A New Generation of Women: What Was the Jazz Age Flapper?

A century ago, the prosperous, post-World War I “Jazz Age” drummed out one tumultuous social change after another. On the heels of the long suffragette struggle that led to U.S. women winning the right to vote in 1920, the wheels of change also powered the appearance of many of them to cut their hair, shorten their skirts, dance the Charleston, and even “neck” with the boys. Hatched during the 20th century’s first wave of feminism, these were the Jazz Age flappers, heralding a daring new generation of women.

With the waning of the culturally conservative Victorian era in both England and America, the early 1900s saw the beginnings of dramatic social shifts in women’s roles and rights that would proceed slowly but steadily through the century, if in fits and starts. Urbanization was a key impetus, as was the need for new types of jobs in the cities, from secretaries and clerks to garment workers, with many such roles filled by women and girls. At the same time, standards of female beauty and fashion were inching towards less stark sexual differences and more equanimity between the genders, especially in informal settings, for instance, in growing coed sports like tennis and golf.

Illustrative of the changes, all one needs to do is look at the dominant “Gibson Girl” advertising images of the 1890s and early 1900s, which idealized the refined, delicate, coiffed socialite female. She was outfitted in several layers of dress, including petticoats and perhaps a corset, that barely revealed any leg at all. Now, compare that to what would become the rage in the late 1910s and 1920s, at least among the younger, smart set. Not only did the flapper opt for short—“bobbed”—boyish hair, but her undergarments were scant beneath a dress or skirt that scandalously often revealed her knees. The sauciest girls even took to wearing stockings that were rolled down to just above those knees. Typically, on top of that shorn hair was a trim and tight-fitting cloche hat. And just like that—23 skidoo!—she was all set for an evening out.

Certainly, the U.S. underwent seismic changes during the “Roaring Twenties,” all contributing to an emerging 20th-century modernity that radically broke with the previous decades, especially affecting college-age youth. It wasn’t just the technological revolutions or simply women’s suffrage. After an economic downturn following World War I (at least partially due to the global influenza pandemic of 1918-1920), financial prosperity became tangible for the emerging middle class, especially in urban areas. For just one example, when Henry Ford began mass production of his legendary Model T automobile in 1908, it made private, motorized transportation affordable for millions of American families; and of those, how many sons and daughters were now able to take the car out for a night out of dancing?

More nebulously, but still very real, one of the decade’s defining traits was a sense of reckless, devil-may-care disillusionment regarding once-sacred social traditions and institutions. For F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author of the quintessential Jazz Age novel The Great Gatsby, America’s younger generations had “grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken.” In place of the old, outdated faiths, new beliefs and behaviors filled the void, notably the pursuit of success, materialism, frivolity, and fun. At the same time, Sigmund Freud’s controversial, taboo-smashing psychoanalytic theories had been popularized in an educated society, not only bringing the subject of human sexuality off the couch and out in the open but, even more daringly, serving to warn against “neurotic” sexual repression.

To gain an understanding of these resounding changes, the entertainment revolution that was silent “moving pictures” is revealing and not simply in a fashion sense. Take the pioneering director D.W. Griffith’s True Heart Susie of 1919, starring Lillian Gish. She plays a “plain girl” from rural Indiana who’s sure her childhood sweetheart William will propose marriage. But her plans go awry when a flirty, “powdered and painted” young woman named Bettina arrives from the city to capture his interest. While Bettina isn’t quite the stereotypical flapper (the film is set in 1909), she does wear makeup, smoke, dance, and party with her fast friends. Worst of all, she lies to a gullible William, who is conniving him into marriage. She, in fact, epitomizes the modern woman for Griffith in complete opposition to the true-blue Susie.

