I’ve been listening to a fair amount of folk slash folk rock music and there are a fair number of songs glorifying alcohol smugglers or manufacturers, whether they are doing it to evade Prohibition or just to avoid paying taxes on it.
Were bootleggers and moonshiners treated as folk heroes in their time, or is this image based on a nostalgic view of the past? I’m comparing them mentally to drug smugglers of today, which with the possible exception of Marijuana, doesn’t grant them any significant hero status - they are just criminals.
It’s just one data point and it’s not about traffickers, but from Wikipedia:
(BTW, the article is a good read for anyone who wonders why people would like gangsters.)
My mom and dad grew up in Galveston during the 1920s-1940s. The Maceos were just as established as they were during Prohibition, though illegal gambling had replaced illegal alcohol as their cash crop.* Judging by the stories of their youth, the Maceo’s were well respected; the Balinese Ballroom was where everyone went for a good time, and the maitre d would openly ask guests at the door if they were there to eat or if they just wanted to play.
Not so much heros as necessities. In later years bootleggers switched to selling in dry counties, areas that still hadn’t voted legal liquor back in after Prohibition was lifted. One reason they weren’t likened to drug dealers is because alcohol was legal for a looong time, then illegal, then legal again in various areas. So people thought of it as not being able to get a socially acceptable libation.
Moonshiners have always been illegal not because the sell of alcohol was/is against the law necessarily, but because they didn’t/don’t pay taxes on it. Mountaineers started making moonshine (other than for their own use) when they figured out it cost less to make and sell than trying to haul their corn across the mountains to market. Paying taxes would have cut into their profits. Their recipes were brought over from Scotland and Ireland, along with a strong belief that they should be allowed to offer a “homemade” product.
Rumrunners were probably the most romantic figures, since every “run” included the possibility of being arrested or shot. Usually the “young bucks” made the runs, slaloming the hills and curves in souped-up cars (there was a kit sold in the late 1940s that installed, could make your car more powereful than those driven by the law.) They probably started racing on deserted roads late at night, then on dirt tracks (in their own personal cars), to compete and also keep their driving skills keen inbetween runs. These events drew crowds which led to stock-car racing in specialized cars.