Editing Prohibition Era (section)

== Repeal and Legacy ==

Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment on December 5, 1933. Philadelphia celebrated with immediate reopening of legal bars and the end of speakeasy culture. The breweries that had survived by producing "near beer" or converting to other products resumed normal operations. But Prohibition's legacy endured in the organized crime networks it had created, the corruption it had normalized, and the disrespect for law it had fostered. The experience demonstrated that laws without popular support could not be enforced and that attempting to do so created worse problems than those it aimed to solve.<ref name="okrent"/>

The physical traces of Prohibition-era Philadelphia have largely disappeared—most speakeasies were converted to other uses when legal drinking resumed—but the era's cultural impact persisted. Philadelphia's jazz scene had developed partly in Prohibition venues. The patterns of nightlife, the spaces where different classes and races mixed, the culture of urban sophistication all owed something to the speakeasy years. Prohibition in Philadelphia illustrated both the failures of moral legislation and the adaptability of urban culture in finding ways around official disapproval.<ref name="weigley"/>