cavity search. Further, oftentimes prohibition agents were less likely to stop vehicles with women in the car or tended to be less aggressive in their presence. Prohibition agents at the time stated that it was harder to catch women bootleggers than men as they were harder to detect and arrest and made very few mistakes.⁴ They were smart and able to keep lower profiles and were much less likely to boast around town. And even if they were caught many judges were often reluctant to convict mothers as they believed they were vital members of society and punishing them would affect their families. These advantages allowed women to enjoy enormous profits with very little punishment for their illegal activities. For example, women bootleggers and moonshiners earning close to $30,000 at the time would be caught but only end up paying a couple hundred dollars or be sentenced to a year of Sunday service at Church.

“If the present increase in women bootleggers continues indefinitely, they say, women soon will have a monopoly in retail sales of liquor.”⁵

Great Depression (and its relevance to the Prohibition Era)

In early 1920, the prohibition act was enacted and at the time, the prohibition of alcohol put the United States at a great disadvantage. During this time the US was already in massive amounts of National Debt and the excise taxes from the sale of liquor were a vital source of income to bring the debt down. However, when the sale of alcoholic beverages was prohibited and made illegal an already struggling government was making no money. Unfortunately, this led to a boom in the black market sale of alcohol through bootleggers. Another casualty of the prohibition was the loss of jobs and manufacturing plants overnight. Many restaurants, fine dining establishments, and social clubs also took a massive hit and struggled to recuperate and some didn't. Finally, one of the biggest shocks to the system as a result of the prohibition was its impact on farmers.⁶ Since distilleries and breweries were no longer buying grain to make alcohol, grain prices dropped. As a result, it would cost farmers more to harvest the grain crop to sell it and led to many farmers touching their crop. Two years later in 1929, the market crashed.

North Carolina Voters Approve Prohibition

The eighteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution was passed in the early 1920s and made the sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic beverages illegal.⁷ The amendment commonly became known as the Prohibition Act. However, before the federal government got involved individual states were responsible for choosing to vote for or against prohibition. On May 26th, 1908 North Carolinian voters approved the prohibition on the sale of alcohol statewide by an enormous margin with 62% voting for prohibition⁸. Unfortunately, the prohibition act only bolstered organized crime and as a result, gangsters got richer and had more resources at their disposal to wreak havoc. Moreover, much of the public was fascinated by these mob bosses which gave them even more power. In the end, the 18th Amendment ended with the 21st Amendment in 1933.⁹ Once again alcohol was made legal, however, some states like North Carolina refused to ratify the appeal by the 21st Amendment.

Notes

¹ Miller, Mary. “Life Histories”. Interview by Douglas Carter. Federal Writers’ project, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, February 9, 1939. Pg 1

² Miller, Mary. “Life Histories”. Interview by Douglas Carter. Federal Writers’ project, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, February 9, 1939. Pg 2-5

³ Miller, Mary. “Life Histories”. Interview by Douglas Carter. Federal Writers’ project, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, February 9, 1939. Pg 6-9

⁴ “Women Bootleggers and Women Prohibition Agents.” Alcohol Problems and Solutions, October 15, 2019. https://www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/women-bootleggers-during-prohibition-there-were-many/.

⁵ Sutton, Kelsea Kenzy. “Female Moonshiners & Bootleggers in South Dakota.” University of South Dakota Dissertations eBooks LLC. ProQuest, August 15, 2014. https://www.ebooksllc.com/ebook/female-moonshiners-bootleggers-in-south-dakota/.

⁶ “Prohibition and the Great Depression.” bourbonveachdotcom, August 26, 2019. https://bourbonveach.com/2019/08/26/prohibition-and-the-great-depression/.

⁷ Reinhardt, Claudia. “Prohibition of Alcohol.” Prohibition of alcohol during the Great Depression, 2003. https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/life_27.html.

⁸ Reinhardt, Claudia. “Prohibition of Alcohol.” Prohibition of alcohol during the Great Depression, 2003. https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/life_27.html.

⁹ Reinhardt, Claudia. “Prohibition of Alcohol.” Prohibition of alcohol during the Great Depression, 2003. https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/life_27.html.

References/Bibliography

Davis, Robert S, and Gary W Potter. “Bootlegging and Rural Criminal Entrepreneurship.” Taylor & Francis Online Library. Journal of Crime & Justice, January 10, 2012. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0735648X.1991.9721430.

Logan, Leslie Nicole. “The Bootlegging Business: An Economic Analysis of Organized Crime during Prohibition.” TRACE. The University of Tennessee - Knoxville, April 16, 1999. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_chanhonoproj/323/.

Lugo, Catherine. “Hooch and Hell Raisin': Women Bootleggers.” Homestead.org. Homestead Library, March 12, 2021. https://www.homestead.org/homesteading-history/womenbootleggers/.

Natural & Cultural Resources. “North Carolina Voters Approve Prohibition.” NC DNCR, May 26, 2016. https://www.ncdcr.gov/blog/2013/05/26/north-carolina-voters-approveprohibition/.

“Prohibition and the Great Depression.” bourbonveachdotcom, August 26, 2019. https://bourbonveach.com/2019/08/26/prohibition-and-the-great-depression/.

Reinhardt, Claudia. “Prohibition of Alcohol.” Prohibition of alcohol during the Great Depression, 2003. https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/life_27.html.

Sutton, Kelsea Kenzy. “Female Moonshiners & Bootleggers in South Dakota.” University of South Dakota Dissertations eBooks LLC. ProQuest, August 15, 2014. https://www.ebooksllc.com/ebook/female-moonshiners-bootleggers-in-south-dakota/.

“Women Bootleggers and Women Prohibition Agents.” Alcohol Problems and Solutions, October 15, 2019. https://www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/women-bootleggers-during-prohibition-there-were-many/.

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