1920s Women Objective: List the changes that women made during the 1920s.

1920s Women

Objective:

List the changes that women made during the 1920s

Importance

• Which strategy was not employed by women suffragists to obtain their goal?– 1. They called for female workers to strike.– 2. They advocated a constitutional amendment.– 3. They tested the Fourteenth Amendment in

court.– 4. They convinced state legislatures to grant

women the right to vote.

Vocab• Traditonal– characteristic of the older style

• Restrictive– limitation of application, as terms, expressions

• Suffrage– the right to vote, esp. in a political election

• 19th Amendment– citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any

State on account of sex• Liberate

– to free (a group or individual) from social or economic constraints or discrimination• Double Standard

– different provisions for one group of people than for another• Flapper

– a young woman, esp. one who, during the 1920s, behaved and dressed in a boldly unconventional manner.

Major Themes

• 1.) Traditional roles of women• 2.) Women Before World War One• 3.) Women’s Rights (19th Amendment)• 4.) Women After World War One• 5.) Women and the 1920s

Women’s Traditional Roles

• 1.) Family Focus•Wife•Mother

• 2.) Education not priority

• 3.) No political power

Women Before World War One• 1.) Few Job Opportunities

• Examples: Maid, seamstress• 2.) Restrictive Life

• No job=no money• Limited education• Under power of husband (Coverture Law)• No political rights (not vote)• No societal rights: not smoke in public, proper

behavior, if dated be chaperoned.• Dress: RESTRICTIVE! No make-up or pants,

dresses only, cage-like corsets.

Examples of Restrictive Clothing

The Causes for Women’s Rights

1.) Post Civil War-13th, 14th, 15th Amendments focused on African-Americans.-15th Amendment gave ex-slaves the right to vote (1868)- Voting Rights belonged to men only.- Women begin to rally for their rights.

-Wanted Suffrage (the right to vote).

Causes continued…

• 2. ) Women Suffrage Movement• Suffrage: right to vote• 1848-1920 (70 years)• Seneca Falls Convention 1848: First

meeting organized by women for their voting rights.• Got women the right to vote.

Key Women Suffragists

• 1.) Susan B. Anthony

– Involved in Progressive Movement (reform immigrants and poor)

– Rallied for Women’s Rights.

Suffragists continued…

• 2.) Elizabeth Cady Stanton

• Organized rallies and wrote speeches for women’s rights.–Campaigned for

women’s rights.

Women Campaigning for Votes

19th Amendment

• The 19th Amendment was passed in 1920.

• The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote.

• 19th Amendment was the result of Women Suffragists.

Effects of 19th Amendment

• Liberated women (freed women)• Women had political power• Women began to liberate themselves in

society• The start of the modern women• The flapper of the 1920s

WOMEN AND THEIR RIGHT TO VOTE!!!

19th Amendment (1920) marked greatest change made in voting history

• Ignorance/lack of interest of their right to vote and male domination kept many women away from polls (35%-1920)

•    11% of women did not think they should have the right

• Rather than crusading for social progress young women concentrated on individual self-expression

Women After World War One• Women had voting rights• Women worked as a result of World War One– Job experience

• Women were financially independent• Double Standard• Marriage rights (right to a divorce)• Change in behavior:– Young women were rebellious: cut hair and wore daring

clothing– Smoked in public and wore make-up!– Media portrayed women as “sex symbols”Beginning of the modern women

A new modern woman emerges…

The FlapperA rebellious BOLD woman…Smoke “devils weed”, drank, short hair, thin, flat chest, skirts above the knee, makeup, talked openly about sexMEN FLOCKED TO the new Flapper

Lasting effect on today’s America

Women and the 1920s

Flapper

What is the difference in fashion between the flapper and the women on the right?

Why do you think the older generation was upset by this new fashion trend?

A group of women were at the forefront of the “fun” movement. They were called flappers. Flappers were characterized by the following traits:

• Short hair and short skirt

•Makeup (Oh No!)

• Turned down hose and powdered knees?

• Drinking, smoking, and cursing

Why do you think these traits offended some of the older generation?

The Flapper

• Definition: rebellious young women embraced the urban attitudes and fashion of 1920s.

• Fashion: make-up, short hair, short skirts, drank and smoked.

• Reckless behavior• Called flapper because of

Charleston dance.

“The Flapper”By Dorothy Parker

The usual dancing men.

Her speed is great, but her control

Is something else again.

All spotlights focus on her pranks.

All tongues her prowess herald.

For which she well may render thanks

To God and Scott Fitzgerald.

Her golden rule is plain enough –

Just get them young and treat them rough.

The playful flapper here we see,

The fairest of the fair.

She’s not what Grandma used to be,

You might say, au contraire.

Her girlish ways may make a stir,

Her manners cause a scene,

But there is no more harm in her

Than in a submarine.

She nightly knocks for many a goal

Definition of a Flapper“Flapper” first started in Great Britain after WWI. It was used to describe young girls that were awkward and have not yet entered womanhood. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald describes flappers as “Lovely, expensive and about 19”. He drew the girls wearing unbuckled galoshes that made a “flapping” noise when they walked.

The Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins describes a flapper as a “Giddy, attractive, slightly unconventional, somewhat foolish girl full of wild surmises and inclined to revolt against the precepts and admonitions of her elders”.

