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The Flapper: The Heroine or Antagonist of the 1920s
She Is...The Flapper"She takes a man’s point of view as her mother never could, and when she loses she is not afraid to admit defeat, whether it be a prime lover or $20 at auction… She will never make you a hatband or knit you a necktie… She’ll don knickers and go skiing with you… she’ll drive you as well, perhaps better; she’ll dance as long as you care to, and she’ll take everything you say the way you mean it…" 1.
She is the rebellious and light-hearted “New Woman.” She is the Flapper of the Roaring 1920s.
"The Sophisticated Flapper"2
The 1920s were unlike any other ten years in history. Glamour became a necessity for women. Members of the youth indulged in activities and luxuries that made them happy. Materialism was practically unbound, “scandalous” dancing was more than just a pastime, and ideals and morals greatly shifted. From 1920 to 1929, America experienced a period of great change, both socially and economically. Whether one blames World War I, women’s suffrage, music, or prohibition, a new rebellious youth, especially “new women,” emerged and impacted future generations. These youthful women became known as Flappers, and were recognized for their bold actions, their daring and self-reliant character, their scandalous attire, and more than anything their desire for equality with their male counterparts. Though the Flapper lifestyle clearly did not last forever, the changes in women’s attitudes, ideals, and actions (as they contradicted the morals of previous generations), left a profound impact on women to be independent and un-submissive to men. The Flapper generated both a new emotional culture for women of vast ages and races, as well as a new youth identity for her and her beau.
The Development of The Flapper Era
World War I undoubtedly played a great role in the development of the Flapper. However, research on Greenwich Village attire shows that "inherent changes in morals and manners expressed through appearance existed among single working-class and middleclass women in urban areas even earlier than WWI" 3. This particular movement was sparked by New York's Bohemian women- those artsy actresses and members of the 1910s literary culture who "experimented with dress in a highly politicized and culturally artistic environment permeated with feminist, socialist, and Freudian ideas" 3. The mini-counterculture began its growth far before the Flapper icon emerged; however, the strain of the war added to the liberal beliefs already forming.
The Flappers and their boyfriends grew up during World War I, surrounded by devastation, as families and prosperity fell apart. Perhaps the drinking, smoking, and dancing, characteristic of the youth, were means to escape the pain. The youth claimed, “We have been forced to live in an atmosphere of ‘to-morrow we die,’ and so, naturally we drank and were merry…” 4. During the war, families had to give up many of their luxury items and favorite activities, and young children even joined the workforce for extra family income. WWI forced austerity and sacrifice upon Americans, and the Flapper was simply the result 5. She wanted to enjoy being alive and embrace the temporarily war-free society.
While the men served in the United States military, women split their household duties with jobs outside the home. Before the war, and oftentimes after, men were viewed as the breadwinners while women stayed home tending to the house and the children. Women who held jobs often quit upon marriage and proceeded to rely on their husbands’ income. However, after the war many women desired to remain in the workforce. The Flapper “…demanded the same social freedom for herself that men enjoyed. Consequently she left home and asserted herself in the business world” 6. In fact, “by 1930, 10.8 million women held paying jobs, an increase of 2 million since [the] war’s end” 7.
With the boys back in the country, these women often held jobs that men were rarely interested in, so the sexes continued to be separated in the workplace. Nonetheless, women enjoyed the money and the purchasing power that enabled them to buy the many new labor-saving devices that were manufactured after the war: washing machines, irons, and vacuums. As both the gross national product and salaries increased in the twenties, such items were available to more than just the wealthy in American society 7. The time that women saved using the new appliances was used not only to go out to the Flapper’s favorite jazz club or speakeasy but also to work more hours and earn yet more money. This money enabled the working Flapper to purchase the ultimate ticket to independence: the automobile.
The Flapper & The Ford 8
As Ford mass-produced cars via the assembly line and gained competition, automobiles became more affordable to even the newly working young women. Not only did the automobile allow the Flapper to go wherever men could and to share in all their enjoyments, but it also spawned what would become a great shift in traditional courtship and dating. “In other days the boy paid court to his ‘girl’ on an ivied porch or in a cosy parlor, under the watchful eyes of a mother or the stricter vigil of a maiden aunt” 4. In the twenties, however, couples drove away from home, “indecently” as the parents believed. “By 1927 more autos were enclosed… creating new private space for courtship and sex” 7. This more intimate setting combined with the close dancing habits of the Flapper altered women’s perspective on, and openness to, sexual behavior.
