1900's Flapper Movement

In 1924, Zelda Fitzgerald is quoted as saying, "I like the jazz generation and I hope my daughter's generation will be jazzier." At this time, the "flapper" became the symbol of the age. Young women were leaving behind the respectability of their mothers and entering in to a new world of sexuality, shorter skirts and make-up. They were going to dance halls, movies; they were smoking and flaunting their bodies before everyone. Why had these young women turned their backs on everything that their mothers and grandmothers had believed in and built? Is it because they see they can make decisions and choices on their own and stand by the consciences? How were these new young women going to find jobs and a place in the workplace? In what way had these "flappers" found freedom and joy?

If we consider young men of this era and many past, we find that is has been acceptable for them to go to dance halls, movies, gaming halls, acceptable for them to smoke and dance, to sleep around and to flaunt sexuality. Men were not considered men if they did not take part in some form of debauchery. What is surprising is that women did not become "flappers" before the 1920's. Women had been watching brothers, cousins, fiancés, fathers and husbands live this "flapper" lifestyle. Why had not more women rebelled sooner?

When we consider the way young women seemed to turn their backs on their mothers and grandmothers, we must look at the way the country was moving and changing. After the civil war, women had started working outside the home, fighting for voting rights and equality. Over several generations, we see a change from the traditional mother and wife, to a woman who is stretching the bonds of domesticity and reaching for independence. Do you notice that the flapper generation came about slower then we think? Suffragists were part of the beginning in the 1800's. In 1913, the "sex o'clock" had come and