Prohibition history
Prohibition in Connecticut.
Connecticut never ratified the 18th Amendment. National Prohibition applied anyway from 17 January 1920, and the state spent the next fourteen years enforcing a law it had refused to endorse. Today we list 7 speakeasies and hidden bars in Connecticut.
Prohibition in Connecticut, in order
| 1917–19 | Congress passes the 18th Amendment and sends it to the states. |
|---|---|
| 16 January 1919 | The amendment is ratified nationally. Connecticut did not ratify it. |
| 17 January 1920 | National Prohibition begins. |
| 7 April 1933 | The Cullen–Harrison Act legalises 3.2% beer. |
| 5 December 1933 | The 21st Amendment repeals Prohibition. |
What Prohibition looked like here
Only two states refused to ratify the 18th Amendment, and Connecticut was one of them. That refusal was not a technicality: it reflected an electorate that regarded national Prohibition as a rural and Protestant project imposed on industrial, immigrant and largely Catholic communities who had not asked for it.
Refusing to ratify changed nothing legally. Thirty-six states were enough, and from January 1920 federal agents enforced the Volstead Act in Connecticut exactly as everywhere else. What it did change was the temperature of enforcement: state and local officers were under no obligation to help, and in many places they did not.
The other state that refused
Connecticut and Rhode Island are the only two states that never ratified the 18th Amendment. Connecticut’s legislature rejected it outright in February 1919, with the Senate voting it down decisively, and the state never reconsidered.
The reasons were the same as its neighbour’s: industrial cities, large Catholic and immigrant populations, a brewing trade, and a settled view that this was federal overreach into a question the states had always decided. Refusing changed nothing legally — thirty-six states were enough — but it set the temperature of enforcement for fourteen years, and state and local officers were under no obligation to help.
What Connecticut’s own newspapers printed
The Library of Congress has digitised a large slice of the American press, and it is searchable. Between 1920 and 1933, papers published in Connecticut used the word “bootlegger” 4,891 times, “speakeasy” 1,049 times, “blind pig” 49 times. Every link below goes to the scanned page itself, free and in the public domain — you are reading the primary source, not our summary of it.
One caveat worth stating plainly: these counts measure what has been digitised as much as what happened. A state whose papers were scanned in bulk will out-score a state whose were not, and a low number here is evidence about an archive rather than about how dry anybody was.
| Date | Term | Newspaper |
|---|---|---|
| September 1, 1920 | “blind pig” | The Bridgeport times and evening farmer, Bridgeport |
| December 2, 1921 | “bootlegger” | The Bridgeport times and evening farmer, Bridgeport |
| February 18, 1922 | “bootlegger” | The Bridgeport times and evening farmer, Bridgeport |
| June 12, 1922 | “bootlegger” | The Bridgeport times and evening farmer, Bridgeport |
| September 18, 1922 | “blind pig” | New Britain herald, New Britain |
| December 21, 1922 | “bootlegger” | New Britain herald, New Britain |
| December 22, 1922 | “bootlegger” | The Connecticut labor news, New Haven |
| January 12, 1923 | “bootlegger” | New Britain herald, New Britain |
| January 31, 1924 | “blind pig” | New Britain herald, New Britain |
| November 3, 1925 | “blind pig” | New Britain herald, New Britain |
| June 17, 1926 | “bootlegger” | New Britain herald, New Britain |
| January 27, 1927 | “speakeasy” | New Britain herald, New Britain |
Where to drink in Connecticut now
We currently list 7 speakeasies and hidden bars in Connecticut. The densest are Danbury (1), Torrington (1), Waterbury (1), Collinsville (1), Hartford (1). Those are present-day licensed bars — nothing on this site is illegal, and a modern hidden bar is a design decision rather than a legal necessity.
A handful of rooms in most states genuinely date to the period and can show it. Far more claim to. Where a venue’s page makes a historical claim, we label it Documented, Reported, Legend or Venue marketing, and we do not promote marketing into history because it makes a better paragraph.
Where they are in Connecticut
Listings cluster where the building stock and the licensing both allow it. These are the Connecticut cities and towns with the most in the directory today.
| Danbury | 1 listed |
|---|---|
| Torrington | 1 listed |
| Waterbury | 1 listed |
| Collinsville | 1 listed |
| Hartford | 1 listed |
Where this state fits
We group Connecticut with the Northeast for editorial purposes — regions tuned to drinking culture and Prohibition history rather than to Census divisions, because those are the lines that actually explain what happened. Its neighbours here: Massachusetts · New Hampshire · Rhode Island · Maine · Vermont.
The parts of the national story that bear most directly on Connecticut: Blind pigs and blind tigers · Rum running and Rum Row.
How to read these pages
Each state chronology sets the local dates against the national ones, because Prohibition was never one story. Thirty-three states had already banned liquor before the federal government did; two refused to ratify the amendment at all; and repeal in 1933 handed the question straight back to the states, which is why American liquor law is still fifty systems rather than one.
The newspaper evidence is drawn from Chronicling America, the Library of Congress’s archive of digitised American newspapers. It is public domain, it is free, and we link to the scanned page rather than quoting it, so you can check us.