Flapper
Flappers were a subculture of young Western women prominent after the First World War and through the 1920s who wore knee-length skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for prevailing codes of decent behavior. Flappers have been seen as brash for wearing excessive makeup, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes in public, driving automobiles, treating sex in a casual manner, and otherwise flouting social and sexual norms. As automobiles became more available, flappers gained freedom of movement and privacy.
Flappers are icons of the Roaring Twenties, a period of postwar social and political turbulence and increased transatlantic cultural exchange, as well as of the export of American jazz culture to Europe. More conservative people, who belonged mostly to older generations, reacted with claims that the flappers' dresses were "near nakedness" and that flappers were "flippant", "reckless", and unintelligent.
While primarily associated with the United States, this "modern girl" archetype was a worldwide phenomenon that had other names depending on the country, such as joven moderna in Argentina, garçonne in France, and moga in Japan, although the American term "flapper" was the most widespread internationally.
Etymology
The slang term "flapper" may derive from an earlier use in northern England to mean "teenage girl", referring to one whose hair is not yet put up and whose plaited pigtail "flaps" on her back, or from an older word meaning "prostitute". The slang word "flap" was used for a young prostitute as early as 1631. By the 1890s, the word "flapper" was used in some localities as slang both for a very young prostitute, and, in a more general and less derogatory sense, of any lively mid-teenage girl.The standard non-slang usage appeared in print as early as 1903 in England and 1904 in the United States, when the novelist Desmond Coke used it in his college story of Oxford life, Sandford of Merton: "There's a stunning flapper". In 1907, the English actor George Graves explained it to Americans as theatrical slang for acrobatic young female stage performers with hair "still hanging down their backs." The flapper was also known as a dancer, who danced like a bird—flapping her arms while doing the Charleston move. This move became quite a competitive dance during this era.
By 1908, newspapers as serious as The Times used the term, although with careful explanation: "A 'flapper', we may explain, is a young lady who has not yet been promoted to long frocks and the wearing of her hair 'up. In April 1908, the fashion section of London's The Globe and Traveller contained a sketch entitled "The Dress of the Young Girl" with the following explanation:
Americans, and those fortunate English folk whose money and status permit them to go in freely for slang terms... call the subject of these lines the 'flapper.' The appropriateness of this term does not move me to such whole-hearted admiration of the amazing powers of enriching our language which the Americans modestly acknowledge they possess..., in fact, would scarcely merit the honour of a moment of my attention, but for the fact that I seek in vain for any other expression that is understood to signify that important young person, the maiden of some sixteen years.The sketch is of a girl in a frock with a long skirt, "which has the waistline quite high and semi-Empire,... quite untrimmed, its plainness being relieved by a sash knotted carelessly around the skirt."
File:The Flapper - 1.jpg|thumb|right|200px|An advertisement for the 1920 silent film comedy The Flapper, with Olive Thomas, before the look of the flapper had started to coalesce.
By November 1910, the word was popular enough for A. E. James to begin a series of stories in the London Magazine featuring the misadventures of a pretty fifteen-year-old girl and titled "Her Majesty the Flapper". By 1911, a newspaper review indicates the mischievous and flirtatious "flapper" was an established stage-type.
By 1912, the London theatrical impresario John Tiller, defining the word in an interview he gave to The New York Times, described a "flapper" as belonging to a slightly older age group, a girl who has "just come out". Tiller's use of the phrase "come out" means "to make a formal entry into 'society' on reaching womanhood". In polite society at the time, a teenage girl who had not come out would still be classed as a child. She would be expected to keep a low profile on social occasions and ought not to be the object of male attention. Although the word was still largely understood as referring to high-spirited teenagers, gradually in Britain it was being extended to describe any impetuous immature woman. By late 1914, the British magazine Vanity Fair was reporting that the Flapper was beginning to disappear in England, being replaced by the so-called "Little Creatures."
A Times article on the problem of finding jobs for women made unemployed by the return of the male workforce, following the end of World War One, was titled "The Flapper's Future". Under this influence, the meaning of the term changed somewhat, to apply to "independent, pleasure-seeking, khaki-crazy young women".
In his lecture in 1920 on Britain's surplus of young women caused by the loss of young men in war, R. Murray-Leslie criticized "the social butterfly type... the frivolous, scantily-clad, jazzing flapper, irresponsible and undisciplined, to whom a dance, a new hat, or a man with a car, were of more importance than the fate of nations". In May of that year, Selznick Pictures released The Flapper, a silent comedy film starring Olive Thomas. It was the first film in the United States to portray the "flapper" lifestyle. By that time, the term had taken on the full meaning of the flapper generation style and attitudes.
