1920s Flappers Research Paper
"I hope she'll be a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool... You see, I think everything's terrible anyhow... And I know. I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything."
The flapper is an iconic image in United States cultural history. She defined a decade and she symbolized the country’s reaction to a major war. At the end of World War I in 1918, both social and political foundations in American took a dramatic turn. From these changes, women of the twenties began to defy social norms and distinguish themselves from women in the 1910s and 1930s. The women of this decade had a newfound social liberty, as it was a major period of change. Conservatives and liberals were battling …show more content…
each other on every major front of society. Thus, these major changes in society along with heightened internal rivalries caused the “new woman” to emerge in America.
Historians would not be so steadfast to label the 1920s and its new culture if it was not so divergent from the decades that preceded and followed it. The women of the 1910s upheld the traditional values set forth by earlier Americans, while the women of the 1930s matured as the Roaring Twenties came crashing down. The women of the 1910s were part of the Progressive Era, which lasted from 1895 to World War I.
Labor unions continued to form in a middle class plagued by unrest. Women, while breaking traditional molds, were still constricted compared to their counterparts in the 1920s. Compared to the flapper, the prominent women of the previous decade possessed more traditional, physically “ideal” beauty. However, events that took place in the 1910s were a precursor for the liberty that women lived in the twenties. The Woman’s Peace Party, founded in 1915, was the first major peace organization run by and consisting of women. In 1919 The League of Women Voters was founded in order to ensure suffrage for women and to eliminate legal sexism. The 19th amendment was in fact ratified in 1919 as well. This decade marked major gains for women, but did not usher in as untraditional of women as the …show more content…
flappers. At the same time, the United States was quickly becoming one of the most industrialized nations in the world. The nation was prospering, much to the credit of the flourishing automobile industry. America was said to be at a crossroads during the 1910s, as society gradually shifted from rural to urban. The turn to industrialization was compounded by immigration as a means to acquire cheap and reliable labor. The 1910s were the beginning of a time when America focused on becoming a modern nation, and securing economic prosperity and stability. Women in the lower and middle classes took their part in working, primarily in textile mills, to promote this centralized goal. As the Great War approached many changes to society occurred. With the majority of men overseas, it was a question as to what role women would serve in the late 1910s. Some women filled formerly unavailable occupations, while others held on to their domestic duties. Those who worked benefited because they received higher wages than under normal conditions. Women also gained a sense of autonomy while the men were away from home. Women actively participated in unions as some hostile employers refused to hire women or treat them equally. Because the war shone light on the sexism that still remained even in a progressive society, women became more independent and vocal for change. Suffragists were the leading example of this altering society in which women were serious, and women were involved. Workingwomen symbolize the shift the United States underwent in the 1910s and in the years leading up to the decade. In several facets of the working nation, such as communications, manufacturing, and sales, the number of women employed spiked dramatically. As department stores gained momentum in the economy, they employed women to work in sales and stock. In communications, females began to take over the workforce as their numbers increased 475 percent from 1900 to 1910. In addition, the demand for women in domestic settings decreased. By 1910, the numbers had dropped to 25 percent of women amassed the servant force. The war proved to both maintain and disprove these numbers. In a sense, the workforce of America was still gender-biased, but as men fought in Europe women also found themselves moving away from home for work. The image of women in the 1910s matched the conditions in society, both socially and economically.
Jane Addams was one of the leading female figures of the time, and her ideas were incredibly impactful on society. She believed that the Progressive Era would truly only be progressive and successful if women were the leaders and diplomats of the world. It was of course a rash sentiment at the time, but with the height of the suffrage movement it was also accepted by her many supporters. She was also strongly opposed to individuality in women, which was not emphasized until the following decade. Unlike the carefree frivolity of the flappers, her feminism was much more sober and focused. Addams believed in full participation from every citizen in political and social decisions. Her support was most prominent in working-middle class women who were ready to participate in urban America. The feminist movement was on the rise as the economy industrialized, and the society faced a war leaving women exposed to a degree of
independence. The economic and social changes that resulted from the war directly impacted the status and view of women. It was their independence in various field of work and especially while their husbands were away that funneled into the vibrant independence of the women in the 1920s.
During Word War I (1914-1918), like most any war, many subsequent changes took place. The government began to intervene drastically in domestic policies. For example, regulation boards were created to set prices and food quotas. There was also the Selective Service Act that was enacted to draft people for the war as well as form committees to convince America this was the right endeavor. Despite the cancelling of the Selective Service Act at the end of the war, the federal government under Woodrow Wilson proved its strength and progressive mindset.
