~The urban lifestyle that developed during the early 1900's was a huge factor in the creation of flappers. One critic of flappers admitted in the June 17, 1922 edition of The Literary Digest that a change in the younger generation was not surprising, considering the things that surrounded them. The critic said;
“This is not the fault of youth. Can we expect young men and young women to rise about the conditions with which society has surrounded them, in the way of jazz music, modern dance-halls, public swimming pools, auto joy riding, luxury and freedom, the sensual and suggestive movies, where they learn to see nakedness and where immorality does not seem so bad? All of these things share a tendency to rouse the lowest passions and instill ideas of materialism, of free thought, and free love” (Personal Glimpses: the Case Against the Younger Generation).
-Mrs. Eva M. Blue, Dean of Women at Gooding College, "The Case Against the Younger Generation" The Literary Digest, June 24,1922
~Jazz
Jazz was introduced to the world with the invention and popularity of the radio. Jazz was being heard by every gender, and age. Jazz was considered devil music by the older generations in America, because of it's uptempo beat and the types of dancing it inspired young men and women to do. The younger generations would dance to this style of music at clubs, and dance halls where their parents couldn't see them. Below are two quotes from the 1920's that highlight how older generations viewed this new type of music.
~Prohibition
The passage of the eighteenth amendment in 1920 sent the United States into a downward spiral. Americans were outraged that the government had outlawed alcohol. It had become a major part of the country's culture, and something that many men and women felt like they could not live without. For these two reasons the majority of Americans ignored the government's attempt to eliminate liquor, and created new ways to get alcohol instead. After this amendment was passed bootlegging, organized crime, and speakeasies were born. The formation of these three institutions lead to the passage of the twenty- first amendment in 1933, which nullified the eighteenth amendment. But how did this attempted reform movement influence flappers?
Prohibition effected flappers in two ways. The first way was it influenced them, was it gave them a place to socialize with other people, specifically young men. Speakeasies were one of the few places that flappers could go, and not have their actions harshly judged by the people around them. Why? Because anyone who went to a speakeasy was to distracted by the alcohol around them, to criticize the "scandalous" behavior of the young women there. The second way that the eighteenth amendment influenced the behavior of flappers was it gave them another thing to challenge. One of the many things that made a woman a flapper was her desire to defy authority. That is why they found the idea of drinking alcohol so appealing. But the fact that flappers drank and went speakeasies were two of the things that made them so appalling and disciple to their elders. The eighteenth amendment was one the many factors that shaped how flappers acted, since it gave them something else to challenge besides their parents. Prohibition also contributed to the negative light that the older generation viewed flappers in, because they were not only defying a law when they drank, but flappers were also participating in an activity that women had never openly engaged in before.
~Media
Hollywood, literature, and the overall development of a national culture heavily influenced flappers. Young women turned to the actresses on screen, and the heroins in books for examples of how they should live their lives. The women who were consider flappers, began to emulate the appearance, behavior, and values of these fierce females. The image of the perfect man women had in their head, also started to change due to the media. They wanted the young men around them to act as noble and romantic as the men that starred alongside their role models. F. Scott Fitzgerald should this phenomenon in This Side of Paradise when he described his main character as, “He summed up all the romance that her age and environment led her to desire” (65). The young men in America did the same exact things; they changed their behavior and ideas of how women were suppose to act, because of the stereotypes that media presented. They copied the attitudes and actions of the males they saw on scene plus read about in books, because they believed that this was how they were suppose to act in the new century. This change was not very different from the change that occurred in flappers; they all just wanted to go out and party. But the change that arose in the expectations of men, was dramatically different than what happened in women as mentioned above. When combined, these changes in both men and women created a deadly mixture which assisted in the lowering of their generation's morals.
The creation of a national media circuit was one of the factors that lead to the wide spread creation of flappers. Without it, it would have been impossible for people in places like Chicago and other cities in the west to hear about the "scandalous" actions of the women in New York City, and other east coast cities. If mass produced literature (books, newspapers, magazines) and movies hadn't existed then the change in morals would have stayed in the east coast, like many people during this period hoped. Obviously this was not the case. At first, very few Americans realized how massive the creation of flappers was; "Armory say girls doing things even in his memory would have been impossible... But he never realized how wide-spread it was until he saw the cities between New York and Chicago as one vast juvenile intrigue" (Fitzgerald 61). Overtime though, as stories originally published on the west coast made their debut in east coast news, Americans realized that the creation of the flapper was a nation wide thing.
Media was an ingredient of the creation of the flapper, because of the power that it wielded. It changed the expectations along with the behavior of both flappers and men, which lead to the reckless and "immoral" behavior of their generation. The large audience that America's new national media was able to broadcast to was what allowed the formation of flappers to be a national event, and not just an occurrence in just one region of the county.