Voting, and Drinking, and Smoking, Oh My!
The Shocking Activities, Fads, and Scandals of The New Woman
"Standing Out In The Crowd" 9
In addition to having the mobility necessary for independence, early Flappers were also among the first to vote along side American males. In 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified and after all the suffragist campaigns women were finally given the right to vote. “Some blamed the vote for young women’s excessive behavior: ‘Political and economic liberty… has come to women, who, retaining their sex instincts and yet not knowing how to use their freedom, are apt to claim the virtues and ape the vices of men’” 4. They were given a privilege that their mothers never were during their youthful years, already giving Flappers inspiration that they could be equal with men.
Just six months before the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, the Eighteenth Amendment referred to as the Volstead Act was approved after reform-seeking women pressured Congress to prohibit the alcohol that was “ruining society.” These Victorian reformers hoped to eliminate prostitution and the saloon, while raising men’s principles. One of their demands was this described prohibition of alcohol. However, after the war, the new woman began concentrating on herself more than others, and her thoughts on alcohol consumption (among many activities) drastically altered, perhaps, as mentioned, as a means to forget the sufferings of the war 6.
Regardless of the fact that Flappers’ thoughts on alcohol contrasted with those of their mothers, the Volstead Act was indeed enacted. For the next thirteen years, the manufacture, sale and possession of alcohol were prohibited 10. But America was not as “dry” as the law describes it to have been. Many Americans treated the Volstead Act as a joke; it was constantly violated without concern. The Volstead Act was broken more than any other law by “…so many ‘decent law-abiding’ people” 10. Equality-seeking Flappers and their boyfriends drank liquor constantly in clubs and speakeasies. Mothers and grandmothers were shocked that their these girls were drinking in public, let alone drinking against the law.
Not only did the Flapper drink hard liquor, but she also took to smoking. It was not uncommon in the twenties to walk into a loud jazz club and see a young Flapper dancing barely clothed with a cigarette in one hand a glass of alcohol in the other. The Flapper had indeed “‘established the feminine right to equal representation in such hitherto masculine fields of endeavor as smoking and drinking…’” 5. Flappers could almost never settle for an activity being only a “masculine field”; she wanted equality and fought for more unisex activities.
The habit of female smoking, however, seems to have been lees of a result of seeking equality with men and more of a result of stress from war. However, once the habit began, smoking in public and cigarette choices were certainly moves to show that women would not be dominated by their elders nor categorized below men. “A decade or so before, a President’s daughter, Alice Roosevelt, was asked to leave the lobby of a Chicago Hotel after she had lit a cigarette” 11. However, during the war, the cigarette was used by both men and women as a sedative and was considered more than just a small reason that smoking spread to young women 11. Women in the twenties bought cigarettes, or “coffin nails,” as the older generation preferred to call them, just as often as men, and also chose to smoke the same brand of potent cigarettes as men. The older generation believed that with the war being over there was no reason to continue this crude and, as the nickname alludes to, hazardous habit. Still, smoking continued and became a major symbol of the rebellious Flapper.
What Would Her Mother Think?
The Flappers Defy The Norms of The Older Generations
The older generation disapproved of the crude habits Flappers adopted and even flaunted. Flappers were energetic, but their parents believed that their energy was focused in the wrong direction. They focused on, as a female member of the older generation stated, “‘a frivolous pursuit of fun rather than trying to better their sex and their race’” 4. Victorian mothers and grandmothers frowned upon the youth’s reckless and carefree attitudes. The young women, however, were still dealing with returning to normalcy after the war, and, instead of helping the youth control their need to move through reckless behavior, the elders scorned the youth and gave them more reason to rebel against those that wanted to control them. One Flapper reached out to the older generation saying, “You must help us…The war tore our spiritual foundations and challenged our faith. We are struggling to regain our equilibrium” 12. Behind those heavily-made up faces were young girls who wanted advice and guidance, instead of scorn and criticism 12. The great distrust the older generation had for the youth created a large barrier and generation gap within society. “Youth culture that had existed on a smaller scale before the war now became a major social phenomenon separating college students from adults” 13. The war-affected youth stuck together in disagreeing with, and acting out against, their parents' beliefs on what was proper and acceptable.
