The Roaring 1920’s
After Winning the Vote:

It seemed that women tended to vote the same as their father's
husbands and brothers

Not because they felt they had to follow men's lead but because
they shared the same loyalty to class, ethnic group, and region

One reformer noted "the American women's movement is
splintered into 100 fragments under as many warring leaders.”

African American women fought for laws against lynching and
gaining more universal suffrage in the South

League of Women Voters (Formerly the NAWSA) lobbying for
increased voter education and participation for Women

National Women’s Party pushed for the Equal Rights Amendment
(ERA)
Post WWI Economy

Strongest Economic power in the world

New York becomes international capital of business (over takes
London)

The dollar is now the most important currency, not the pound

Europe Owed the US $10 Billion
The Birth of National
Consumer Culture

Movies and Hollywood

Cult of Celebrity

Radio

Advertising
Modernity Vs. Traditionalism
The Flapper

In the past, Women with public roles were expected to forgo family,
marriage, and sex

The New Woman rejected that notion
 The
New Woman (Flapper)- Lived in the city, worked in department
stores and offices

They also rejected other social expectations around womanhood
 They

drank, smoked, & danced
Zelda Fitzgerald

"I think a woman gets more happiness out of being gay,
lighthearted, unconventional, a mistress of her own fate than out of
a career that calls for hard work, intellectual pessimism and
loneliness.”
Emancipation Through Sexual
Liberation?

In the 1920s young people wanted to tear down the shame
associated with sexual behavior

The idea that sex was natural and good became predominant in
the younger generation

But it did not lead to a rejection of the double standard

For women, sexual activity outside of marriage was still highly illicit

But woman could now physically express their sexuality

Having “It” became the new fashion
Freedom or New Conformity?

Sigmund Freud's theories on sexuality and feminine inferiority were
widely circulated

Women who were not passive had masculinity complexes

Some translated this into any woman who wanted to be more than
a wife and mother really wanted to be a man

Question: Did this sexual liberation give women more freedoms or
subject them to a new type of conformity?
Prohibition
 Temperance
Reformers had blamed alcohol for
the:
 Urban
crime
 Family
abuse and neglect
 Poverty

and unemployment
The Volstead Act of 1919- was not well funded, only 1500
agents were supposed to police the whole country

Most cities and towns had their own speak easy

Organized crime made huge financial gains for illegal bootlegging
1920’s Immigration Reform

Immigration, especially from Europe, declined during WWI

Once the war was over, the US set an aggressive antiimmigration policy

Immigration Act of 1921


Quota System



Maximum of 357,000 new immigrants each year
Max immigrants = 3% of the natives of that country counted in the
1910 census
Reed-Johnson National Origins Act of 1924

Revised the quota system

2% of the number of natives from that country counted in 1890

Maximum of 164,000 Immigrants each year
Japanese and Asian Indians, ineligible for citizenship
1920’s Working Women

Discrimination against working women continued

Women were segregated to female jobs

They were poorly paid

And treated as temporary workers by employees and
unions

And yet women were becoming a larger portion of
the workforce (25% in the 1920’s)

Women’s wages still did not support an independent
life, most lived with their families and contributed to
the family income

Married women workers were predominantly African
American and immigrant women