Women especially were one of the groups to change as a result of the war. During the war they experienced independence as the men were overseas in combat, and they often became the leaders and caretakers of the household. Moreover, most women did not want to go back to being reserved. This attitude of not being finished with independence brought the image of the flapper to the forefront. Her bob, smoking, dancing, and alarmingly open sexuality by the contemporary standards was adored by supporters and condemned by critics. As one flapper said, “I powder my nose. I wear fringed skirts and bright-colored sweaters, and scarves, and waists with Peter Pan collars, and low-heeled ‘finale hopper’ shoes. I adore to dance. I spend a large amount of time in automobiles. I attend hops, and proms, and ball-games, and crew races, and other affairs at men's colleges.” The War also brought about a surplus of job opportunity in America, and the majority of the 1920s followed suit.
A parallel of the new woman can be drawn to that of the new African American. For African Americans it was the Great Migration north of 4 million people in search of both jobs and a chance for expression. The surge of African Americans to the north manifested itself in the Harlem Renaissance, when cultural and intellectual aspects of blacks’ lives were invigorated and granted a measure of respect. The 1920s at large was a decade that bore a chance for expression. It was a turning point in history in which cultural, social, political, and economic commonalities shifted. This was no different for the relationships between the sexes and the appearance and attitude of women. Young people, mostly those who were born around the turn of the century, characterized the Jazz Age. What first started out as shedding old conservative ideals and reforming evolved into a fad to which many young people conformed.
It has been argued that the 1920s were truly the turn of the century, because traditional Victorianism was cast away in favor of new customs. During the 1920s, many gender-based barriers were broken down. More women were working and creating a stepping-stone to an equal society, however, their jobs were usually domestic and they received lower wages than men. The modification of divorce laws also narrowed the gender gap to an extent. More women were going to college and graduating than ever before. The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1920 granted women the right to vote, which undoubtedly was a monumental and symbolic change in America. The women of the progressive era had finally begun to realize the goal of existing in an equal society for both sexes. However, this fulfillment was somewhat undermined when younger women of the twenties proved to be uninterested in politics, and more focused on individual social liberties. After all, the Jazz Age was the period most famous for consumption, pleasure, and hedonism. Party scenes in The Great Gatsby underscored this aspect of the time. “Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word,” Fitzgerald wrote. He also noted the carefree but obvious emergence of women in these situations. “…already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp joyous moment the center of the group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices…” These ideals swept society so easily because the twenties marked the first time that more people lived in urban settings than in rural conditions. Customs that were formerly condemned, such as wearing heavy makeup and experimenting sexually, were now more common in the middle class. “These changes in fashion-the short skirt, the boyish form, the straight, long-waisted dress, the frank use of paint-were signs of a real change in the American female ideal.” Not only in how many women viewed themselves, but gradually how men came to elevate women. However, many Americans were reluctant to condone the new behavior and embrace the flapper at all. The goal of many middle class families was to show off their personal wealth by investing in material items. The youth were not so much concerned with materialism as they were with challenging traditions set forth by their parents and grandparents. In high schools and universities it became easy for ideas and fads to be organized, and relative freedom to be exercised. The “peer culture” was eminent in mobilizing the revolution that became of the youth in the 1920s. Universities and high school environments were created as a result of child labor laws passed in the 1910s. These laws were common in the Progressive Era, as cities were transitioning from “primitive to modern,” the focus was to keep children and teenagers in a centralized area. They provided a setting that allowed for new interactions between men and women to be established.
What was even more revolutionary about the revolution of female behavior was how women began drinking and partying right alongside the men. “Mixed parties swarmed up to the curtained grills of speakeasies and uttered the mystic password, and the girls along with men stood at the speakeasy bar with one foot on the old brass rail.” Women such as Zelda Fitzgerald flaunted their novel, non-traditional place in society, and famously said ”’I like the jazz generation, and I hope my daughter’s generation will be jazzier. I want my girl to do as she pleases.”
