Women in the 1920s

Life

Magazine put this image on the cover of their Feb. 1922 issue, with the caption “The Flapper”.

Activity #1

Title: Life cover, Feb 1922

1. Describe the image

in a few words.

2. What do you think is the

subject

of this issue of

Life

?

3. What is the

message

of the picture?

T-Chart Comparison

Words Describing Today’s Ideal Beauty

• She is:

Words Describing Early 1900s Ideal Beauty

• She was:

The American Beauty “ The GIBSON GIRL”



Tall, narrow waist



Multi-faceted:



able to write well



play an instrument



raise children



Always at ease



Always appropriate



Fashionable



Portrayed as an equal to men



Teasing companion to men



Interested in education and the arts



Activities were private and domestic



Public and professional activities for men Camille Clifford was an actress. She typifies the Gibson Girl, one of the ideals of American female beauty

Pre-War Ideal - The Gibson Girl

“The American Girl to all the world.” She was spunky and sentimental, down-to-earth and aristocratic at the same time.

The Gibson Girl

Activity #2 Title: The Gibson Girl

1. Write 3 descriptive words about this “Gibson Girl” image of womanhood 2. Write a sentence about the best part of this image.

3. Write a sentence about what you think is missing from this idea.

Fashion Changes in WW I

• • • • •

Pre-1914 = Women’s trousers and short hair was viewed as UGLY 1914-1918 = Short hair and pants were practical for work!

The Pope even declared that short hair for women was not immoral, and was necessary for many factory workers. Relaxation of the formal rules of attire…

– Women's

hemlines rise to mid-calf length

– ladies wore

sexy heeled shoes and flesh toned silk stockings, not high button boots.

Clothing after the 1914-1918 War period is instantly recognizable as "Modern" to our eyes.

1920s – The ‘Flapper’

Activity #3

The Term ‘ Flapper ’

• In the US - flapper derived from a fashion of women wearing galoshes unbuckled so that they could show people their bodies as they walked • Some thought they were called "Flappers" because of the way they would flap their arms and walk like birds while doing the Charleston .

• Britain United Kingdom: Any impetuous* teenage girl , often including women under 30.

• In the 1920s the term took on the meaning of the flapper generation style and attitudes Title: Defining Youth 1.How are people your age sometimes defined/described?

2.In what way might this description be accurate?

3.How is this description unfair?

* Impetuous person:

characterized by sudden or rash action

1920s – The ‘Flapper’ ‘Flapper’ Style

• • • • Flappers were considered

reckless

rebels.

They had

short sleek hair

. They wore a

shorter than average shapeless shift dress .

They

wore make-up

public.

and put it on in They

exposed their legs

in public.

Activity #4

Title –

Clothing Statements

1.Name

2 things about your clothing choices

that differ from your parents or teachers.

2.Are you considered to be rebellious?

3.What word would you use, and why?

1920s – The ‘Flapper’

Changes in Public Bathing Attire [Swimwear] 1900 1910 Increasing sex appeal 1883 Early 1920s 1860

1920s – The ‘Flapper’ ‘Flapper’ Attitudes

“They found themselves expected to settle down into the humdrum routine of American life as if nothing had happened, to accept the moral dicta* of elders who seemed to them still to be living in a Pollyanna land of rosy ideals which the war had killed for them. They couldn't do it, and they very disrespectfully said so.” G. Stanley Hall, "Flapper Americana Novissima," Atlantic Monthly 129 (June 1922): 771 .

* Conventional – generally accepted • •

They treated sex in a more casual manner They were opposed to the conventional social and sexual norms

“ On the Triangle trip Amory had come into constant contact with that great current American phenomenon, the ‘

petting party

.’ None of the Victorian mothers —and most of the mothers were Victorian —had any idea how casually their daughters were accustomed to be kissed.”

This Side of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald

* Dicta - judgments

1920s – The ‘Flapper’

•

‘Flapper’ Amusements

• Listened to Jazz music • Loved to dance

Dreamed about a reefer 5 feet long mighty miff but not too strong you'll be high but not for long if you're a viper* I am the king of everything I've got to be high before I can sing light a tea and let it be if you're a viper Then your throat gets dry you know you're high everything is dandy truck on down to the corner store bust your mouth on peppermint candy * Viper – marijuana smoker Then you know your body's spent you don’t care if you don’t pay rent sky's high and so am I if you're a viper.

(Click Jukebox for Music

)

1920s – The ‘Flapper’ ‘Flapper’ Indulgences

• •

Drank hard liquor Smoked cigarettes

”Me and My Flapper Daughters” W. O. Saunders, "Me and My Flapper Daughters," The American Magazine 104 "I was sure my girls had never experimented with a hip-pocket flask, flirted with other women's husbands, or smoked cigarettes. My wife entertained the same smug delusion, and was saying something like that out loud at the dinner table one day. And then she began to talk about other girls.

"They tell me that that Purvis girl has cigarette parties at her home," remarked my wife. She was saying it for the benefit of Elizabeth, who runs somewhat with the Purvis girl. Elizabeth was regarding her mother with curious eyes. She made no reply to her mother, but turning to me, right there at the table, she said: "Dad, let's see your cigarettes." Without the slightest suspicion of what was forthcoming, I threw Elizabeth my cigarettes. She withdrew a fag from the package, tapped it on the back of her left hand, inserted it between her lips, reached over and took my lighted cigarette from my mouth, lit her own cigarette and blew airy rings toward the ceiling. My wife nearly fell out of her chair, and I might have fallen out of mine if I hadn't been momentarily stunned.”

1920s – The ‘Flapper’

‘Dear Parents”

An Open Letter from a Flapper

Ellen Welles Page, Outlook Magazine, Dec. 6, 1922 Activity #5

Title: Degrees of Difference 1.Find a recent comparison to the “semi-flapper-flapper superflapper”.

2.Why do these degrees of difference exist?

”If one judge by appearances, I suppose I am a flapper. I am within the age limit. I wear bobbed hair, the badge of flapperhood. (And, oh, what a comfort it is!), I powder my nose. I wear fringed skirts and bright-colored sweaters, and scarfs, 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. But none the less some of the most thoroughbred superflappers might blush to claim sistership or even remote relationship with such as I. I don't use rouge, or lipstick, or pluck my eyebrows. I don't smoke (I've tried it, and don't like it), or drink, or tell "peppy stories." I don't pet. And, most unpardonable infringement of all the rules and regulations of Flapperdom, I haven't a line! But then--there are many degrees of flapper. There is the semi-flapper; the flapper; the superflapper. Each of these three main general divisions has its degrees of variation. I might possibly be placed somewhere in the middle of the first class .”