Customers standing shoulder to shoulder along a bar with a bartender behind it, in a New York City saloon interior.
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Crowded New York bar before midnight, 30 June 1919

Library of Congress photograph of a crowded bar in New York City moments before midnight on 30 June 1919, when wartime prohibition took effect, according to the Library of Congress title.

Date
1919-06-30
Kind
photograph
Retrieved
2026-10-11
Rights
The Library of Congress item record states: "No known restrictions on publication." Collection: New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection. Call number: NYWTS - SUBJ/GEOG--Prohibition--General [item] [P&P]. Reproduction number: LC-USZ62-123253 (b&w film copy neg.).

The Library of Congress title reads “Interior of a crowded bar moments before midnight, June 30, 1919, when wartime prohibition went into effect New York City.” Customers stand along the bar and a bartender stands behind it. The record notes the photograph is an International Newsphotograph in the New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection.

This is wartime prohibition, not the national Prohibition that followed the Volstead Act. The date falls before the Eighteenth Amendment took effect on 16 January 1920, the date the record gives. The copy stored here is the Library of Congress service JPEG.