New versus old distinguished the advancements and changes that occurred in the twenties. As the economy boomed, so too did findings in science and technology. These advancements not only affected the workplace, but they also highlighted the struggle between modernists and traditionalists. New definitions of what it meant to be a true “American” were derived as manners changed in urban life and the new woman emerged from the shadows of the genteel woman. The influences of Freud and Jung on what it meant to be a sexual human being changed the intellectual face of the country. For women, they began to work in the 1920s, “if not in offices or factories, then in the professional job of homemaking.” Women gained a sense of economic freedom, but they were ready for a widespread revolution.
Often times the new changes were a backlash to restrictions that existed in society already. In the aftermath of a crisis rights become limited, and this was no different for World War I. Prohibition (Eighteenth Amendment from 1920-1933) was an example of a right taken away on a national level. The amendment prohibited the sale, manufacture, and consumption of alcohol. While it was initially widely supported among diverse groups, it soon proved to have a reverse effect. Prohibition yielded more drinking and violence as smuggling increased to obtain alcohol. Often times in history deeming a substance illegal worsens the issue because it is difficult to force people to give up something they enjoy. In other words, outlandish behavior in the 1920s did not come to a halt because of the prohibition. The new consumer culture also effectively endured throughout the decade. After World War I, the economy was in a state in which factories needed to shift to a consumer mindset. Overproduction proved to be a problem in some industries, and in order to compensate that industrialists simply needed consumers. New technologies provided the means to produce in abundance and new commodities. The availability of media reached out to the nation at large and urged Americans that consuming was an investment in the country and that it would further society. Furthermore, the spending became a lifestyle of Americans, and unprecedented sales of nonessential items occurred. Fashion was profoundly affected by the consumer culture because it could singlehandedly portray new wealth and attitudes. Generally speaking, Americans perceived a higher standard of living, and consumer patterns matched this notion. The positive outlooks in economics fed the open-mindedness in the social aspects of life. However, these positive views were short lived, because the rapid plummet of the economy directly impacted the social undertone of the following decade. The women of the 1930s showed conspicuous contrasting elements to their predecessors of the 1920s. Many were even former flappers that were stunned into the seriousness by the Depression. Superficially, these could be noted in fashion and behavior. There was a distinct return to ladylike and genteel fashion that was so strongly dismissed in the 1920s. However, in a historical context the differences between each decade of women brought meaning to the American society at large. The economic prosperity, or lack there of, impacted women’s role in society directly. The workingwomen of the 1930s had to “grow up” and mature from their lavish ways they practiced in the prior decade. They had to do everything to survive just like, and along with their husbands. They were no longer whimsically allowed to celebrate the right to vote or the end of World War I, because they were now immersed in a new internal and international catastrophe. The economic downturn was different than the Great War because it played out right at home and cast a negative light on the previous society. World War I, on the contrary was causal of the American society of the 1920s.
The Great Depression following the stock market crash in 1929 put the world on a tilt and stabbed the former American prosperity severely and at its core. As the economic and social liberties that characterized the twenties vanished, so too did the flapper and her image. The 1930s were a difficult time for anyone to find a job, thus men could not fulfill their predictable role as the breadwinner of the family anymore. As a result, they often times were said to take their anger out on their wives, and put women in their traditional place.
The Great Depression had several immediate effects, one of which was its exposure on the illusion that plagued the1920s. People realized it would not be possible to live with so many superfluous things without consequences taking a toll. It was unfortunate that the extremity of the Stock Market Crash had to take place to put everything into perspective. However, the unemployment spike in the country not only strained the economy, but it also strained family life. While women were very busy trying to help their families survive, they could not escape the raw emotions that persisted during the depression. Some women were sensitive about their husband’s unemployment, while others resented the idea entirely and condemned it. In any case, women did what they could to make ends meat.
The women of the 1930s were another new breed, and were far different from their sisters in the 1920s. The circumstances of the nation forced them to be both independent and determined to better society. The independence of this decade was different than that of the 1920s. In the Roaring Twenties women were independent behaviorally, sexually, and socially. In the thirties, however, women were independent in a grander scheme, and that was politically. Because of the depression, feminism was lifted as men were not able to singlehandedly revive the country. The New Deal also granted expansions in social welfare, an area dominated by women. With the increasing amount of women appointed to government jobs, they were able to work on behalf of every common woman and feminism could permeate throughout society.
