Section 2: The Twenties Woman

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Chapter 13-2 and 13-3

• Section 2 The Twenties Woman

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Young Women Change the Rules

• By the 1920s the experiences of WWI the pull of
  the cities and changing attitudes had opened a
  new world for many young Americans.
• In the rebellious pleasure loving atmosphere of
  the twenties many women began to assert their
  independence reject values of the 19th century
  women and demand the same freedoms as a man.

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The flapper

• A new ideal emerged for some women the flapper
  emancipated women who embraced the new fashions
  urban attitudes of the day.
• Close fitting felt hats bright waistless dresses
  above the knee, skin toned silk stockings sleek
  pumps, and strings of beads replaced the dark and
  prim ankle length dresses.
• Women clipped their long hair into boyish bobs
  dying them black. Many women became more
  assertive in their bid for equal status.some
  began to smoke cigarettes, drink in public, and
  talk openly about sex.
• They danced the fox trot, camel walk, tango,
  Charleston, and shimmy with abandon. Attitudes
  toward marriage changed it was looked at more as
  a partnership but the house work and child
  rearing still remained that of a womens job.

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The Double Standard

• Magazines , newspapers, and advertisements
  promoted the image of the flapper, and young
  people openly discussed courtship and
  relationships in a way that scandalized their
  elders.
• The flapper was more an image of a rebellious
  youth than widespread reality. Before the 1920s
  men only courted women that they intended to
  marry however in the 1920s causal dating became
  acceptable
• Double standard set of principles granting more
  sexual freedom to men than women require women
  to observe stricter standards of behaviorthan
  men did. As a result many women were pulled back
  and forth.

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Women shed old roles at work and home

• The fast changing world of the 1920s produced
  new roles for women in the workplace and new
  trends in family life. Women starting working in
  jobs at offices, factories, stores, professions
  and the economy started producing time saving
  appliances that changed the role in the
  household.
• New work opportunities Many women that held
  typical male jobs during the War lost them after
  the War but the women then turned to typical
  womens professions college graduates got jobs
  as teachers, nurses, and librarians. Big business
  hired women to be clerical workers as typists,
  filing clerks, secretaries, stenographers, and
  office machine-operators.
• Other women became clerks in stores an held jobs
  on the assembly lines. Some even broke
  stereotypes and started working as flying
  airplanes, driving taxis, and drilling wells. By
  1920 10 million women were earning wages.
  Patterns of discrimination and inequality for
  women in the business were being established.

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The Changing Family

• Widespread social and economic changes affected
  the family. The birthrate had been declining and
  it dropped even faster during the 1920s. The
  decline was due to wider availability of birth
  control information.
• Margret Singer opened the first birth-control
  clinic in the United States and founded the Birth
  Control League she fought for legal rights of
  the physician to give birth control information
  to the women.

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Section 3 Education and Popular Culture
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Schools and the Mass Media Shape Culture

• During the 1920s mass media and developments in
  education had a powerful impact on the nation.
• School enrollments In 1914, approximately 1
  million American students attended high school
  in 1926 the number had risen to 4 million
  students an increase sparked by prosperous times
  and higher educational standards.
• High schools now started catering to vocational
  training instead of totally college bound
  students. The public schools had a challenge
  teaching the immigrant families children many of
  these new immigrants did not speak English. Taxes
  to finance the schools rose also.

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Expanding New Coverage

• Widespread education increased literacy in
  America but it was growing mass media that shaped
  the culture.
• Newspaper circulation rose as writers and editors
  learned how to hook readers by imitating the
  sensational stories into tabloids.
• Mass circulation of the magazines also
  flourished Readers Digest was one of these.

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Radio Comes of Age

• Radio was the most powerful communication tool to
  emerge in the 1920s. Americans added terms such
  as airwaves, radio audience, and tune in to
  their everyday speech. The radios created a
  shared national experience of hearing the
  headlines.

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America Chases New Heroes and Old Dreams

• During this period people had money and time to
  enjoy it. America spent 4.5 billion on
  entertainment much of it on everyday fads
  working crossword puzzles, playing Mashong, and
  some went exploring to different places.
• In the 1920s people turned to flagpole sitting
  and marathon dancing. They also attended athletic
  events

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Lindberghs flight

• Americas most beloved hero of the time wasnt
  athletic but a small town pilot Charles A.
  Lindbergh. He made the first solo flight across
  the Atlantic he went after the 25,000 prize.
• He took off near New York in the Spirit of
  St.Louis and flew to the coast of Newfoundland
  and headed across the Atlantic he landed in
  LeBourget airfield outside of Paris.
• Amelia Earhart also attempted these brave flights
  during this period.

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Entertainment and the Arts

• Sound movies came in during this period the
  first major motion picture with sound was The
  Jazz Singer and then Steamboat Willie the
  first animated picture
• The new talkies had doubled movie attendance
• Playwrights and composers of music broke away
  from the European traditions of the 1920s
  Eugene ONeils plays such as Hairy Ape forced
  the Americans to reflect upon modern isolation
  and family conflict. Fame was given to George
  Gershwin when he merged traditional elements with
  American Jazz.
• Painters appeared Edward Hopper caught the
  loneliness of American life and Georgia OKeeffe
  produced intensely colored canvases that captured
  the grandeur of New York.

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Nighthawks Hopper
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Writers of the 1920s

• Sinclair Lewis Babbitt Lewis used the main
  character George F. Babbitt to ridicule Americans
  for their conformity
• F. Scott Fitzgerald Wrote Great Gatsby and This
  Side of Paradise he revealed the negative side
  of the periods gaiety and freedom portraying
  wealthy and attractive people leading imperiled
  lives in gilded surroundings.
• Dorothy Parker a short story writer poet and
  essayist. Famous for wisecracking wit.
• Edna Wharton Age of Innocence
• Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote poems celebrating
  youth and life of independence and freedom from
  traditional constraints.
• Some settled in Paris upset about American
  cultureLost Generation.
• Ernest Hemingway. Wounded WWI . Soldier. The
  Sun Also Rises A Farwell to Arms