“This is not the fault of youth. Can we expect young men and young women to rise about the conditions with which society has surrounded them, in the way of jazz music, modern dance-halls, public swimming pools, auto joy riding, luxury and freedom, the sensual and suggestive movies, where they learn to see nakedness and where immorality does not seem so bad? All of these things share a tendency to rouse the lowest passions and instill ideas of materialism, of free thought, and free love” (Personal Glimpses: the Case Against the Younger Generation).
-Mrs. Eva M. Blue, Dean of Women at Gooding College, "The Case Against the Younger Generation" The Literary Digest, June 24,1922
~Jazz
Jazz was introduced to the world with the invention and popularity of the radio. Jazz was being heard by every gender, and age. Jazz was considered devil music by the older generations in America, because of it's uptempo beat and the types of dancing it inspired young men and women to do. The younger generations would dance to this style of music at clubs, and dance halls where their parents couldn't see them. Below are two quotes from the 1920's that highlight how older generations viewed this new type of music.
- In the Literary Digest's June 22, 1922 article, "The Case Against the Young Generation", William G. Harrison commented on the effects that jazz had on dancing, He observed that " distinctly lower level in the spirit and conduct of dancers to-day. And not a few in the best of society are allowing their baser natures to dominate in the ballroom.
- A priest in Upstate New York commented, "Jazz may be analyzed as a combination of nervousness, lawlessness, primitive and savage animal-ism and lasciviousness” (This Fabulous Century 78).
~Prohibition
The passage of the eighteenth amendment in 1920 sent the United States into a downward spiral. Americans were outraged that the government had outlawed alcohol. It had become a major part of the country's culture, and something that many men and women felt like they could not live without. For these two reasons the majority of Americans ignored the government's attempt to eliminate liquor, and created new ways to get alcohol instead. After this amendment was passed bootlegging, organized crime, and speakeasies were born. The formation of these three institutions lead to the passage of the twenty- first amendment in 1933, which nullified the eighteenth amendment. But how did this attempted reform movement influence flappers?
Prohibition effected flappers in two ways. The first way was it influenced them, was it gave them a place to socialize with other people, specifically young men. Speakeasies were one of the few places that flappers could go, and not have their actions harshly judged by the people around them. Why? Because anyone who went to a speakeasy was to distracted by the alcohol around them, to criticize the "scandalous" behavior of the young women there. The second way that the eighteenth amendment influenced the behavior of flappers was it gave them another thing to challenge. One of the many things that made a woman a flapper was her desire to defy authority. That is why they found the idea of drinking alcohol so appealing. But the fact that flappers drank and went speakeasies were two of the things that made them so appalling and disciple to their elders. The eighteenth amendment was one the many factors that shaped how flappers acted, since it gave them something else to challenge besides their parents. Prohibition also contributed to the negative light that the older generation viewed flappers in, because they were not only defying a law when they drank, but flappers were also participating in an activity that women had never openly engaged in before.
~Media
Hollywood, literature, and the overall development of a national culture heavily influenced flappers. Young women turned to the actresses on screen, and the heroins in books for examples of how they should live their lives. The women who were consider flappers, began to emulate the appearance, behavior, and values of these fierce females. The image of the perfect man women had in their head, also started to change due to the media. They wanted the young men around them to act as noble and romantic as the men that starred alongside their role models. F. Scott Fitzgerald should this phenomenon in This Side of Paradise when he described his main character as, “He summed up all the romance that her age and environment led her to desire” (65). The young men in America did the same exact things; they changed their behavior and ideas of how women were suppose to act, because of the stereotypes that media presented. They copied the attitudes and actions of the males they saw on scene plus read about in books, because they believed that this was how they were suppose to act in the new century. This change was not very different from the change that occurred in flappers; they all just wanted to go out and party. But the change that arose in the expectations of men, was dramatically different than what happened in women as mentioned above. When combined, these changes in both men and women created a deadly mixture which assisted in the lowering of their generation's morals.
The creation of a national media circuit was one of the factors that lead to the wide spread creation of flappers. Without it, it would have been impossible for people in places like Chicago and other cities in the west to hear about the "scandalous" actions of the women in New York City, and other east coast cities. If mass produced literature (books, newspapers, magazines) and movies hadn't existed then the change in morals would have stayed in the east coast, like many people during this period hoped. Obviously this was not the case. At first, very few Americans realized how massive the creation of flappers was; "Armory say girls doing things even in his memory would have been impossible... But he never realized how wide-spread it was until he saw the cities between New York and Chicago as one vast juvenile intrigue" (Fitzgerald 61). Overtime though, as stories originally published on the west coast made their debut in east coast news, Americans realized that the creation of the flapper was a nation wide thing.
Media was an ingredient of the creation of the flapper, because of the power that it wielded. It changed the expectations along with the behavior of both flappers and men, which lead to the reckless and "immoral" behavior of their generation. The large audience that America's new national media was able to broadcast to was what allowed the formation of flappers to be a national event, and not just an occurrence in just one region of the county.