A rum row was a Prohibition-era term (1920-1933) referring to a line of ships loaded with liquor anchored beyond the maritime limit of the United States. (The maritime limit was 3 miles prior to April 21, 1924, and 12 miles thereafter.) These lines became established near major U.S. ports so that rum runners could load cargoes of alcoholic beverages from these freight ships and sneak them into port. This lucrative but dangerous business was often punctuated by murder, hijackings and other violent crimes. The cities were often in Florida at first and the product was rum from the Caribbean. However, as the importation of whiskey from Canada increased, rum rows became established in locations along all the coastlines of the U.S. Notable rum-row locations included the New Jersey coast (by far the largest), San Francisco, Virginia, Galveston, and New Orleans. Twenty American navy destroyers were turned over to the Coast Guard to fight rum runners.
Famous quotes containing the words rum and/or row:
“There’s nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms
As rum and true religion.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)