1900s Lobdell Gambling Wheel
(Now sold)
Prohibition of alcohol use became law in the USA in 1920, and lasted until 1933. As a result, illegal drinking and gambling clubs – ‘speakeasies’ – opened throughout the country. The gambling wheel that you see here was adapted from a Lobdell bicycle rim and would have been used in one of the speakeasies as a roulette wheel. The paint has faded on one third of the wheel.
A woman eyes the photographer warily while standing at the door of a speakeasy, the “Krazy Kat,” in Washington, D.C., a hangout for the city’s bohemian crowd, circa the early 1920s. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.