Folkway Violation
Jerome Sanders
Professor Pfieifle
History 34
June 3, 2014
Final
Question #3: American culture during the 1920’s mixed vibrancy and greater openness with prejudice and discrimination. How do the roles and expectations of women contribute to the changing culture – and sometimes clashes in culture – of the era? [19th Amendment, flappers, “dating”, birth control movement, Harlem Renaissance] During the 1920’s women were restricted from many things and society tried to control and limit their personal freedom. One of the ways women resisted to conform to society normality’s was limiting the amount of children they had by controlling their fertility. After the end of the civil war there was a decline in fertility rates and one of the major reasons for this was because there was a loss of young marriageable men who were killed and also because more and more women were gaining access to in formation on birth control and “voluntary motherhood” (pg 256). There are very few to none documents that recorded the woman’s use of birth control, due to the fact that during this time it was taboo to talk about these sorts of things. Not only that but economic and social class is closely connected to getting information on birth control; usually the wealth had more access to attain birth control and for the most part had fewer children than the poor. In the late 1940’s you see a clash in the culture because legislators passed laws limiting access to information on birth control including its methods. They feared many things would correspond to drop in fertility rates such as: that because there decline in the birth rate there would also be a decline in the “strength of America” (pg 256), the decline in white babies being born meant that there would be more native-born babies and that would lead to them taking control of the country, and that it unhealthy for women to do such treatments to their body. Many viewed birth control methods promoted promiscuity and that it was a
Professor Pfieifle
History 34
June 3, 2014
Final
Question #3: American culture during the 1920’s mixed vibrancy and greater openness with prejudice and discrimination. How do the roles and expectations of women contribute to the changing culture – and sometimes clashes in culture – of the era? [19th Amendment, flappers, “dating”, birth control movement, Harlem Renaissance] During the 1920’s women were restricted from many things and society tried to control and limit their personal freedom. One of the ways women resisted to conform to society normality’s was limiting the amount of children they had by controlling their fertility. After the end of the civil war there was a decline in fertility rates and one of the major reasons for this was because there was a loss of young marriageable men who were killed and also because more and more women were gaining access to in formation on birth control and “voluntary motherhood” (pg 256). There are very few to none documents that recorded the woman’s use of birth control, due to the fact that during this time it was taboo to talk about these sorts of things. Not only that but economic and social class is closely connected to getting information on birth control; usually the wealth had more access to attain birth control and for the most part had fewer children than the poor. In the late 1940’s you see a clash in the culture because legislators passed laws limiting access to information on birth control including its methods. They feared many things would correspond to drop in fertility rates such as: that because there decline in the birth rate there would also be a decline in the “strength of America” (pg 256), the decline in white babies being born meant that there would be more native-born babies and that would lead to them taking control of the country, and that it unhealthy for women to do such treatments to their body. Many viewed birth control methods promoted promiscuity and that it was a