The use of the term coincided with a fashion among teenage girls in the United States in the early 1920s for wearing unbuckled galoshes, and a widespread false etymology held that they were called "flappers" because these flapped when they walked, showing that they defied convention in a manner similar to the 21st-century fad for untied shoelaces. Another such false etymology comes from a 1920s fashion trend in which a young woman would leave her overcoat unbuttoned to allow it to flap back and forth as she walked, appearing more independent and freed from tight, Victorian Era–style clothing.
By the mid-1930s in Britain, although still occasionally used, the word "flapper" had become associated with the past. In 1936, a Times journalist grouped it with terms such as "blotto" as outdated slang: " evokes a distant echo of glad rags and flappers... It recalls a past which is not yet 'period'."
Influences
One cause of the change in young women's behavior was World War I, which ended in November 1918. The death of large numbers of young men in the war, and the Spanish flu pandemic which struck in 1918, killing 20-40 million people, inspired in young people a feeling that life is short and could end at any moment. Therefore, young women wanted to spend their youth enjoying their life and freedom rather than staying at home and waiting for a man to marry them.Political changes were another cause of the flapper culture. World War I reduced the grip of the class system on both sides of the Atlantic, encouraging different classes to mingle and share their sense of freedom. Women finally won the right to vote in the United States on August 26, 1920. Women wanted to be men's social equals and were faced with the difficult realization of the larger goals of feminism: individuality, full political participation, economic independence, and 'sex rights'. They wanted to have freedoms like men and go smoking and drinking. In addition, many women had more opportunities in the workplace and had even taken traditionally male jobs such as doctors, lawyers, engineers and pilots. The rise of consumerism also promoted the ideals of "fulfilment and freedom", which encouraged women to think independently about their garments, careers, and social activities.
Society changed quickly after World War I. For example, customs, technology, and manufacturing all moved quickly into the 20th century after the interruption of the war. The rise of the automobile was an important factor in flapper culture, as cars meant a woman could come and go as she pleased, travel to speakeasies and other entertainment venues, and use the large vehicles of the day for heavy petting or even sex. Also, the economic boom allowed more people the time and money to play golf and tennis and to take vacations, which required clothing adapted to these activities; the flapper's slender silhouette was very suitable for movement.
Evolution of image
The first appearance of the flapper style in the United States came from the popular 1920 Frances Marion film The Flapper, starring Olive Thomas. Thomas starred in a similar role in 1917, though it was not until The Flapper that the term was used. In her final movies, she was seen as the flapper image. Other actresses, such as Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, Colleen Moore and Joan Crawford would soon build their careers on the same image, achieving great popularity.F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote of Crawford:
In the United States, popular contempt for Prohibition was a factor in the rise of the flapper. With legal saloons and cabarets closed, back alley speakeasies became prolific and popular. This discrepancy between the law-abiding, religion-based temperance movement and the actual ubiquitous consumption of alcohol led to widespread disdain for authority. Flapper independence was also a response to the Gibson Girls of the 1890s. Although that pre-war look does not resemble the flapper style, their independence may have led to the flapper wisecracking tenacity 30 years later.
Writers in the United States such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Anita Loos and illustrators such as Russell Patterson, John Held Jr., Ethel Hays and Faith Burrows popularized the flapper look and lifestyle through their works, and flappers came to be seen as attractive, reckless, and independent. Among those who criticized the flapper craze was writer-critic Dorothy Parker, who penned "Flappers: A Hate Song" to poke fun at the fad. In 1922, Secretary of Labor James J. Davis denounced the "flippancy of the cigarette smoking, cocktail-drinking flapper". A Harvard psychologist reported that flappers had "the lowest degree of intelligence" and constituted "a hopeless problem for educators".
Another writer, Lynne Frame, said in her book that a large number of scientists and health professionals have analyzed and reviewed the degree of femininity of flappers' appearance and behavior, given the "boyishness" of the flapper look and behavior. Some gynecologists gave the opinion that women were less "marriageable" if they were less "feminine", as the husband would be unhappy in his marriage. In Frame's book, she also wrote that the appearance of flappers, like the short hair and short dress, distracted attention from feminine curves to the legs and body. These attributes were not only a fashion trend but also the expression of a blurring of gender roles.