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Regarding the year it’s set in:
1936. Definitively.
Earlier on, talkies were mentioned. The first talkie was in October 1927 in New York City. So it had to be after that. Jessica has a lobotomy, though those weren’t done until the 1940’s. However, bilateral lobectomies, a precursor, were done starting in 1930.
In the Island Gard temporary story, Charlotte’s biplane is now at the end of its life, technology-wise. The last biplane was issued to the military in 1936. Since her plane could still reasonably be flown, that story wouldn’t be later than 1938, and stating why would spoil something. Just take my word on it.
Vittorio Puzo. Mario Puzo wrote The Godfather. In The Godfather, there is a character named Vittorio. I think you can figure that name out. Now, Lucky Luciano, a character in that book, was also a real life person. Luciano and Juliano are very similar names. No big deal, you say?
Well, I’ve seen statements about GM being a bit of wish-fulfillment or trying to add a little diversity by having Diane Boseman be a BLACK WOMAN prosecutor in New York City in the 1930s. Psh. A black prosecutor? A woman prosecutor? Someone who is BOTH?! Yes! In 1936, Eunice Carter was a prosecutor tasked with putting together a commission to take down Luciano on racketeering and “compulsory prostitution,” aka human sex trafficking. He owned a lot of brothels. Sound like someone we know and hate? That would be a quite a bit on its own. What happened in the Pulitzer Prize ending? Elizabeth said it took FIVE YEARS to take down Juliano’s ring. Well, five years after 1936, in 1941, Eunice Carter’s work ended Lucky Luciano’s crime ring. Luciano was the first mob boss taken down on something other than tax evasion. Vittorio told Elizabeth that the mafia has only gone down for taxes. In the Untrustwothy Ally ending, Juliano goes down on criminal activity, making him the first.
*mic drop*
Oh, but prohibition era! Yes, the 22nd amendment was ratified in 1933, overturning the 19th amendment that banned liquor sales at the federal level. This doesn’t mean that you could go out and get plastered yet. Follow liquor back out was slow, with a minority of states allowing it, and those that did usually limiting it to drinks that were 3.2% alcohol. To compare, NyQuil is 10% alcohol according to the company’s own FAQs. Getting the hard stuff still wasn’t easy without a speakeasy or knowing someone. Prohibition unofficially continued for quite a while, and in general the prohibition ERA is considered to be from about 1920 to about 1939, and come December 1941, the US had bigger issues to deal with. So 1936 does fall within the broader prohibition era, and Elizabeth being surprised at the champagne and wondering about law enforcement align as champagne is never below that threshold. The law to enforce would be the limit on alcohol content. To this day, we still have some legal hold-overs in the US from prohibition. Our high legal drinking age of 21, the ban many states have on liquor sales on Sundays (gotta be a good *Christian* and go to church, y’know), and the time at night when sales have to end, usually midnight or 2am, and not allowed to start again until late morning.
Anyway. Gotham Memoirs is set in 1936. The Boseman/Juliano-Carter/Luciano parallels are just too strong to ignore, and the place being “old tech” confirms it. Shattered Glass story still starts in 1933 because of reasons apparent later.
More info on the 1930’s-1940’s will be posted in the history tabs above in the early part of 2022.
And for an extra bit of fun, this suit will look familiar to this familiar with GM, and it’s from 1934:
UPDATE: Other arguments made for earlier than this that don’t hold water:
”Apartments wouldn’t have been $25/wk (about $100/mo) during the depression”:
Yes, they would have. The depression was four years, 1929-1933. We’ve been through recessions since then, and guess what. Rent doesn’t go down. People losing what they own and having to rent drives rent up. But aside from that: Tenements, aka slums, would be $25-$50/mo in the late 1920’s Tenements, aka slums, would be $25-$50/mo in the late 1920’s, but Elizabeth isn’t in a slum, and she’s renting a furnished room. Just last the depression, unfurnished rooms started at $50/mo. Renting a furnished room drives the price up. About $100/mo for a furnishes room is reasonable for any time between the 1920’s and late 1940’s.
”We’d have heard about the economic issues and newspaper crashes”:
If it wasn’t relevant to the game, we wouldn’t have needed to hear about it. Regardless, canonically, Edmund Davis was selling personal property to keep his newspaper afloat.
”But why would there have been an illegal alcohol exchange if it wasn’t the 1920’s?”:
New York wasn’t a free-for-all. There were regulations as there were for any states and cities that allowed it at all. The aforementioned issue with alcohol being capped at 3.2%, where it was allowed at all, is a pretty good reason to run. The Cullen-Harrison act, signed in 1933, limited beer and wine to 3.2%, and while that ended at the end of 1933, states continued to hold to this limit. At least as recently as now, the state of Minnesota still limited alcohol to 3.2%.
There is still illegal alcohol running in the US today. I have a bottle of absinthe right now that technically isn’t legal in the US because the thujone level is higher than is allowed. That bottle could sell for some major cash in the US. If I was into running, I could make a fuckton of money myself as an alcohol runner. Of course there was still running in the 1930’s with such an absurdly low alcohol level that even Mike’s Hard Lemonade would be illegal. Of course there’s still running when, even today, there is at least one state where it’s still illegal.