Or take an even darker example in director F.W. Murnau’s 1927 silent masterpiece, Sunrise. Also set in an idyllic small town, it’s a 19th-century Germanic melodrama about a wayward husband, his angelic wife, and the lethal femme fatale from the city who comes between them. Dressed to kill (almost literally), she shamelessly walks the streets in a slinky skirt, silk stockings, and cloche hat that covers her bobbed pageboy hair. Like Bettina, she’s a man-hunter, but she is measurably more diabolical. During one of her nocturnal, moonlit trysts with the hunky bumpkin husband, she slyly suggests that he dispose of his wife. “Couldn’t she get drowned?” she asks between caresses.

The Jazz Age Flapper: By George, She’s Got It 

Two of early cinema’s brilliant innovators, Murnau and Griffith had their roots in traditional Western melodrama, consigning women to roles as either idealized wives and mothers or as shifty seductresses. Despite the presence of the classic, man-eating “vamp” femme fatale, epitomized in campy silent stars like Theda Bara, the trend in the maturing motion-picture medium was more reflective of reality, however, glamorized by the new Hollywood studios like MGM and Paramount. Of all the modern women depicted in that decade on screen, few rivaled Clara Bow for her meteoric impact during its last half and into the early sound era.

Originally from New York City, Bow rocketed to fame in 1927 with her best-known film, It, based on a magazine story by Elinor Glyn, the British author behind several of the era’s risqué best-sellers. It was sex appeal, and Bow’s Betty Lou obviously had it, especially when she’s turning on the charm for Cyrus, the son of the owner of the downtown department store where she works as a salesgirl. Just when it seems that Betty Lou has closed the deal, nabbing Cyrus’ affections, his prejudices towards single motherhood ring up trouble.

In these years of scruffy “pre-code” films that weren’t censored the way they would be by the mid-1930s, the plot hinges on Betty Lou’s noble act of friendship, saving the day when she poses as the mother of her unmarried roommate’s baby. While It is not Bow’s brightest star vehicle, it shines with scenes of her buoyant allure, for instance, when she playfully hops on Cyrus’ desk with all the frisky spontaneity of a feline.

Since so many silent films are tragically lost to history (almost half of the entire output, experts say), we rarely know what we’re missing in looking back into “the vaults.” We do have, however, several other Bow films to remember and savor, starting with 1926’s Mantrap, which was sprung before she shot to national fame. Like so many other new “feature-length” (over approximately an hour) movies back then, the lead protagonist is female, and Bow more than fills out the role as Alverna, a plucky manicurist at a Minneapolis barber shop.

Of all the techniques of cinema that distinguish it from theater, the camera close-up was most responsible for turning mere actors and actresses into larger-than-life “stars.” What was true for Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Rudolph Valentino was also true for Bow, whose beguiling smile, whimsical expressions, and fluttering, kewpie-doll eyes in Mantrap are bound to catch anyone’s attention, male or female. Bow is also usually credited as one of the inspirations for the innocently sexy 1930s Betty Boop cartoon character.

But it’s not only Bow’s photogenic appeal that keeps her in focus, but equally her spunky, emancipated (usually) modern character. While in a flash, she meets and marries the kind but dimwitted Joe, who whisks her off to his wilderness lakefront cabin. Her eyes wander when they take a gander at Ralph, a posh lawyer on vacation from New York City. The stage is set for a tempestuous love triangle, though unquestionably, Bow is the center of attention and has the two men cornered. Watch Bow’s naturalistic, animated acting style, whether comically straightening her dress or furtively batting those bewitching eyelashes. Towards the end, when she’s fed up with both Joe and Ralph, she puts her hands on her hips and declares, “I’m my own boss from now on!” and “I don’t want to be saved!” with such feminine defiance Gloria Steinem or Simone De Beauvoir might have written the lines.

Bow was joined by a host of other film flappers on U.S screens, both earlier and later in the decade, including Colleen Moore, Louise Brooks, and a young Joan Crawford, another “Jazz baby” whose mad, uninhibited dance moves and skimpy fringed dresses in hit films like 1928’s Our Dancing Daughters made more than one shocked parent want to shout “Stop the music!”