Unknown Flapper
Magazine Photograph Circa 1920s: Photographer Unknown
This picture is of a flapper woman smoking a cigarette. One of the freedoms that the modern woman took on was smoking. Before the only women who smoked were “bad women.” The next biggest thing that the flapper changed about women was drinking habits. The flapper emerged during the age of prohibition and they were greatly different from the women a decade earlier, not only in their dress but in the fact that the flapper openly drank illegal alcohol and her foremother’s worked to get alcohol prohibited. Hollywood and pop culture did their part to make sure that they promoted this image of the modern woman. The lives of women were transforming in more ways than one, even though not all women adopted the flapper lifestyle. It was just young women that took to the flapper lifestyle; older women were transforming their lives also. The older women were going into the work place, or refusing to leave the jobs that they had taken over during the war. Even with this movement into the workforce and professionalism, seventy-five percent of African-American women were employed in domestic services, laundry and agriculture. Much legislation was passed for women’s rights in the work place, the United States Labor Department even established the Women’s Bureau during this decade.
Gale Group. “A New Woman Emerges After World War I,” American Journey Online: Women in America. 1999.
Comments and faves
Shannon Bontrager, Lumy2006, mollyfatale, nglacrosse23, and 68 other people added this photo to their favorites.
Citizen110 (56 months ago | reply)
Lots of things were changing after WW I. I think American society on the whole was far more progressive in the early 20th century than it is today.
I saw a TV documentary about Prohibition and one of the people interviewed was a sweet little old lady from Detroit who was a flapper. She had some old photos of herself and was very attractive in her youth. It was great to hear her tell about those days!
Pauline Delaware (46 months ago | reply)
This is Joan Crawford not too certain of the date 1928/29
jeepgirl19700 (46 months ago | reply)
Jeesh, I never would have recognized here there. I just love those flappers though, love your pictures.
Missouri History Museum (39 months ago | reply)
Hi there--you might enjoy this pic: www.flickr.com/photos/mohistory/3334003522/
Interestingly the nephew of Freud, Edward Bernays, had much to do with the transition to women smoking in public. www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0OrT-8gXMs
Missouri History Museum (39 months ago | reply)
www.flickr.com/photos/mohistory/3334003522/
salbug00 (19 months ago | reply)
How can you have nearly 10,000 views and only five comments?!?!?! Well, I'm here to say this is a great photo!