Ex parte Grossman

• Ex parte Garland, 71 U.S. 333 (1866).
• United States v. Woodley, 726 F.2d 1328 (1983).

The term "Prohibition" refers to the era from 1919 to 1933, when the manufacture, sale, and consumption of alcohol was forbidden by law throughout the United States. The idea of prohibition predates the Prohibition Era, which was the culmination of efforts begun as early as the 1830s. Throughout the nineteenth century, the anti-alcohol temperance movement was tied with a strain of reform-minded progressivism. The Women's Christian Temperance Movement (WCTU), for instance, is considered an early feminist organization.

Temperance forces took advantage of the shortage of grain after World War I and pushed through the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919, establishing Prohibition. The Volstead Act, passed the same year, defined an intoxicating beverage as one containing at least 0.5 percent alcohol.