"Many mainstream Americans just disregarded this law," says Annie Anderson, a historian, author, and researcher at Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site. "There was widespread lawlessness, in particular in Philadelphia, and across the country."
In Philadelphia, that lawlessness took the form of more than 16,000 speakeasies across the city, bathtubs filled with gin, bootleggers and mobsters like Max "Boo Boo" Hoff and Mickey Duffy, and widespread corruption leading many public officials and law enforcement officers to look the other way when the alcohol flowed by.
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