At the stroke of midnight, on January 16th, 1920, America went dry. There wasn't a place in the country (including your own home) where you could legally have even a glass of wine with your dinner without breaking the law. The 18th Amendment, known as the Volstead Act, prohibited the manufacture, sale and possession of alcohol in America. Prohibition lasted for thirteen years. The idea behind Prohibition was to reduce crime and poverty, and generally improve the quality of life in America by making it impossible for people to get their hands on alcohol. But, this so-called "Noble Experiment" was a colossal failure. People drank more than ever during Prohibition, and there were more deaths related to alcohol. No other law in America has been violated so flagrantly by so many people. Overnight almost everyone in the country became a criminal.

In 1933, prohibition was officially repealed marking the end

Prohibition jump-started the Jazz Age. As the songwriter Hoagy Carmichael put it, the 1920s came in "with a bang of bad booze, flappers with bare legs, jangled morals and wild weekends." According to the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, during Prohibition, "The parties were bigger…the pace was faster…and the morals were looser."

The Mob controlled the sale of illegal liquor, which created a booming black market economy. Gangster-owned speakeasies replaced neighborhood saloons. And by 1925, there were over 100,000 speakeasies flowing with bootleg booze in New York City alone, and the town was nicknamed " The City on a Still". Mob bosses opened plush nightclubs with exotic floor shows and the hottest jazz bands. (At Small's Paradise in Harlem, waiters danced the Charleston, carrying trays loaded down with cocktails. And at the Cotton Club, Duke Ellington led the house band)The most famous of these bosses, Al Capone (AKA "Scarface"), controlled Chicago mafia and became a millionaire thanks to bootlegging (and some other illegal activities). In 1931, he went to prison, but only

Illegal booze dumping, Orange County

Panoramic view of a speakeasy in New-York

Alphonse Gabriel Capone

Just six months after Prohibition became law in 1920, women got the right to vote. Suffragettes were on the front line of this landmark battle, but flappers became the real heroines of the Jazz Age. Flappers were easy to spot. They were the only adult women with short skirts and bobbed hair. They dared to smoke cigarettes and drink cocktails. They powdered their knees and painted their lips bright red. They hung out in speakeasies and nightclubs where they danced the Tango, the Black Bottom and the biggest dance craze of all—the Charleston—with bare arms and legs flying.   Parents, teachers and pastors who defended protestant morals, were scandalized by flappers and their boyfriends.  Among other things, they said jazz, the music played in those clubs, was "an influence for evil in society."

Prohibition broke down a lot of the old social barriers. In many New York speakeasies, rich people and ordinary workers, men and women, blacks and whites, all partied together. They had two goals in common—getting their hands on the best illegal liquor around, and avoiding a ride to the police station in a paddy wagon.

But, in 1929 the stock market crash signaled the end of the party. In the economical chaos, the lighthearted prohibition atmosphere disappeared with the end of the decade.

Flappers partying

New-York speakeasy with black and white patrons

A. vocabulary

After reading the texts try and match each word with its French equivalent

ENGLISH FRENCH

NOMINAL GROUPS

The bootleg booze

A bootlegger

The pace

The morals

The stroke of midnight

A failure

The Mob

A speakeasy

A landmark battle

Bobbed hair

Bare arms

Evil

A goal

A paddy wagon

A lighthearted atmosphere

VERBS

(to) reduce

(to) improve

(to) get one's hands on

(to) repeal

(to) replace

(to) succeed

(to) dare to + V

(to) powder

(to) hang out

(to) break down

(to) party

(to) avoid

B. Comprehension

1. Try and match these titles to the texts corresponding:

- The changes in society - Prohibition in short

- The mafia, booze dealers - Women in the 20s

Se poudrer/maquiller Un bar clandestin "traîner" les bras "nus"/découvertsEviter Un contrebandier Oser L'atmosphère insoucianteLa morale/moralité Mettre la main sur... Un but Faire tomber Le rythme/le pas Une bataille historique Faire la fête Les 12 coups de minuitUne coupe au carré courte Améliorer La Mafia Le DémonAbroger/annuler (une loi) De l'alcool de contrebande/illégal Arriver/réussir àUn " panier à salade" (véhicule de police) Remplacer Un échec Réduire

TEXT 1

2. On which date did the Prohibition start, and where? (Write your own sentence)________________________________________________________________________________________________________3. What did the Volstead Act forbid? (Pick a sentence from the text)________________________________________________________________________________________________________4. What was the goal of Prohibition for society? (Pick one sentence from the text)________________________________________________________________________________________________________5. Why was it a colossal failure? (Write your own sentence)________________________________________________________________________________________________________6. When did it stop? (Write your own sentence)________________________________________________________________________________________________________

TEXT 2

7. Pick up words from the text to complete this summary

The ________________ and plush ___________ __________ selling illegal _________________ made the fortune of _________________ bosses as ________ ________________.

TEXT 3

8. RIGHT OR WRONG? If wrong correct it

Sentences Right

Wrong

a) The suffragettes were the heroines of the 20's.______________________________________b) Flappers adopted a new fashion._______________________________________c) They only danced in legal places._______________________________________d) They shocked religious and traditional people.________________________________________e) This population thought Jazz had a bad influence in society.________________________________________

TEXT 4

9. Choose the correct answer:

Thanks to prohibition, social barriers appeared/disappeared. And the different types of people mixed up / were separated in speakeasies.

In 1929, the economy boomed up/ crashed down and it provoqued the beginning / the end of the gloomy / cool atmosphere of the 20's.