Women steadily increased in other areas of the work force as well. By 1930 24.3 percent of the labor force was comprised of women, and the number reached 25.1 percent in 1940. It is important to note that most of these women were married and leaving home to work, which was a custom only done by men since the 1830s. Despite women entering the workforce, they were not treated equally with men. They had lower wages, and often did not get jobs that a less qualified man would get. In effect, many unions were formed to organize rationale and protest. The National Women’s Party was one of the more prominent bodies, as they specifically challenged state and national legislatures that denied married women from working in government positions. Nevertheless, domestication was still the leading occupation held by women. However, one cannot overlook the changing gender roles despite the dismissal by employers to alter the gender segregation line. Because women were constricted to “female” jobs, as a group they were hit less hard by the Depression as it devastated manufacturing the worst. Throughout the 1930s, gender roles and expectations in both working-class and white-collar families adjusted. It would be difficult to argue any thirty-year period in the United States that underwent more drastic changes in society than the period from 1910 to 1940. Each decade was defined by various economic, social, and political distinctions. In similar fashion, the women of each decade reflected the changes in the United States as well as the evolution of feminism and new women’s roles. The independence that women exercised in these decades was unprecedented and likely unmatched until the 1960s. In such a short time period it was astounding to see women who were once solely confined to the home, turn into wage-earning citizens and social reformers. From the rage of the Gibson girl before World War I, in which women looked feminine wearing long hair and skirts, came the post World War I flapper with her hair cut short and an entirely new attitude.
While everyone expected American society to return to normalcy after the Great War, it did anything but that. Women had lost many potential suitors, and were ready to enjoy life. The free dancing and partying characterized the Roaring Twenties, but not without the emergence of jazz music. All of these new behaviors and appearances of the flapper created her distinct image. The flapper had to undergo a maturation process when the economy fell and the opulent lifestyle appeared nonessential. The women of the thirties weathered the economic storm by increasing their presence in the workforce and working alongside their husbands to survive. The changes from 1910 to 1940 were drastic, but held constant by the growing independence of women and their quest for equality. The images of women from the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s are very telling of the status of society, as they symbolically indicated the changes the United States endured.
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[ 1 ]. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
(New York: Scribner, 1999), 17.
[ 2 ]. Peggy Whitley, "American Cultural History - The Twentieth Century,"
Lonestar College, http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade10.html (accessed February
28, 2010).
[ 3 ]. Robert J. Allison, ed., The "New Woman" of the Progressive Era, 1.
[ 4 ]. Gordon Reavley, Social History of the United States: The 1910s, (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2009), 378-380.
[ 5 ]. Maurine Weiner Greenwald, Women, War, and Work: The Impact of WWI on
Women Workers in the United States (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1980), 10.
[ 6 ]. Ibid, 11-12.
[ 7 ]. Jill Conway, "Women Reformers and American Culture, 1870-1930,"
Journal of Social History 5, no. 2 (Winter 1971): 171-175, http://www.jstor.org (accessed February 28, 2010).
[ 8 ]. J. Stanley Lemons, The Woman Citizen: Social Feminism in the 1920s
(University Press of Virginia, 1973), 41, http://books.google.com
(accessed February 28, 2010).
[ 9 ]. Quoted from Ellen Welles Page, "Dear Parents...An Open Letter from a Flapper,"
December 6, 1922, in Outlook Magazine, http://lancefuhrer.com/dear_parents.htm
(accessed February 28, 2010).
[ 10 ]. Dorothy M. Brown, Setting a Course: American Women in the 1920s
(Boston: Twayne, 1987), 2.
[ 11 ]. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
(New York: Scribner, 1999), 27.
[ 12 ]. Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday (New York: Harper & Brothers,
1931), 89.
[ 13 ]. Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New
York: The Free Press, 1989), 176-177.
[ 14 ]. Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday (New York: Harper & Brothers,
1931), 91.
[ 15 ]. Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New
York: The Free Press, 1989), 175.
[ 16 ]. Dorothy M. Brown, Setting a Course: American Women in the 1920s
(Boston: Twayne, 1987), 2.
[ 17 ]. Estelle B. Freedman, "The New Woman: Changing Views of Women in the
1920s," Journal of American History 61, no. 2 (September 1974): 379.
[ 18 ]. Linda S. Watts, Alice L. George, and Scott Beekman, Social History of the United States: The 1920s (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2009), 61-63.
[ 19 ]. Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New
York: The Free Press, 1989), 200.
[ 20 ]. Maurine Weiner Greenwald, Women, War, and Work: The Impact of WWI on
Women Workers in the United States (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1980), 52.
17 Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New
York: The Free Press, 1989), 197-198.
