1920s Women

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

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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.

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Major Themes

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

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Womens Traditional Roles

• 1.) Family Focus
• Wife
• Mother
• 2.) Education not priority
• 3.) No political power

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Women Before World War One

• 1.) Few Job Opportunities
• Examples Maid, seamstress
• 2.) Restrictive Life
• No jobno 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.

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Examples of Restrictive Clothing
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The Causes for Womens 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).

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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.

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Key Women Suffragists

• 1.) Susan B. Anthony
• Involved in Progressive Movement (reform
  immigrants and poor)
• Rallied for Womens Rights.

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Suffragists continued

• 2.) Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• Organized rallies and wrote speeches for womens
  rights.
• Campaigned for womens rights.

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Women Campaigning for Votes
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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.

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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

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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

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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

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A new modern woman emerges

• The FlapperA rebellious BOLD womanSmoke
  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 todays America

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Women and the 1920s
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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?
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• 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?

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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.

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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. Shes 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
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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.
Flappers had the image and the attitude to match.
History1900s.about.com/od/1920s/a/flappers.htm
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Life of a Flapper
The 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.
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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.
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The Flapper Look
Part Two
The twenties changed the way the world looked at
hair styles. The Bob is the infamous hair style
that was everywhere in the 20s.
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
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Entertainment
Drinking
Drinking 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
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Entertainment
Dancing
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.
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In the 1920s, 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
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Famous Flappers
Anita Page
Colleen Moore
Louise Brooks
www.silentladies.com
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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
Journal Does 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
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Limitations and Exceptions

• Women were still paid less than men,
• even when they did the same job.
• In politics, women didnt 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 homeTheir daughterswere far more likely to
  prepare for careers as mothers and housewives.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Closure

• A study of the "flappers" of the 1920s 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.

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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.