To analyse the evolving place of feminism during the 1920s in the USA, and the changing roles of women during this era it is imperative to establish a background to the developments that took place in the Jazz Age in a broader context of the liberalisation of the USA post-World War One. The context of the ‘Jazz Age’, a phrase coined by the author F Scott Fitzgerald denoting the era between World War One (WW1) and World War Two (WW2), established a melting pot of beliefs, cultures and money, leading to an economic boom and a significant shift in morals and culture. Speakeasies and the emergence of criminal gangs became a part of this new social milieu, which was centred in the cities of Chicago and New York.
Feminism, a word first documented in the English language in 1884, to represent the movement towards gender equality, was still in its infancy at the start of the 20th century. Globally, significant shifts were being made to change the position and role of women in society, with women’s rights movements springing up around the world. The women’s suffrage movement gained momentum into the first two decades of the 20th century, with the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution in August 1920, the whole of the USA had women’s voting rights.
Some historians argue that the changes to women’s roles in society were due to the progress being carried out in terms of women’s rights and suffrage, as the states 'conceded' to women’s voting rights. However there other factors and catalysts to the changes in the USA during the Jazz Age to evaluate, including, but not limited to: the impact of WW1; the availability of households goods and new forms of media; the financial climate; feminist literature; celebrity culture; changing morals and sexual freedom; the illegal use of drugs and narcotics, particularly alcohol; the rise of gangs et alia.
The first of these is the impact of WW1 on the role of women in society, as women were taking up jobs that men would have previously held, proving them capable in a working environment. By 1918 munitions factories were the biggest employer of women in the USA, giving them the experience of factory assembly lines that allowed women to continue working into the Economic Boom of the 20s. During the war, women on the home front kept morale high by volunteering for organizations like the Red Cross. The US Navy was the first branch to allow women into its ranks in the year 1917 when over 11,000 women enlisted. That year, the secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels stated: “In my opinion, the importance of the part which our American women must play in the successful prosecution of the war cannot be overestimated.” (Daniels, 1917) This meant that women became a larger part of the war effort, allowing further advancement of feminism, men were realizing their value, finally, and attitudes towards women’s capabilities were changing. During the 1920s women were getting white collar jobs, as teachers, nurses and secretaries to name a few, which was following on from the work they took up during the war. This was a significant jump in feminism from the Victorian era, where most women only had a domestic role.
Secondly, the impact on the financial climate of the early 20th century; US forces not entering world war one until 1917 meant they lost less soldiers and had less debt. America reaped the financial gain of World War One, with treaties like the Dawes Plan coming into effect, which initially lent around $200 million to Germany in order for them to pay back the 132 billion marks in Reparations to France, as settled by the commission in 1921. (Parwani, 1998) This, along with many other financial strategies meant that most of Europe was in debt to America, and as inflation continued to rise, America continued to reap the benefits.
Besides this, radios were becoming more readily available in the households due to credit schemes, as were other new consumer goods, such as fridges, vacuums etc., which gave women more time to get jobs outside of the home and family. This is proven by the statistics involving the changing role of women, from being a traditional housewife to a working women, that happened in the first two decades of the 20th century, for example, just in the year 1920, the number of women in the workforce in the USA increased by 25%.
During the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century the spread of the concept of feminism through feminist literature by the likes of American author Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who wrote ‘Herland’, and ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, as well as a significant amount of essays on the topic, and the celebrated feminist writer Kate Chopin, author of ‘A Pair of Silk Stockings’, which were published in the widely read women’s magazine Vogue. Both authors dealt with the subject of female emancipation, as did many others, and it is clear that their impact was widely felt. As these authors used a newly found culture surrounding uncensored media to their benefit, the concept of feminism spread, with it attitudes towards women started to change.