[ 22 ]. Gale Research: Working Women in the 1930s.
[ 23 ]. Cecelia Bucki, Social History of the United States: The 1930s, ed.
Daniel J. Walkowitz and Daniel E. Bender (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2009), 222-227
[ 24 ]. Jennifer Rosenberg, "Flappers in the Roaring Twenties," About.com, http://history1900s.about.com/od/1920s/a/flappers.htm (accessed February 28,
2010).
The flapper is an iconic image in United States cultural history. She defined a decade and she symbolized the country’s reaction to a major war. At the end of World War I in 1918, both social and political foundations in American took a dramatic turn. From these changes, women of the twenties began to defy social norms and distinguish themselves from women in the 1910s and 1930s. The women of this decade had a newfound social liberty, as it was a major period of change. Conservatives and liberals were battling …show more content…
each other on every major front of society. Thus, these major changes in society along with heightened internal rivalries caused the “new woman” to emerge in America.
Historians would not be so steadfast to label the 1920s and its new culture if it was not so divergent from the decades that preceded and followed it. The women of the 1910s upheld the traditional values set forth by earlier Americans, while the women of the 1930s matured as the Roaring Twenties came crashing down. The women of the 1910s were part of the Progressive Era, which lasted from 1895 to World War I.
Labor unions continued to form in a middle class plagued by unrest. Women, while breaking traditional molds, were still constricted compared to their counterparts in the 1920s. Compared to the flapper, the prominent women of the previous decade possessed more traditional, physically “ideal” beauty. However, events that took place in the 1910s were a precursor for the liberty that women lived in the twenties. The Woman’s Peace Party, founded in 1915, was the first major peace organization run by and consisting of women. In 1919 The League of Women Voters was founded in order to ensure suffrage for women and to eliminate legal sexism. The 19th amendment was in fact ratified in 1919 as well. This decade marked major gains for women, but did not usher in as untraditional of women as the …show more content…
flappers. At the same time, the United States was quickly becoming one of the most industrialized nations in the world. The nation was prospering, much to the credit of the flourishing automobile industry. America was said to be at a crossroads during the 1910s, as society gradually shifted from rural to urban. The turn to industrialization was compounded by immigration as a means to acquire cheap and reliable labor. The 1910s were the beginning of a time when America focused on becoming a modern nation, and securing economic prosperity and stability. Women in the lower and middle classes took their part in working, primarily in textile mills, to promote this centralized goal. As the Great War approached many changes to society occurred. With the majority of men overseas, it was a question as to what role women would serve in the late 1910s. Some women filled formerly unavailable occupations, while others held on to their domestic duties. Those who worked benefited because they received higher wages than under normal conditions. Women also gained a sense of autonomy while the men were away from home. Women actively participated in unions as some hostile employers refused to hire women or treat them equally. Because the war shone light on the sexism that still remained even in a progressive society, women became more independent and vocal for change. Suffragists were the leading example of this altering society in which women were serious, and women were involved. Workingwomen symbolize the shift the United States underwent in the 1910s and in the years leading up to the decade. In several facets of the working nation, such as communications, manufacturing, and sales, the number of women employed spiked dramatically. As department stores gained momentum in the economy, they employed women to work in sales and stock. In communications, females began to take over the workforce as their numbers increased 475 percent from 1900 to 1910. In addition, the demand for women in domestic settings decreased. By 1910, the numbers had dropped to 25 percent of women amassed the servant force. The war proved to both maintain and disprove these numbers. In a sense, the workforce of America was still gender-biased, but as men fought in Europe women also found themselves moving away from home for work. The image of women in the 1910s matched the conditions in society, both socially and economically.
Jane Addams was one of the leading female figures of the time, and her ideas were incredibly impactful on society. She believed that the Progressive Era would truly only be progressive and successful if women were the leaders and diplomats of the world. It was of course a rash sentiment at the time, but with the height of the suffrage movement it was also accepted by her many supporters. She was also strongly opposed to individuality in women, which was not emphasized until the following decade. Unlike the carefree frivolity of the flappers, her feminism was much more sober and focused. Addams believed in full participation from every citizen in political and social decisions. Her support was most prominent in working-middle class women who were ready to participate in urban America. The feminist movement was on the rise as the economy industrialized, and the society faced a war leaving women exposed to a degree of
independence. The economic and social changes that resulted from the war directly impacted the status and view of women. It was their independence in various field of work and especially while their husbands were away that funneled into the vibrant independence of the women in the 1920s.
