Flappers PP Notes

Roaring 20s and the Sisters


Jumba was derivative (from South – African influence)
Done in speakeasies by flappers
Seen as lewd or improper
Can be dances as a solo or with a partner
Mimics those in supportive of prohibition

20s Started off with the ratification of women’s suffrage
Extend through the Jazz age
1921 Margaret Sanger founds American Birth Control League
1923 Edna St. Vincent Millay receives Pulitzer Prize for poetry (1st woman)
1923 Equal Rights Ammendment sponsored by Alice Paul introduced to Congress


1925 Nellie Taylor Ross becomes governor of WY (1st female governor of a state)
1925 The World’s Exposition of Women’s Progress opens in Chicago (first women’s fair)
1927 Supreme Court upholds Buck vs. Bell – eugenic sterilization law (forced sterilization for the ‘health of the state’ with people i.e. mentally retarded)
1928 Women earn 35% of the college degrees
1928 Olympics – Women compete in field sports for the first time
1929 Gerty and Carl Cori develop theory of “Cori Cycle” (how energy moves in body) and would win Nobel Prize for this in 1947
1929 Mildred Wirt writes her first Nancy Drew novels

Gretta Garbo


THE FLAPPER
Short dresses, short hair, stockings rolled down, and powdered knees
Not confined to just home and family
Socially aware and seen as a little ‘fast’
Accessories and fashion changed: hat, long beads, handbags, bright colors
Bras are introduced (no corset)




Cotton Club was a famous restaurant and night club in NYC
Played live Jazz and had dancing
Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and many famous musicians played there
1920 - Jack Johnson opened it (heavy weight champion) on 142nd St in Harlem.
A gangster would later take over the club by 1923 during prohibition