The nation’s view of the youth shifted to shock over the rebellious attempts at gaining gender equality. More than ever, adults realized the age gap between themselves and their children. Although, certainly not all teenage girls were Flappers, the Flapper became a major symbol in the 1920s cultural view of a new radical youth. Thus, although not in numbers, the Flapper indeed shook the (partially) global youth. This, of course, will be seen again in the United States when the age gap of the 1950s and 1960s creates the countercultural of the 1960s protests. The Flapper’s new sense of fashion and leisure, as we will soon see, influenced her views of sexuality and transcended through American middle-class society to form a new emotional and even social culture for women.
One cannot simply blame the older generation for criticizing the “flaming” youth. Flappers grew up with many more opportunities that their mothers were still grasping. One Flapper, embracing her new found freedom stated, “I can think & act; perceive & execute, reason & react in a thousand different ways that my grandmother & even my mother never could” 14. The parents and grandparents indeed criticized their children and grandchildren who carried on such astoundingly different lives than they had, but they slowly began to accept their daughters coming home drunk and going out to petting parties. The mothers would soon even join in the new female social culture of openly accepting sexuality and smoking. In the early to mid-twenties, however, the Victorians remained aghast.
Among many Flapper habits that the older generation disapproved of, Flapper slang became well known and mocked by mothers. Flapperdom was the first youth movement that adopted it own slang dictionaries, and “The Flapper magazine predicted without hesitation that ‘many of the phrases now employed by members of this order [the Flapper movement] will eventually find a way into common usage and be accepted as good English just like many American slang words’” 5. Although many of the slang words such as “fire alarm” (a divorced woman) and “blue serge” (a sweetheart) did not last much longer than the Flapper movement, other words remain but with the same, or altered, meanings. The terms “big timer” and “bimbo” are still used in the 21st Century, but not to refer to a “charming and romantic man” or “a great person” respectively. There are, however, certain terms that have made a lasting impression on society and originated with the Flappers. Such terms include “ab-so-lute-ly,” “and how!,” “big cheese,” “heebie-jeebies,” "killjoy,” and "pos-i-tive-ly” just to name a few. Though mothers were stunned by the slang, the terms were mostly innocent and united the youth culture. These words remain today as catchy sayings that maintain the spunk of the late Flappers 5.
She's Wearing What?
Flapper Dress and The Will to Let Loose
"Fashions from Autumn of 1928"15
“A vivid image of the Flapper is firmly fixed in our collective cultural memory-the shocking and wild, bootleg-gin-drinking, cigarette-in-holder-smoking, necking and swearing, Charleston-dancing jazz baby; the short-haired or bobbed-hair young girl with a defiantly boyish figure, a fringed skirt, and stockings rolled and bunched below the knee as brazen witness to the fact that-gasp-she wore no corset” 5.
Flappers were young, working women who went to the jazz club after work or perhaps after school, depending on her age; she did not have the time nor the desire to be held back by a highly restrictive corset, as her mother and grandmother most likely wore their entire lives. Women’s attire showed major alterations as early as the 1910s, through Bohemian dress common in New York City’s Greenwich Village. The bohemian feminists intensity was obvious not only in her extreme beliefs regarding sex and marriage, but also in her desire to dress in less restricting clothing. This “feminist dress” was evident by 1914, when females began “bobbing” their hair and dancing at youthful halls such as the Village’s Liberal Club in “calf-length skirts and jumpers, tunic tops, and low sandal-type shoes” 3. Such attire already posed a threat to the traditional garments of the Victorian Era.
With long hair and heavy, layered clothing, Flappers' Victorian mothers bore quite the contrast to the slim mini-dresses of the 1920’s youth 7. The Victorians, while conservative in the amount of skin they showed, maintained their own opinions on sexiness and appropriateness of dress. Corsets created hourglass bodies and shoulders peered over the large, generally floor-length, gowns of adult women.