Jazz and the New Woman of the 1920s kind of go together. They were in great part about the same things: freedom of expression, discovery and exploration. No surprise that many flappers were also ‘jazz babies’.
The flapper was the last and more mature incarnation of the New Woman. She was a free, ambitious, pleasure-seeking woman who wanted to be equal to men.
Bobbed hair had been around even before the flapper, but it was only in the 1920s that, in spite of criticism, became more or less acceptable for a woman.
You can’t be too surprised about the many expressions that meant ‘drunk’ in the Twenties. Zozzled is one of them, just like the more known ossified
When we think to the youth culture of the Twenties, we have the romantic idea that suddenly, Youth was born and young people took awareness of themselves
In spite of the increased quality of life in many parts of the country, the 1920s was a time of great fear and anxiety. Xenophobia was part of it
In 1929 The Wickersham Commission produced a document which was the first federal review of the law enforcement and exposed the basic fail of Prohibition
The 18th Amendment was very short and very vague. The Volstead Act was supposed to detail how Prohibition would actually work
The Brewers Association had a large network of saloons. Even if they marketed beer as ‘liquid food’, they soon came in collision with the Anti-Saloon League
One would think that, during Prohibition, ‘dry’ meant ‘teetotal’. Not really. Often dry leaders’ private view was different from their political one
During the American Prohibition Era, speakeasies were everywhere and so diverse that attempting a definition is quite challenging.
Music had been recorded since the late 1800s, mostly on cylinders, but in the Twenties the new electronic process first allowed the making of records