Flappers were about rebellion as much as fashion

After World War I, a new generation of young women emerged. They wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz and sought independence, which was then considered improper. Aamir Mohammed investigates the rise of the so-called Flapper girls...

FLAPPERS rebelled against society and changed the norm. They had a new-found confidence to strut their stuff on the dance floor, as they explored an independence that would have been inconceivable in the Edwardian era.

These liberated and free young women had their moment between the dark austerity of World War I and the Great Depression. But much of their legacy, fashion and culture is still admired and glamorised today.

The flapper movement began in the 1920s and spread in the US before arriving in the UK.

This was mainly due to the fact that the American economy was less devastated by the war than Britain’s, according to Judith Mackrell, author of Flappers: Women of a Dangerous Generation.

The term “flapper” cannot be traced to a single origin, but various researchers have claimed it came from a bird flapping its wings, from women seen as “loose” or immoral.

It may also have come from women who did not lace up their galoshes, and let them “flap” around.

In 1919, the year after some British women over the age 30 were given the vote, the Times of London used the term and expressed worries that women might use suffrage for “selfish” purposes, according to Ms Mackrell.

Despite this, many women had stepped up to fill jobs, which they enjoyed, as men went off to war.

They also fought to keep this independence when the men who survived returned.

Organisations such as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (Nawa) had been fighting for decades to get the vote for women.

Although this was very controversial at the time, it was difficult to refuse their demands for political equality.

As a result, the 19th Amendment to the constitution became law in 1920, giving women the right to vote.

In October 1918, a public meeting was held at the Dinam Hall, Barry Docks.

The Barry Dock News reported the meeting was “for the purpose of devising means of protection whereby girls and women in danger of drifting morally, may be protected and helped from doing so.

“To provide a maternity home with a view to save both the mother and the child born with the stigma of illegitimacy.”

The chairman spoke of the work designed by the Protection Society, and believed it was the only meeting of its kind held in the district.

The purpose of the gathering was to bring those who turned “wrong” in society back to “good” and to guide women.

Although the embodiment of that later 1920s free spirit was looked down upon by an older generation as wild and disgraceful, the new generation was thriving.

They were busy reinventing themselves and creating the famous flapper lifestyle we know today.

In A Flapper’s Appeal to Parents, which appeared in the December 6, 1922, issue of Outlook Magazine, writer Ellen Welles made a plea to the older generation.

She went into detail about how her outward appearance defined her flapper lifestyle, but also the challenges many women faced when they followed this lifestyle.

She wrote: “If one judges by appearances, I suppose I am a flapper. I am within the age limit.

“I wear bobbed hair, the badge of flapper-hood, I powder my nose, I wear fringed skirts and brightcoloured sweaters and scarfs.

“I adore to dance. I spend a large amount of time in automobiles.

“I don’t use rouge, or lipstick, or pluck my eyebrows. I don’t smoke (I’ve tried it, and don’t like it), or drink.”

After speaking of her experiences as a flapper, she then had a message for the older generation.

She said: “I want to beg all you parents, and grandparents and friends, and teachers, and preachers – you who constitute the ‘older generation.’

“To overlook our shortcomings, at least for the present, and to appreciate our virtues.

“I wonder if it ever occurred to any of you that it required brains to become and remain a successful flapper? Indeed it does!

“It requires an enormous amount of cleverness and energy to keep going at the proper pace. It requires self-knowledge and self analysis.”

At a public meeting at Barry town hall, a reverend raised concerns about the lifestyle.

The Barry Dock News reported: “One of the objects of the society was to find means of preventing these girls from going through the streets with such intentions in view.”

There were debates about whether girls should stay in school longer. They claimed many young girls who went to work early did not know of the dangers out there and they would easily be led astray.

Mrs Herbert Lewis, speaking at the meeting, said she would “sooner see her boy dead on the battlefield, and her girl in her grave, than to know that they had disgraced themselves morally”. Being a flapper wasn’t all about fashion, it was also about rebellion. They did what society did not expect or want from young women. The fashion they adopted only embodied their lifestyle.

The skirts, which were made shorter, made dancing easier.

The straight shapeless dresses were easy to make and made the gap between rich and poor less obvious.

The threat they posed to politicians and the public were spoken of.

“Legions of single women were seen as a threat to society,” Ms Mackrell added.

“I think we look back on that period with nostalgia for that greed for life and the new ideas. If the ’30s had turned out differently, it would have been interesting to see how that generation would have evolved.”