During Word War I (1914-1918), like most any war, many subsequent changes took place. The government began to intervene drastically in domestic policies. For example, regulation boards were created to set prices and food quotas. There was also the Selective Service Act that was enacted to draft people for the war as well as form committees to convince America this was the right endeavor. Despite the cancelling of the Selective Service Act at the end of the war, the federal government under Woodrow Wilson proved its strength and progressive mindset.
Women especially were one of the groups to change as a result of the war. During the war they experienced independence as the men were overseas in combat, and they often became the leaders and caretakers of the household. Moreover, most women did not want to go back to being reserved. This attitude of not being finished with independence brought the image of the flapper to the forefront. Her bob, smoking, dancing, and alarmingly open sexuality by the contemporary standards was adored by supporters and condemned by critics. As one flapper said, “I powder my nose. I wear fringed skirts and bright-colored sweaters, and scarves, and waists with Peter Pan collars, and low-heeled ‘finale hopper’ shoes. I adore to dance. I spend a large amount of time in automobiles. I attend hops, and proms, and ball-games, and crew races, and other affairs at men's colleges.” The War also brought about a surplus of job opportunity in America, and the majority of the 1920s followed suit.
A parallel of the new woman can be drawn to that of the new African American. For African Americans it was the Great Migration north of 4 million people in search of both jobs and a chance for expression. The surge of African Americans to the north manifested itself in the Harlem Renaissance, when cultural and intellectual aspects of blacks’ lives were invigorated and granted a measure of respect. The 1920s at large was a decade that bore a chance for expression. It was a turning point in history in which cultural, social, political, and economic commonalities shifted. This was no different for the relationships between the sexes and the appearance and attitude of women. Young people, mostly those who were born around the turn of the century, characterized the Jazz Age. What first started out as shedding old conservative ideals and reforming evolved into a fad to which many young people conformed.
It has been argued that the 1920s were truly the turn of the century, because traditional Victorianism was cast away in favor of new customs. During the 1920s, many gender-based barriers were broken down. More women were working and creating a stepping-stone to an equal society, however, their jobs were usually domestic and they received lower wages than men. The modification of divorce laws also narrowed the gender gap to an extent. More women were going to college and graduating than ever before. The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1920 granted women the right to vote, which undoubtedly was a monumental and symbolic change in America. The women of the progressive era had finally begun to realize the goal of existing in an equal society for both sexes. However, this fulfillment was somewhat undermined when younger women of the twenties proved to be uninterested in politics, and more focused on individual social liberties. After all, the Jazz Age was the period most famous for consumption, pleasure, and hedonism. Party scenes in The Great Gatsby underscored this aspect of the time. “Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word,” Fitzgerald wrote. He also noted the carefree but obvious emergence of women in these situations. “…already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp joyous moment the center of the group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices…” These ideals swept society so easily because the twenties marked the first time that more people lived in urban settings than in rural conditions. Customs that were formerly condemned, such as wearing heavy makeup and experimenting sexually, were now more common in the middle class. “These changes in fashion-the short skirt, the boyish form, the straight, long-waisted dress, the frank use of paint-were signs of a real change in the American female ideal.” Not only in how many women viewed themselves, but gradually how men came to elevate women. However, many Americans were reluctant to condone the new behavior and embrace the flapper at all. The goal of many middle class families was to show off their personal wealth by investing in material items. The youth were not so much concerned with materialism as they were with challenging traditions set forth by their parents and grandparents. In high schools and universities it became easy for ideas and fads to be organized, and relative freedom to be exercised. The “peer culture” was eminent in mobilizing the revolution that became of the youth in the 1920s. Universities and high school environments were created as a result of child labor laws passed in the 1910s. These laws were common in the Progressive Era, as cities were transitioning from “primitive to modern,” the focus was to keep children and teenagers in a centralized area. They provided a setting that allowed for new interactions between men and women to be established.
What was even more revolutionary about the revolution of female behavior was how women began drinking and partying right alongside the men. “Mixed parties swarmed up to the curtained grills of speakeasies and uttered the mystic password, and the girls along with men stood at the speakeasy bar with one foot on the old brass rail.” Women such as Zelda Fitzgerald flaunted their novel, non-traditional place in society, and famously said ”’I like the jazz generation, and I hope my daughter’s generation will be jazzier. I want my girl to do as she pleases.”
