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The Volstead Act is the popular name for the National Prohibition Act (1919). It enabled Federal enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which had banned the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors" in the United States. The Volstead Act also provided enabling legislation for the amendment, treating such matters as the definition of "intoxicating liquors", medicinal use, and criminal penalties.

The law was popularly named after Andrew Volstead, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversaw its passage. However, Volstead served as the legislation’s sponsor and facilitator rather than its author. It was the Anti-Saloon League’s Wayne Wheeler who conceived and drafted the bill.

The bill was vetoed by President Woodrow Wilson (largely on technical grounds, because it also covered wartime prohibition) but overridden by Congress on the same day, October 28, 1919. The Act specified that “no person shall manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, furnish or possess any intoxicating liquor except as authorized by this act.” It did not specifically prohibit the purchase or use of intoxicating liquors. The act defined intoxicating liquor as any beverage over 0.5% alcohol and superseded all existing prohibition laws in effect in states with such legislation. The combination of the Eighteenth Amendment and the laws passed under its authority became known as simply "Prohibition" and enormously impacted United States society in the 1920s (popularly known as the Roaring Twenties).

The effects of Prohibition were largely unanticipated. Production, importation and distribution of alcoholic beverages — once the province of legitimate business — were taken over by criminal gangs, which fought each other for market control in violent confrontations, often including mass murder. (See, Al Capone.) The top gangsters became rich and were admired by many, effectively making murderers into national celebrities. Enforcement was difficult: the gangs became so rich that they were often able to bribe underpaid and understaffed law-enforcement personnel. Many citizens were sympathetic to bootleggers and respectable citizens were lured to the romance of illegal speakeasies (also called "blind pigs"). The loosening of social mores during the 1920s included popularizing the cocktail and the cocktail party among higher socioeconomic groups. Those inclined to assist authorities were often intimidated, even murdered. In several major cities — notably those which served as major point of liquor importation, such as Chicago and Detroit — gangs wielded effective political power. (A state police raid on Detroit's Deutsches Haus once netted the mayor, the sheriff, and the local congressman.)

Section 29 of the Act allowed 200 gallons (the equivalent of about 1000 75 cl bottles) of "non-intoxicating cider and fruit juice" to be made each year at home ^[1]. Initially "intoxicating" was defined as anything over 0.5%,^[2] but the Bureau of Internal Revenue soon struck that down^[3] and this effectively legalised home winemaking.^[1] Some vineyards embraced the sale of grapes for making wine at home; Zinfandel grapes were popular among home winemakers living near the vineyards, but its tight bunches left its thin skins vulnerable to rot on the long journey to East Coast markets.^[4] The thick skins of Alicante Bouschet were less susceptible to rot, so this and similar varieties were widely planted for the home winemaking market.^[4][5]

Prohibition lost advocates as alcohol gained increasing social acceptance. By 1933, public opposition to prohibition had become overwhelming. In January 1933, Congress sought to preempt opposition with the Blaine Act, which legalized "3.2 beer" (i.e., beer 3.2% alcohol by weight or 4% by volume), but it was insufficient. Congress proposed an amendment to repeal Prohibition in February and, on December 5, 1933, the nation ratified the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, made the Volstead Act unconstitutional, and restored control of alcohol to the states, up until the creation of the Federal Alcohol Administration in 1935.

• Temperance Movement Groups and Leaders in the U.S.