Washington State History Museum: Jazz Intoxication

Image from WSHS collection. Four women, members of a jazz band, holding different types of saxophones, pose outdoors in Puyallup, WA. Photographic print. Creator Marvin D. Boland Creation Date Sep. 23, 1922 Catalog ID: 1957.64.B6663

In the 1920s and early 1930s Americans flouted traditions. Women known as Flappers drove automobiles, wore short skirts, and smoked and drank in public. 

Gangsters ran speakeasies defying prohibition laws and leading to a spike in crime. Young people played and danced to strange music. 

On this day in Washington (Dec. 22, 1933) a state legislator blamed the social disorder on “jazz intoxication.”

State Representative William A. Allen, who lived near Alki Beach, introduced a bill claiming “people are becoming dangerously demented, confused and distracted or bewildered by jazz music.” 

He urged Washington Governor Clarence Martin to “bring about immediate cessation” of playing jazz in public. Violators faced heavy penalties. “All persons convicted of being jazzily intoxicated shall go before the Superior Court and be sent to an insane asylum,” Allen threatened.

His bill calling for a commission to study the deleterious effects of jazz on society never made it out of committee. Jazz intoxication has spread unchecked in America ever since.

--Post written courtesy of David J Jepsen - Historian at the Washington State History Museum