History1900s.about.com/od/1920s/a/flappers.htm

Flappers had the image and the attitude to match.

Life of a FlapperThe life of a flapper was a lot of fun!

It consisted of constant partying.

Flappers smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol – all of which were unheard of if you were a woman!

They lived very reckless lives and would cling to their youth.

Flappers were the first of the women to flaunt their sexuality.

Their lifestyles were shown in the way that they dressed and danced.

The Flapper Look

Flappers were the first to show off and get a little crazy in terms of fashion. They wore heavy make up with scarlet lips and heavy eye make up. Before the flappers, only “loose” women wore make up.

Their clothes were a lot different than those of the past. They usually wore a dress that went just below the knee, stockings, heels and step ins (a one piece suit that was used as underwear instead of a corset).

The look was created by Coco Chanel (the world famous Chanel that we have now) and it was all the rage.

Women tried to look more like men in the twenties. They would tightly wrap their chest with strips of cloth to flatten it. They were trying to look around the age of a 15 year old boy.

“The tube” was a fashion icon. This was when fashion focused less on the physical form. The hemlines dropped to the knees and the hiplines were lowered. The “Tube” look was straight from the shoulders to the hem.

The Flapper LookPart Two

The twenties changed the way the world looked at hair styles. “The Bob” is the infamous hair style that was everywhere in the 20’s.

Most women haircuts were very short in the back and 20 % longer in the front.

The Cloche Hat was a must during the day. This was a hat that fit snuggly over short hair and reached the eyebrows.

www.clarabow.net

Entertainment

DrinkingDrinking was a favorite pastime of the flappers. Prohibition was in effect, and the women were breaking the law. Before this, only men would drink. The women were seen as “Giddy Flappers” due to drunkenness.

Many carried a flask, which was extremely unheard of – even for men!

www.silentladies.com

EntertainmentDancing Dancing was a flappers

favorite pastime. They would dance the Charleston, Black Bottom and the Shimmy.

The May 1920 edition of Atlantic Monthly said that “flappers trot like foxes, limp like lame ducks, one step like cripples, and all the barbaric lawp of strange instruments which transform the whole scene into a moving picture of a fancy ball in bedliam”.

“In the 1920’s, a new woman was born. She smoked, drank, danced and voted. She cut her hair, wore make-up, and went to petting parties. She was giddy and

took risks. She was a flapper.”

History1900s.about.com/od/1920s/a/flappers.htm

Famous Flappers

Anita Page Colleen Moore Louise Brooks

www.silentladies.com

Flappers got their name from a new dance craze called the Charleston, which required the dancers to flap their limbs erratically. The music of choice for this era was a new type of music called Jazz. Jazz was very popular among young people, but the older generation was getting nervous with the new styles.

From the Ladies Home JournalDoes Jazz Put the Sin in Syncopation? by Anne Shaw Faulkner

Jazz originally was the accompaniment of the voodoo dancer, stimulating the half-crazed barbarian to the vilest deeds. The weird chant, accompanied by the syncopated rhythm of the voodoo invokers, has also been employed by other barbaric people to stimulate brutality and sensuality. That it has a demoralizing effect upon the human brain has been demonstrated by many scientists

Limitations and Exceptions• Women were still paid less than men, – even when they did the same job.

• In politics, women didn’t achieve equality– Only a handful of women had been elected by 1929.

• Strong conservative tradition in USA. – Combination of traditional religion & old country

values – Kept American women in a much more restricted role.

• “Most middle class women concentrated on managing the home…Their daughters…were far more likely to prepare for careers as mothers and housewives.”

Conclusion

• Young middle class women in the cities – the flappers– experienced massive changes to roles in American

society.• Majority of women experienced minor changes– Lives remained very similar to how they had been before

the war.• Some women “more traditional rural areas”– outraged by the actions of the flappers in the cities – opposed many of the images of women in films, novels

and magazines.

Importance

• Which strategy was not employed by women suffragists to obtain their goal?– 1. They called for female workers to strike.– 2. They advocated a constitutional amendment.– 3. They tested the Fourteenth Amendment in

court.– 4. They convinced state legislatures to grant

women the right to vote.

Closure

• During World War I, the American women's movement was strengthened when women– 1. joined the army and fought alongside men.– 2. stayed at home and ran the households.– 3. took over hundreds of jobs that men left.– 4. formed their own political parties.

Closure

• "Double standard" refers to– 1. stricter social and moral standards for women

than for men in the 1920s.– 2. owner wages women earned compared to

those earned by men in the 1920s.– 3. amount of work that women did both at home

and outside the house in the 1920s.– 4. unfair treatment of women in the workplace in

the 1920s.

Closure

• A study of the "flappers" of the 1920’s would indicate that– 1. some women rejected traditional feminine roles.– 2. many women were elected to national political

office.– 3. women were fired from traditionally male

occupations.– 4. the earning power of women was equal to that of

men in the same occupation.

Closure

• Which of the following allowed women to shed old roles in the 1920s.– 1. Work opportunities provided by the new

industrial economy.– 2. Equal wages paid to women and men.– 3. New managerial positions were open to

women.– 4. Equality in the business world.