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Short Skirts and Societal Concern: The Flapper in the Roaring 20sWhen the term Roaring 20s is mentioned, several images immediately spring to mind: illicit booze, wild jazz, bobbed hair, and scandalously short skirts. In the very early 20th century, the Flapper was a cultural tidal wave that swept the nation. Flappers flaunted flagrant disregard for previously honored and sacred social and moral codes, and (perhaps inadvertently) ushered in a new age of female liberation. By adopting the Flapper style, women liberated themselves from the constrictive clothing, stuffy social mores, and limited acceptable social activities that previously constrained the fairer sex. Women now drank, danced, smoked, necked, and entered into the realm of men, free from the previous cages of corsets and long skirts.Just what exactly was a “Flapper”? The first documentation of this odd word takes place in the 1600s, and it is generally accepted to have been a dialectic slang term for “prostitute”. In the 1800s, it came to mean young girl, regardless of her sexual experience. It is suggested that the “flap” was referring to a young bird leaving the nest, testing out her wings. Another source defines a “flapper” as “a fashionable young woman intent on enjoying herself and flouting conventional standards of behavior”. In America during the 1920s, it came to mean almost exclusively a young woman who lived by “modern” ideals and dressed to fit the part. What caused the emergence of the radical Flapper fashion and, by extension, the Flapper way of life? After the Great War, young Americans were heavily disillusioned with the world that their parents had shaped. The Great War ended in a previously inconceivable number of casualties, and did a lot of damage to young America’s faith in morality; “The war tore away our spiritual foundations and challenged our faith," wrote one young Flapper, “We are struggling to regain our equilibrium." The Jazz Age provided the perfect backdrop. In a dizzying world full of pain and moral ambiguity, perhaps the Flappers were living as hedonistically as they saw fit. Living in the moment made sense in turbulent times. The Flapper style was truly astonishing when it is compared with the Edwardian style of the decade previous. In the 1910s, gowns reached the floor and covered ankles, wrists, and collarbone. Hair was long, and waists were cinched in tight in uncomfortable and cumbersome corsets. Womanly ideals such as gentleness, tenderness, and purity were highly valued. A strict moral code was in place, and in general, young women were covered up and untouched.Flappers parted ways with the style of their Victorian and Edwardian mothers. Gone were the buttoned up floor length gowns of the past, along with the tight corsets of the previous era. A very distinctive mode of dress characterized the Flapper style is. Instead of pinning their hair back in a demure and practical style, Flappers preferred a bold bob, sure to attract attention. Make up and flashy jewelry were staples in any Flapper’s repertoire, and skirts, much to the chagrin of parents and fuddy-duddies everywhere, were knee length, in order to allow a wide range of movement for dancing. Who Were Flappers? Just who were these daring dames, the Flappers of the Jazz Age? For the most part, Flapper garb was marketed towards youths, in urban “cosmopolitan” areas. Although it doesn’t state it explicitly in the magazine ads, the Flapper look wasn’t exactly a mature fashion statement, with silhouettes suited for slender, youthful figures. The Flapper look was widely available to the public. Advertisements in various magazines at the time provide evidence that Flapper clothing was available for a variety of budgets, ranging from teenagers who perhaps used pin money to buy clothes for themselves that their parents weren’t eager to purchase, to the richest women in society. It’s clear to see from advertisements in the contemporary popular fashion magazines that the Flapper look was widespread and in demand. This could be because of the attention that Flappers were receiving in popular culture. Fueling the Flapper FlameIn 1920 a film titled The Flapper ignited what became the Flapper flame, a movement that changed the course of popular culture. Starring Olive Thomas, the movie follows a young woman as she enters into the world of dancing, flirting, and other grown up behavior. Hijinks ensue, and the lifestyle is shown as a nonstop roller coaster. Not only were Flappers taking over Hollywood, but they were the object of interest in many contemporary literary works, as well. Perhaps the most famous Flappers of the era sprang from the pages of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald painted the majority of his Flappers as “vain, spoiled, rich, and shallow”, and it is notable that they typically “Fail to develop or mature in any way”. Perhaps this was intentional: Fitzgerald possibly acknowledged that Flappers were the cultural response to a hedonistic desire for the life in the fast lane. Then again, this could just be a chauvinistic approach to writing women, which would not be unheard of in the literary world. Society Says…Simply judging from the outfits we see, it is clear to us that Flappers were enthusiastic about their style, by the pains they took with their wardrobe…but what of the rest of 1920s society? Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to take the temperature of such a wide audience on such an opinioned-based question, and so as historians we must depend on individual accounts of non-Flappers’ interactions with their counter-culture counterparts. Margaret O’Leary put it succinctly: “Roughly, the world is divided into those who delight in her, those who fear her and those who try pathetically to take her as a matter of course”. In one poem published in Life Magazine in 1928, an American poet, Robert Jere Black, Jr., provides a witty response from flappers to their critics: “Society pans us, propriety bans us, The highbrows raise eyebrows in re us, The balers and bluffers and bald-headed duffers Unite and delightedly flay us! They dub us Dumb Doras, they snub and ignore us, Our simplest exertions excite ‘em, We’re viewed as pariahs by mewing Marias—And so we’ll reform—just to spite ‘em!The public considered Flappers to go hand and hand with the drinking and dangerously close dancing, and may have elicited a negative or even fearful response from upstanding citizens of the day. New York City won an