Andrea Smart
L. Singleton
English 102, RZ6
April 8, 2011
The “New” Decade
The Twenties were known as “the Roaring Twenties” and “the Jazz Age.” These nicknames represent exactly what the Twenties were. The changes that happened during this time were good and bad, but they were mostly positive. Women had the right to vote, they were becoming modernized, and jazz became a new sound. This decade should be viewed exactly as it is. This decade was a time of great change for America in general.
Before the “flapper” emerged, “the Gibson Girl was the rage”. The Gibson Girl was inspired by Charles Dana Gibson’s drawings. She was the total opposite of the “flapper” that was soon to come. She was able to participate in some sports including golf, roller skating, and bicycling. She had long hair, and her attire was a long, straight skirt with a shirt that had a high collar (Rosenberg). She was not a risk taker and did not date.
After the “Gibson Girl” came the “flapper.” The term came from Great Britain. It described a young girl still in the middle of becoming a woman (Rosenberg). It literally was defined as “a fledgling, yet in the nest, and vainly attempting to fly while its wings have only pinfeathers” (G. Stanley). “She smoked, drank, danced, and voted. She cut her hair, [and] wore make-up…” (Rosenberg). The women in those days had a hard time accepting this new style.
The “flapper” was a girl that loved to dance. She needed her clothes to allow her to move freely, so she changed her style to make her clothes lighter. The hem line of the flapper’s dress rose to just below her knees during 1925 to 1927. She also took off her corset and replaced pantaloons for “step-ins.” The Gibson Girl adored her long hair, but the flapper cut hers short. This new hairstyle was called a “bob.” The “bob” was soon replaced with a shorter haircut called the “shingle” or “Eton” cut (Rosenberg). The flapper could very well be seen at a speakeasy drinking, smoking, and dancing to jazz music.
Eventually, the extreme flapper style went away, but some of her changes remained. The new version was more respectable. Some women cut their hair short and stopped wearing corsets. This was the new, modern woman (Rosenberg).
Jazz originated from two types of musical influence: West African and European. The West African influence provided “incessant rhythmic drive, the need to move and…emotional urgency.” The European influence “had more to do with classical qualities pertaining to harmony and melody.” These sounds mixed together created notes that can make a person feel both sad and joyous. Eventually, field hollers of the South were mixed with music from New Orleans to create a different sound. Gospel music mixed with the blues. Marching bands had instruments that were considered to be “an expression of classical musical traditions.” All of this eventually mixed together to create a new music called jazz (Ephland).
At first jazz was not widely accepted and liked. Some people did not like jazz because it “made its own rules which were viewed as corrupting musical values.” The most common reason jazz was not liked at first was racism. Black musicians were not allowed to play in some places, so they had to play in places that did not have a good reputation. Jazz was also considered immoral because of the topics it was associated with: prostitution, alcohol, drugs, and gambling to name a few.
Jazz eventually won the hearts of many Americans. People began to embrace this new wave with partial thanks to urbanization after World War I. It helped to spread the sound. There is a quote that refers to the feelings one can experience associated with jazz. “While we are dancing or singing or even listening to jazz, all the artificial restraints are gone. We are rhythmic, we are emotional, we are natural. We’re really living—living to pitch that becomes an intoxication” (Laubenstein, 1929, pp. 614-615). There is a poem by Langston Hughes that says, “Soft light on the tables, / Music gay, / Brown-skin steppers / in a cabaret.” He was referring to the atmosphere connected with jazz. Scott Appelrouth affirmed these two quotes by saying, “Jazz is ‘real’ because it ‘intoxicates’ those who dance, sing, or listen to the music, thus, offering an escape from the ‘artificial restraints’ that position the body as an uncivilized, dangerous antithesis to the mind.”
The Twenties were not just about flappers and jazz. At the end of the decade, the stock market crashed. Many people went into debt and had to resort to desperate measures to pay it. In the book The 1920s, there is a picture of a man trying to sell his car. The caption reads, “After losing his money in the stock market, a man is forced to sell his roadster for $100 to pay debts. Because the average person invested in the stock market during the 1920s, the crash affected an unprecedented number of people” (Hanson).
This decade was a time of major change for America. Women can now vote because of the Nineteenth Amendment that was ratified during this time. If flappers had not emerged, the women would probably look just as they did back then: long dresses, long hair, and very modest. Jazz was a new sound that is considered classic now. This decade was the “Jazz Age” and the “Roaring Twenties” and it lived up to those nicknames very well.

Works Cited
"1920s Jazz." Vintageperiods.com. 22 February 2011.
Appelrouth, Scott. “Body and Soul: Jazz in the 1920s.” American Behavioral Scientist 48.11 (2005): 1496-1509. Web. 5 April 2011.
Ephland, John. “DownBeat’s Jazz 101: The Very Beginning.” DownBeat. Web. 6 April 2011.
Hall, G. Stanley. “Flapper Americana Novissima.” Atlantic Monthly 129 (June 1922): 771-780.
Hanson, Erica. The 1920s. San Diego: Lucent Books, Inc. 1999.
Hughes, Langston. Negro Dancers. 1926.
Laubenstein, P. F. (1929, October). Jazz—Debit and credit. Musical Quarterly, XV, 606-624.
Rosenberg, Jennifer. "Flappers in the Roaring Twenties." About.com. 22 February 2011.