What was life like for women in the 1920's?

Question

What was life like for women in the 1920's?

Answer 1

The 1920s was the era of the Flapper.  Young women started to cut their hair, shorten their skirts, so that they could more easily dance the wild, flapping dances of the age (hence the term 'flapper').  They drank and smoked and wore makeup, and went out with boys without a chaperone.  They played sports, golf, tennis, and swimming were all very popular.  Sunbathing became popular with women for the first time.  Women enjoyed driving automobiles, and many women took to flying aeroplanes.

Although many girls still went to college, the number was lower than in the pre-WW1 era, and there was a decline of interest in careers among young women.  Most women worked until they got married, but far fewer women were interested in staying single and pursuing careers than during the pre-WW1 era.  One woman doctor commented sadly that female doctors had become as fashionable as "a horse and buggy".  Most women expected to give up work when they married.  Henry Ford said ""I pay our women well so that they can dress attractively and get married."

Houses were becoming more comfortable, for the first time, most middle-class people had running water in their homes, and indoor toilets.  By 1927 nearly two-thirds of American homes had electricity, and women were using it to power vacuum cleaners, electricity, refrigerators, toasters and irons.  The washing machine was still a work in progress, but many women sent their clothes to laundries where business was at an all-time peak.  American woman's most celebrated job was as consumer-in-chief. "Today's woman gets what she wants" enthused an ad in the Chicago Tribune. "The vote.  slim sheaths of silk to replace voluminous petticoats.  Glassware in sapphire blue or glowing amber.  The right to a career.  Soap to match her bathroom's color scheme."  The ad industry begged for her attention; the department stores spoiled her with extra services.  Women didn't have to carry packages - all their purchases were sent to a central desk, wrapped together, and turned over to the free and freqeunt delivery service.

Pregnant women were no longer supposed to stay home fromt he first moment the baby began to show.  Ready-to-wear maternity wear had been in the stores since 1910, and the New York Herald printed ads that announced: "It is no longer the fashion or the practice for expectant mothers to stay in seclusion" When it was time to deliver, more women went to the hospital, drawn by the promise that they could sleep through the entire experience.  "Two yellow capsules, a jab in the arm, swiftly blot out the scene, time, knowledge and feeling for the woman.....When she is not aware, sunlight pierces the drapery.  And one of the amiable nurses chirps: "It's all over, you've got your baby."

The first succesful sanitary napkins went on sale in 1921, in what must have been one of the most important unheralded moments in the history of women.  The Kimberly-Clark Company had manufactured bandages made out of wood pulp for army hospitals in World War I.  American nurses used them when they had their periods and raved about their absorbency and disposability.  After the war, the firm began selling the bandages under the name Kotex in pharmacies and department stores.  An early ad, signed by a registered nurse, praised the product's "Immaculacy" and "clean exquisiteness under circumstances which most women find exceedingly trying."

The movies were enormously popular in the twenties, and most people went at least once a week.  The twenties was a decade when movies stressed plots of interest to women - romances and melodramas over action adventures and comedies - and many of the most successful early screenwriters were women.  Although salary-conscious studios tried ahrd to keep their actors and actresses anonymous, the public instantly glommed up on a few familar faces, particularly that of the 'girl with the curls' Mary Pickford, who specialised in playing spunky child-heroines, and was getting 500 fan letters a day by 1915.    Her romance with fellow star Douglas Fairbanks caused a sensation.  When they finally divorced their respective mates and ran off to Europe together in 1920, Pickford looked out of the her London hotel window and saw the streets crammed with "thousands and thousands" of people who had been waiting to get a glimpse of them.  This was the beginning of the era of movie magazines and tabloid movie columns, when ordinary women would identify with the heroines on the screen, striking to be perky like Pickford or dangerous like Theda Bara.  Men and women went to the movies, but women spent much more time reading, thinking, and talking about movie stars.  Ina world where fewer people lived in small towns and shared mutual interests, the film stars created a common national neighborhood that everyone could visit.  Mary Pickford was an entire week's worth of coffee chat all by herself.

Answer 2

To find out what life was like during "The Roaring Twenties" click on the link below Canadian History in the Twentieth Century The Roaring Twenties.

Good Luck and have a nice day.

Answer 3

if they left the kitchen or bed theyd get a black eye

Answer 4

Read biographies from that period.

The best way to learn how life was like for another is to read their biography.

Sometimes you can find an expert on the subject who may have written on the subject.  I knew someone once who was an expert on 1940s American History.

Well my great grandmother at that time was exceedingly beautiful, married to a very handsome man and she also worked as head salad chef at a major famous hotel.

Answer 5

well my child, we didn't have the Internet, so confusing to me. We were true ladies in da day. we were pure till the day of marriage. we didn't work, we stayed at home took care of the family, we were happy. u probably are saying i am not 89 because of my avator pic, i changed to to a male to seem young and hip. well, i am tired i need a nap and some tea, where are my teeth at?