Transcript Women, Education, and Popular Culture

 “Flapper”
was a
term for an urban
woman who
adopted new
attitudes, fashions,
and ways of
behaving
Felt hats, waistless
dresses just above the
knees, skin-toned
stockings, strings of
beads
 Women had their long
hair cut into short
bobs and sometimes
dyed it black
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Flappers openly smoked
and drank in public
Talked openly about sex –
not something “polite”
women did at the time
Danced provocative
dances – fox trot, camel
walk, tango, Charleston,
shimmy
Ideas about marriage
changed and reflected
more of an equal
partnership
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eature=related
 Even
though women were getting many more
freedoms, a double standard (different
standards for women and men) existed at
this time
 Not many women actually adopted the
flapper attitude – it was mainly an ideal of
rebellious youth
 Casual dating was adopted by some men and
women during this time
 Men had greater freedom in dating than
women did
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When men came back
from World War I, many
employers fired women
workers and gave men
back their original jobs
Many women turned to
so-called “women’s
professions” – teachers,
nurses, librarians
Some worked in
business as typists, file
clerks, secretaries, etc.
Few worked in
management jobs, and
virtually all women
earned less than men in
similar jobs

In 1914 1 million American
students attended high
school, but by 1926 it was
4 million
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Prosperous times allowed
more children to go to
school and not work for the
family
Higher educational
standards were necessary
for many of the new
industrial jobs
High schools began
offering new courses,
including vocational
training
Taxes increased to fund
schools
 Literacy
increased with better education
which caused increased newspaper
circulation
 Many large city newspapers started buying up
small local newspapers, giving news coverage
a broader feel
 Magazines, with a wider circulation, began to
cover national and international news
Radio was the most
powerful
communications
medium of the 1920s
 People could now
hear news as it
happened – something
that had never
occurred before
 People began to hear
world news, and the
world heard America
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 The
1920s began
the age of popular
fads – crossword
puzzles, flagpole
sitting, dance
marathons
 This was also the
beginning of sports
superstars – boxing
and baseball in
particular
 Charles
Lindbergh first
non-stop solo
flight across the
Atlantic Ocean
 Gertrude Ederle
first woman to
swim across the
English channel
 Silent
movies and later “talkies,” movies
with sound, became very popular
 Music composer George Gershwin gained
fame for merging traditional European
composition with American elements like
jazz
 Edward Hopper and Georgia O’Keefe created
the beginnings of American art
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Sinclair Lewis – ridiculed
Americans for conformity
and materialism
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F. Scott Fitzgerald – The
Great Gatsby
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First American to win Nobel
Prize
Revealed negative sides of
the period
Lost Generation – a group
of American writers who
fled American life for
Europe
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Ernest Hemingway and F.
Scott Fitzgerald