honorable mention in a Life Magazine question contest in 1925: “What’s the worst city in the United States?”, with its “hordes of flippant flappers and callow patent-leather-haired youths“. The conservatives in the older generation likely responded to Flappers with attitudes similar to the grumbling grandparents of the current generation when confronted with the sagging pants and crop tops of today. Aside from being problematic on account of their shockingly progressive clothing Flappers were also thought of as shallow and irresponsible. Youth culture indulged in social activities that would make their Victorian ancestors squirm: namely, petting and dating. Dating was shocking because it put two individuals in a (typically unchaperoned) one-on-one setting, without the commitment that courting decreed. Women and men could now date around instead of marrying suitors. By avoiding the responsibilities of marriage and the traditional family and by expressing fairly liberal views when it came to things like sex and alcohol, it’s almost certain that they were viewed as a threat to the traditional family structure of society. That being said, there were many supporters of the modern Flapper. An interview with a matron of a popular girls youth society, revealed that some people “think the modern young girl is a delight. She dresses simply and sensibly, and she looks life right straight in the eye; she knows just what she wants and goes after it, whether it is a man, a career, a job or a new hat.”The Flappers: Feminists or just Floor Flushers?The Flappers of the 1920s were certainly groundbreakers. Although their intentions perhaps weren’t political or meant to be a statement, they did do quite a bit of bricklaying for the generations of women to follow. Flappers, in general, were incredibly sexually liberated when compared to the stuffy previous generation. While it might be a bit of a stretch to say that the Flapper movement was a direct reflection of the Feminist movement, it should not be disregarded. It is likely true that most Flappers didn’t give a thought to their social and political statements while they were donning their dresses and beads for dates and dances, but that shouldn’t discount the effect that Flappers had on society and the gradual acceptance of such modern behavior. To be sure, some flappers took themselves quite seriously. A letter to the editor of the Daily Illini in 1922 states that “Any real girl…who has the vitality of young womanhood, who feels pugilistically inclined when called the “weaker sex”, who resents being put on a pedestal and worshipped from afar, who wants to get into things herself, is a flapper….the flapper is a girl who is responsible for the advancement of woman’s condition in the world. The weak, retiring, “clinging” variety of woman really does nothing in the world but cling”. However, “the 1920s flapper sustained some of her fiercest criticism…from hard-line feminists…the New Woman of the 1920s….struck many veteran feminists as an apolitical creature interested only in romantic and sexual frivolities”.By donning short skirts and make up and acknowledging relaxed attitudes about casual sex, women “carved out a whole new territory to be governed by personal style, preference, and taste… and part of their historical significance lies precisely in the fact that by differentiating customs from morality, taste from propriety, the youth of the twenties set the stage for a new pluralism in behavior and the rhythm for rapid change in cultural norms”.Young Flappers took advantage of their newly forged brand of sexuality to earn a new place in society. Flappers became skilled at utilizing their womanly wiles to get away with “gender-inappropriate” behavior. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Marjorie, from Bernice Bobs Her Hair, puts it best: "I hate dainty minds…But a girl has to be dainty in person. If she looks like a million dollars she can talk about Russia, ping-pong, or the League of Nations and get away with it."The world of the Jazz babies wasn’t one without risk: constant exposure to Jazz, liquor, and men was almost as hazardous as it was fun. Perhaps instead of social criticism, Flappers should have received respect for maintaining their devil-may-care attitudes in the face of such hazards: after all, “It requires an enormous amount of cleverness and energy to keep going at the proper pace. It requires self-knowledge and self-analysis. We must be constantly on the alert. Attainment of flapperhood is a big and serious undertaking!” The forced gaiety adopted by the Flappers when they donned their short skirts and bobs was a brave reaction to a disenchanted new environment.The Flapper was a cultural force to be reckoned with. Between the sheer stylistic differences that the clothing held from the previous styles and the cultural implications that the style had, if one subscribed to the Flapper style, one clearly held a counterculture viewpoint on women’s place in society. Through their controversial garb and modern lifestyles, the Jazz Age Flappers broke down walls and opened doors for women of the modern 20th century.BibliographyCrook, Kile. "LIFE'S Question Contest."?Life (1883-1936)?85, no. 2216 (Apr 23, 1925): 7. . "Fashion: Timely Costumes that Meet all the Demands of the Exacting Flapper."?Vogue?54, no. 5 (Sep 01, 1919): 70. , Paula S. The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920's. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.Fitzgerald, F. Scott. "Bernice Bobs Her Hair." In Flappers and Philosophers. 1920."The Flappers' Farewell."?Life (1883-1936)?92, no. 2401 (Nov 09, 1928): 6. Flapper. Performed by Olive Thomas. United States: Selznick Pictures Corporation, 1920. DVD."flapper." In New Oxford American Dictionary, edited by Stevenson, Angus, and Christine A. Lindberg. : Oxford University Press, 2010. , Margery, M. A. Y. "Say it with JAZZ."?McClures, the Magazine of Romance (1926-1927)?Volume 58, (06, 1927): 24. , Quentin E. "The First Emotional Bankrupt: F. Scott Fitzgerald's Josephine Perry." The F. Scott Fitzgerald Review?1 (2002): 177-95. Accessed November 23, 2014. ’Leary, Margaret. "More Ado about the Flapper."?New York Times (1857-1922),?Apr 16, 1922. , Ellen Welles. "A Flapper’s Appeal to Parents."?Outlook (1893-1924)?132, no. 14 (Dec 06, 1922): 607. , Joshua. Flapper: The Notorious Life and Scandalous times of the First Thoroughly Modern Woman. New York: Crown Publishers, 2006. ................
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