New versus old distinguished the advancements and changes that occurred in the twenties. As the economy boomed, so too did findings in science and technology. These advancements not only affected the workplace, but they also highlighted the struggle between modernists and traditionalists. New definitions of what it meant to be a true “American” were derived as manners changed in urban life and the new woman emerged from the shadows of the genteel woman. The influences of Freud and Jung on what it meant to be a sexual human being changed the intellectual face of the country. For women, they began to work in the 1920s, “if not in offices or factories, then in the professional job of homemaking.” Women gained a sense of economic freedom, but they were ready for a widespread revolution.
Often times the new changes were a backlash to restrictions that existed in society already. In the aftermath of a crisis rights become limited, and this was no different for World War I. Prohibition (Eighteenth Amendment from 1920-1933) was an example of a right taken away on a national level. The amendment prohibited the sale, manufacture, and consumption of alcohol. While it was initially widely supported among diverse groups, it soon proved to have a reverse effect. Prohibition yielded more drinking and violence as smuggling increased to obtain alcohol. Often times in history deeming a substance illegal worsens the issue because it is difficult to force people to give up something they enjoy. In other words, outlandish behavior in the 1920s did not come to a halt because of the prohibition. The new consumer culture also effectively endured throughout the decade. After World War I, the economy was in a state in which factories needed to shift to a consumer mindset. Overproduction proved to be a problem in some industries, and in order to compensate that industrialists simply needed consumers. New technologies provided the means to produce in abundance and new commodities. The availability of media reached out to the nation at large and urged Americans that consuming was an investment in the country and that it would further society. Furthermore, the spending became a lifestyle of Americans, and unprecedented sales of nonessential items occurred. Fashion was profoundly affected by the consumer culture because it could singlehandedly portray new wealth and attitudes. Generally speaking, Americans perceived a higher standard of living, and consumer patterns matched this notion. The positive outlooks in economics fed the open-mindedness in the social aspects of life. However, these positive views were short lived, because the rapid plummet of the economy directly impacted the social undertone of the following decade. The women of the 1930s showed conspicuous contrasting elements to their predecessors of the 1920s. Many were even former flappers that were stunned into the seriousness by the Depression. Superficially, these could be noted in fashion and behavior. There was a distinct return to ladylike and genteel fashion that was so strongly dismissed in the 1920s. However, in a historical context the differences between each decade of women brought meaning to the American society at large. The economic prosperity, or lack there of, impacted women’s role in society directly. The workingwomen of the 1930s had to “grow up” and mature from their lavish ways they practiced in the prior decade. They had to do everything to survive just like, and along with their husbands. They were no longer whimsically allowed to celebrate the right to vote or the end of World War I, because they were now immersed in a new internal and international catastrophe. The economic downturn was different than the Great War because it played out right at home and cast a negative light on the previous society. World War I, on the contrary was causal of the American society of the 1920s.
The Great Depression following the stock market crash in 1929 put the world on a tilt and stabbed the former American prosperity severely and at its core. As the economic and social liberties that characterized the twenties vanished, so too did the flapper and her image. The 1930s were a difficult time for anyone to find a job, thus men could not fulfill their predictable role as the breadwinner of the family anymore. As a result, they often times were said to take their anger out on their wives, and put women in their traditional place.
The Great Depression had several immediate effects, one of which was its exposure on the illusion that plagued the1920s. People realized it would not be possible to live with so many superfluous things without consequences taking a toll. It was unfortunate that the extremity of the Stock Market Crash had to take place to put everything into perspective. However, the unemployment spike in the country not only strained the economy, but it also strained family life. While women were very busy trying to help their families survive, they could not escape the raw emotions that persisted during the depression. Some women were sensitive about their husband’s unemployment, while others resented the idea entirely and condemned it. In any case, women did what they could to make ends meat.
The women of the 1930s were another new breed, and were far different from their sisters in the 1920s. The circumstances of the nation forced them to be both independent and determined to better society. The independence of this decade was different than that of the 1920s. In the Roaring Twenties women were independent behaviorally, sexually, and socially. In the thirties, however, women were independent in a grander scheme, and that was politically. Because of the depression, feminism was lifted as men were not able to singlehandedly revive the country. The New Deal also granted expansions in social welfare, an area dominated by women. With the increasing amount of women appointed to government jobs, they were able to work on behalf of every common woman and feminism could permeate throughout society.
