The End of Flapperhood
Though many were shocked by the flapper's skimpy attire and licentious behavior, a less extreme version of the flapper became respectable among the old and the young. Some women cut off their hair and stopped wearing their corsets, but didn't go to the extreme of flapperhood.
If one judges 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.16
At the end of the 1920s, the stock market crashed and the world was plunged into the Great Depression. Frivolity and recklessness was forced to come to an end. However, much of the flapper's changes remained.
In the 1920s, flappers broke away from the Victorian image of womanhood. They dropped the corset, chopped their hair, dropped layers of clothing to increase ease of movement, wore make-up, created the concept of dating, and became a sexual person. They created what many consider the "new" or "modern" woman.
End Notes
1. Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the Nineteen-Twenties (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1931) 94.
2. Allen, 94-95.
3. G. Stanley Hall, "Flapper Americana Novissima," Atlantic Monthly 129 (June 1922): 771.
4. As quoted in Jackie Hatton, "Flappers," St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, 2000.
5. Hall, 772 and Ralph K. Andrist, ed., The American Heritage: History of the 20's & 30's (New York: American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc., 1970) 130.
6. As quoted in Andrist, 130.
7. Hall, 773.
8. Judith S. Baughman, ed., American Decades: 1920-1929 (New York: Manly, Inc., 1996) 155.
9. Hatton, 112.
10. Baughman, 157.
11. Bruce Bliven, "Flapper Jane," The New Republic 44 (Sept. 9, 1925): 65.
12. Bliven, 65.
13. W. O. Saunders, "Me and My Flapper Daughters," The American Magazine 104 (Aug. 1927): 27.
14. Hatton, 112.
15. As quoted in Baughman, 269.
16. Ellen Welles Page, "A Flapper's Appeal to Parents," Outlook 132 (Dec. 6, 1922): 607.
Bibliography
Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the Nineteen-Twenties. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1931.
Andrist, Ralph K., ed. The American Heritage: History of the 20's & 30's. New York: American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc., 1970.
Baughman, Judith S., ed. American Decades: 1920-1929. New York: Manly, Inc., 1996.
Bliven, Bruce. "Flapper Jane." The New Republic 44 (Sept. 9, 1925): 65-67.
Douglas, George H. Women of the 20s. Saybrook Publishers, 1986.
Fass, Paula S. The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920's. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Hall, G. Stanley. "Flapper Americana Novissima." Atlantic Monthly 129 (June 1922): 771-780.
Hatton, Jackie. "Flappers." St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. 2000.
Page, Ellen Welles. "A Flapper's Appeal to Parents." Outlook 132 (Dec. 6, 1922): 607.
Saunders, W. O. "Me and My Flapper Daughters." The American Magazine 104 (Aug. 1927): 27, 121.