Furthermore, media in formats other than the accessibility of radio helped create the atmosphere of the Roaring Twenties in which traditional values of society went through an upheaval. The film industry boomed, after the introduction of the “talkie”, and the newfound obsession with celebrity. In 1927 an average of 60 million Americans went to the cinema every week, but by 1929 this had gone up to 110 million. This resulted from new technological advancements including the use of dialogue in film- the first talkie being released in the year 1924. Famous actors like Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and Clara Bow helped make the film industry big. The production company United Artists was the first company to be making the big bucks, and its collaborators were a part of the growing film scene that established a new form of celebrity allowing promiscuity and liberation. (Moore, 2008) It wasn’t until 1930 that films were censored, so during the twenties new ideologies and philosophies, and changing morals were being presented on the big screen for those 110 million viewers a week. This impacted feminism in the sense that women could go to cinemas and see things that previous generations wouldn’t even talk about, such as female emancipation and sexual freedom.
During the 1920s the shifting attitude toward women was backed up by a changing attitude towards freedom of speech, and freedom of morals. Sex outside of marriage was becoming okay and was discussed. The New York Evening Post reported on January 5th, 1929, that between 1927 and 1928 there was a decrease in marriages by 6,007 in New York. As well as higher divorce rates, fewer people were going to church and fewer people were getting married, signalling a change in the culture surrounding family values that was so intrinsic to the USA prior to the 1920s.
Zelda Fitzgerald was another key figure in influencing the changing role of women in 1920s USA, as a celebrity of her time, the author and playwright, and wife of ‘The Great Gatsby’ author, F. Scott. Fitzgerald, who coined the term ‘The Jazz Age”. Her life and marriage was turbulent, but she was a popular example of the ‘flapper’. Serving as a muse to her husband she became an icon of the modern women of the 1920s, enjoying life in the spotlight. As a fashion icon, she encouraged the ‘flapper look’ that many young women copied- the short dresses, without the aid of corsets, makeup and going out by oneself to illegal bars or ‘speakeasies’, (run by gangsters such as Al Capone) learning new dances such as the Charleston and listening to daring new Jazz music. This idea of the modern women was perpetuated by the newly found idea of celebrity, as literary circles became easily accessible and Hollywood stars mixed with old money. (Fowler, 2013)
The centre of the Jazz Age was, indisputably, Chicago, as featured in the modern musical of the same name. (Marshall, 2002) It was the territory of infamous gangster Al Capone, who made an estimated $100 million as the head of a crime syndicate that set up casinos and speakeasies, which were the centre of this new liberating culture for the youth, organized crime rose as the economy boomed. The youth in Capone’s venues were witnesses to this liberation from traditional values rubbing shoulders with the aristocracy, literary circles and the stars of the silver screen. All over the USA young women “were reading Freud and attempting to lose their inhibitions” (Crowley, 1934.) Freud’s talks at universities around the USA were helping create this atmosphere of liberation, with words like “taboo, Repression and the unconscious mind.” falling easily from the lips of these students. (Moore, 2008.)
The speakeasies can illustrate this contemporary attitude towards liberation. No respectable women would have entered a saloon before 1914, but this anti-alcohol culture changed in 1920 when the Volstead Act came into place. Then it became part of the new, daring, culture of young women, drinking was an illicit activity, speakeasies creating a new informal socialising venue. (Moore, 2008.) Until 1929, smoking in public was still worthy of arrest, but cigarette brands increasingly used the image of the flapper lighting up their ‘torches of liberty’ in their advertising schemes. (Moore, 2008.)
In addition to this, another use of drugs and narcotics that became increasingly popular in the Roaring Twenties was cocaine. Although only mentioned in passing, it became a large part of the glamorous culture associated with flappers and emancipation of women. It was usually hidden in a gold box on the end of a necklace as shown in Noel Coward’s 1924 play ‘The Vortex’. (Moore, 2008) Strict dieting and exercise achieved the “youthful, androgynous figures” of the flappers. (Moore, 2008.) It could be argued that although the flappers were creating this sense of liberty from social constructs, they were in fact just changing the trends; these women were still restrained by society into creating these personas in order to have a little liberty from the older generations.