Women steadily increased in other areas of the work force as well. By 1930 24.3 percent of the labor force was comprised of women, and the number reached 25.1 percent in 1940. It is important to note that most of these women were married and leaving home to work, which was a custom only done by men since the 1830s. Despite women entering the workforce, they were not treated equally with men. They had lower wages, and often did not get jobs that a less qualified man would get. In effect, many unions were formed to organize rationale and protest. The National Women’s Party was one of the more prominent bodies, as they specifically challenged state and national legislatures that denied married women from working in government positions. Nevertheless, domestication was still the leading occupation held by women. However, one cannot overlook the changing gender roles despite the dismissal by employers to alter the gender segregation line. Because women were constricted to “female” jobs, as a group they were hit less hard by the Depression as it devastated manufacturing the worst. Throughout the 1930s, gender roles and expectations in both working-class and white-collar families adjusted. It would be difficult to argue any thirty-year period in the United States that underwent more drastic changes in society than the period from 1910 to 1940. Each decade was defined by various economic, social, and political distinctions. In similar fashion, the women of each decade reflected the changes in the United States as well as the evolution of feminism and new women’s roles. The independence that women exercised in these decades was unprecedented and likely unmatched until the 1960s. In such a short time period it was astounding to see women who were once solely confined to the home, turn into wage-earning citizens and social reformers. From the rage of the Gibson girl before World War I, in which women looked feminine wearing long hair and skirts, came the post World War I flapper with her hair cut short and an entirely new attitude.
While everyone expected American society to return to normalcy after the Great War, it did anything but that. Women had lost many potential suitors, and were ready to enjoy life. The free dancing and partying characterized the Roaring Twenties, but not without the emergence of jazz music. All of these new behaviors and appearances of the flapper created her distinct image. The flapper had to undergo a maturation process when the economy fell and the opulent lifestyle appeared nonessential. The women of the thirties weathered the economic storm by increasing their presence in the workforce and working alongside their husbands to survive. The changes from 1910 to 1940 were drastic, but held constant by the growing independence of women and their quest for equality. The images of women from the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s are very telling of the status of society, as they symbolically indicated the changes the United States endured.
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[ 1 ]. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
(New York: Scribner, 1999), 17.
[ 2 ]. Peggy Whitley, "American Cultural History - The Twentieth Century,"
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[ 3 ]. Robert J. Allison, ed., The "New Woman" of the Progressive Era, 1.
[ 4 ]. Gordon Reavley, Social History of the United States: The 1910s, (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2009), 378-380.
[ 5 ]. Maurine Weiner Greenwald, Women, War, and Work: The Impact of WWI on
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[ 6 ]. Ibid, 11-12.
[ 7 ]. Jill Conway, "Women Reformers and American Culture, 1870-1930,"
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[ 8 ]. J. Stanley Lemons, The Woman Citizen: Social Feminism in the 1920s
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[ 9 ]. Quoted from Ellen Welles Page, "Dear Parents...An Open Letter from a Flapper,"
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[ 10 ]. Dorothy M. Brown, Setting a Course: American Women in the 1920s
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[ 11 ]. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
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[ 12 ]. Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday (New York: Harper & Brothers,
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[ 13 ]. Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New
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[ 14 ]. Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday (New York: Harper & Brothers,
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[ 15 ]. Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New
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[ 16 ]. Dorothy M. Brown, Setting a Course: American Women in the 1920s
(Boston: Twayne, 1987), 2.
[ 17 ]. Estelle B. Freedman, "The New Woman: Changing Views of Women in the
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[ 18 ]. Linda S. Watts, Alice L. George, and Scott Beekman, Social History of the United States: The 1920s (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2009), 61-63.
[ 19 ]. Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New
York: The Free Press, 1989), 200.
[ 20 ]. Maurine Weiner Greenwald, Women, War, and Work: The Impact of WWI on
Women Workers in the United States (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1980), 52.
17 Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New
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[ 22 ]. Gale Research: Working Women in the 1930s.
[ 23 ]. Cecelia Bucki, Social History of the United States: The 1930s, ed.
Daniel J. Walkowitz and Daniel E. Bender (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2009), 222-227
[ 24 ]. Jennifer Rosenberg, "Flappers in the Roaring Twenties," About.com, http://history1900s.about.com/od/1920s/a/flappers.htm (accessed February 28,
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