The young women who roared their way through the 1920s

The flappers of the 1920s chose to hold onto the autonomy they gained during the First World War, leading to many of the established rights that exist today.

By Judy Finkbeiner Johnson

Many of the choices and freedoms women have today exist thanks to a group of intrepid young women in 1920s known as “flappers.”

The lifestyle freedoms those young women made possible not only enriched their future, but also the present. The changes were focused on women, but by extension, they also benefited men.

Films such as “The Great Gatsby” with Robert Redford and the remake with Leonardo Di Caprio, both adaptations of the famous F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, can give a glimpse into the iconic era.

As well, “Midnight in Paris” with Owen Wilson depicts a disillusioned screenwriter who takes late night solo walks while visiting Paris, France, entering a taxi several nights that takes him to the 1920s. While there, Wilson’s character meets Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and other Jazz Age luminaries.

“Downton Abbey,” a series that captured the attention and imaginations of many, can also serve as a window into that period, with several episodes set in the 1920s.

The flapper era was born from the First World War, when fathers, husbands and brothers who usually made the decisions for women were absent, so they made their own. They chose not to give up that autonomy after the war ended, refusing to quietly return to the drawing room where young women awaited marriage to a man selected by their parents. Often, they barely knew him even as they took his name.

Flappers heralded the beginning of the modern woman. Demure young women morphed into daring trailblazers who set paths on fire with their spirit, their joy and their courage. They were often painted with a false brush as promiscuous, overindulgent and foolish.

People who think and act “out of the box” can still be publicly tarnished today, especially as they challenge existing norms.

For the first time in modern history, old age ceded to youth for celebration by society and the dominant influence. The old mold was broken by the flappers, a label possibly coined from their affinity to fledgling birds, testing and flapping wings as they were ready to leave the nest to fly.

The pre-flapper young woman was expected to be quiet and not attract attention in any way. Her purpose was to be beautiful by the standards of the day, be obedient and follow all the rigid established rules for her life. Her long hair was shaped into myriad complex and often uncomfortable coiffures that took hours to create. Massive, heavy pantaloons were covered by

long skirts. Her body was restricted from breathing properly by whalebone corsets, cinched painfully to the smallest possible waist measurement.

The faces of women in that era are evidence of their restricted existences. They were painted, drawn and photographed looking down. They pinched their cheeks and bit their lips to provide hints of colour. The flappers were different. They faced the camera in the same way they faced life. Head held high, non-apologetic, boldly and straight on with rouged cheeks and lips stained with red lipstick.

They ditched their pantaloons for step-in panties for ease of movement and comfort. Corsets were replaced by fabric bands across the chest or often by silk bras. Gone were long skirts. Flappers wore about-knee-length skirts that showed legs covered with rolled, not gartered, stockings, and sleeveless dresses bared arms.

The flapper bob haircut was created from cutting long hair short. Max Factor makeup had only been used by movie stars like Clara Bow and Mary Pickford to enhance their features for black and white movies, but Max Factor made their cosmetics available to the public in the 1920s. Flappers embraced those visual aids, highlighting eyes with kohl, mascara, dramatic eyelashes and smoky eye shadow, cheeks accented with rouge. The overall look was matte-finished, with a red lipstick, bow-shaped upper lip mirroring a Clara Bow styled pout.

The establishment was worried about the overt expression of liberation and self-expression, as illustrated by the flappers’ dramatic and daring look and comportment.

Flapper shoes were made from leather, satin and canvas, often featuring cut-outs and intricate designs using embellishments like sequins and beads. Heels were for elegant occasions, sturdy pumps like T-Straps and Mary Janes for comfort and dancing, and Oxfords to complement androgynous-looking casual outfits.

There is no question that the flapper look was fantastic. The “bees’ knees” in flapper jargon.

Scolders called the look “shocking,” and showing skin was cited as sinful. Then, there was the fact that flappers openly drank and smoked and didn’t hide their intelligence or their views.

The music of the 1920s was vastly different from previous eras. Musicians like Scott Joplin made Ragtime music famous. Dances like the Shimmy, the Toddle and the Black Bottom were well suited for showing off fabulous, decorated dresses. There was hot jazz music for dancing the Charleston, a dance labelled scandalous by some at the time, because women were dancing independently of a man, not with his arms around her.

Flappers not only kicked up their legs but performed that iconic knee-opening-and-closing dance move that defines the Charleston. They moved their legs, their arms and their heads.

In spite of the criticism, the flappers went on their way, dancing and shaking the recognizable fringes of the era on their dresses through the decade. They changed their attire in the corset checkrooms that dancing venues provided — off with corsets and restricting garments, on with

the flapper look. Glamourous decorative headpieces and headbands using feathers, lace, beads, and jewels topped off the look. Tightly fitting cloche hats were mood appropriate. The silhouette was boyish, minimizing breasts and ignoring waistlines altogether or using a dropped waist. The look was sleeveless, with a plunging back, a possible low-cut neckline and completed by long necklaces of beads or pearls, often in several layers.

Critics kept pushing that sinful label. From pulpits to press, the jazz and ragtime music of the 1920s was denounced.

In an August 1921 issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal, an article written by Anne Shaw Faulkner was headlined “Does Jazz Put the Sin in Syncopation?”

The article goes on to say that some scientific men declared that those exposed very often to the “demoralizing influence of the persistent use of syncopation…are actually incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, right and wrong.”

The establishment was troubled. What would women want next?

The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920 established the right to vote, saying that the right of U.S. citizens to vote shall not be denied on account of sex. It took years for full enfranchisement.

In Canada, by 1922 all provinces except Quebec granted full suffrage to women. It would be decades before voting rights were expanded widely.

More than 100 years later, echoes of the flapper sub-culture can still be found, including in the highly descriptive slang they coined.

- Beeswax – business as in “That’s none of your beeswax”

- Dough – money

- Frame – set somebody up for something they didn’t do

- Hair of the dog – an antidote of alcohol taken when getting up the morning after the night before when one drank too much

- Handcuff – engagement ring

- John – toilet

- Kisser- lips

- Knock up – impregnate

- Dick – private investigator

- It – sex appeal

- Bump off – murder

- Chicago typewriter – submachine gun

- Fire extinguisher – a chaperone

- Dead soldier – empty beer or whisky bottle