Due to the 1873 Comstock Act, which banned the sale and promotion of contraceptives, the rise in sex outside marriage led to women getting pregnant when they couldn’t raise the child. Illegal abortions killed over 50,000 American women a year during the height of the 1920s, and it is thought that Zelda Fitzgerald had also one. (Moore, 2008.) Women were paying for sexual freedom with their lives, and it wasn’t until 1925 when activist Margaret Sanger produced American made contraceptives did it become more acceptable to be seen buying them. Domestic life was changing, no longer were women repressed into purely domestic and social roles. The corset was a thing of the past, and the hemlines were rapidly shrinking. Between the years 1913 and 1928, the amount of fabric used in women’s clothing fell from 19 ½ yards of cloth to just 7 yards. (Moore, 2008). This could be due to rationing in WW1, but it is more likely that the rising hemlines of the flappers and the disregard of corsets in the twenties contributed to this statistic. This shows that the role of women in society was changing, and with this, a liberation to make their own choices.
In addition to this, despite further steps to close the development gap, there was still a class divide in the Jazz Age stemming from WW1. Post the ‘Wall Street Crash’ and on until the 1950s the economy in the USA failed and class divide became more significant, however during the Jazz Age changes were taking place. The benefits of the closing development gap were felt in the role of women. Due to 0% interest credit rates and new consumer products, poorer women were being able to provide for themselves, seeking work outside of a domestic or factory role, affording cars, education for their children and goods like vacuums to spend their time effectively.
It is possible to evaluate, although difficult to accurately put a finger on, what the impact of this social upheaval had on feminism; the changing role of women in society allowed for a new wave of feminism. During the later Jazz Age, America was no longer concerning itself with women’s suffrage rights but rather with women’s “right to enjoy themselves socially as much as men did, whether through drinking, sex, or indulging in the pleasures of urban nightlife.” (Lerner, 2007.) What became of the suffrage movement when in 1920 the whole of the USA gave women the right to vote? According to an activist “Every woman discharged from the suffrage campaign merely stepped back into the ranks of the broader woman movement from which she and her predecessors emerged some seventy-five years ago with the definite object of eliminating one discrimination against women.” (Catt, 1927) Put as simply as that, it’s hard to argue with.
Nevertheless, there was still widespread opposition to the rise of feminism as illustrated by Harper’s magazine published an article entitled “Equality of Women to Man: A myth- a challenge to feminism” by John Macy in November 1926, that said, among other things “let not the woman try to compete with man, for the more chance she has, the freer the world grows, the more chance man will have, and he will always keep slightly ahead of her.” (Macy, 1926) This shows an anti-progress attitude towards feminism that came from some people. This attitude was also found among the same women who established the ‘Temperance’ movement, which catalysed the Prohibition, the older generations who still held ‘traditional family values’. These were the women who refused to remove their corsets and their dated ideas from the Victorian era or the heavily religious women; ‘White Anglo Saxon Protestants’ who disagreed with all that the Jazz Age stood for, liberation, emancipation and change.
The legacy of the Feminist movement in 1920s America resonates through the modern world, for both positive and negative reasons. The movement towards equal pay and gender equality increases, with events like the second wave feminism in the 1960s with Germaine Greer, and movements towards gender equality in the workplace.
In conclusion, the feminist movement gained momentum in the Jazz Age due to significant factors that added up to a changing attitude towards women’s role in society. WW1 and late 19th Century Literature served as a catalyst for changing morals in 20s America. Chicago and New York were the centres of a contemporary culture surrounding celebrity and illicit consumption of alcohol, fuelled by an Economic Boom. Emancipation of women came not only in the liberation of the youth but came in both the forms of suffrage and an easier domestic life using newly produced consumer goods. Despite significant changes in society’s view of female ambitions and abilities, with women seeking out white-collar jobs, there was still resistance to the rise of feminism, especially from the older, uneducated, lower-class women. However, there is no doubt that the years 1919 to 1930 were incredibly important in the movement towards gender equality in the USA. As Lerner said, the women of the Jazz Age were no longer concerning themselves with suffrage rights but rather the “right to enjoy themselves socially as much as men did”. This quote clearly shows the idea of what the Jazz Age stood for: liberation to have fun.
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