History 271
Devine
Spring 2015
Study Questions: 1920s Youth Culture
Paula Fass, “Sex and Youth in the Jazz Age”
1. What factors led to the emergence of “dating” during the 1920s? How did “dating”
change relations between men and women?
2. Some adults feared that teenage “dating” would lead to sexual promiscuity. Why
does Fass say their fear “was unfounded”?
3. How did young people’s views about sexuality differ from those of their parents
who were raised during the Victorian era? In what ways did young people’s
attitudes remain somewhat consistent with their parents’?
4. In what ways did relations between men and women become more informal
during the 1920s?
5. Why were “bobbed hair,” short skirts, and cosmetics controversial topics during
the 1920s? What deeper fears lay beneath expressions of opposition to such
things?
6. How did young people respond to prohibition? When was drinking “ok”? When
was it not “ok”?
7. What had changed about the ways people drank (and the places they dranks)
between the Victorian era and the 1920s?
8. Why does Fass believe that the “flaming youth” of the 1920s may have appeared
rebellious to their elders but were not really rebels at all?
F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”
1. Through the character of Marjorie, does Fitzgerald paint a flattering picture of the
flapper? Is she a misguided, superficial flirt or a proto-feminist?
2. Who would you prefer to have as a friend – Marjorie, Bernice, or Warren? What
are the most striking character traits of each person?
3. During the 1920s, young people denounced the older generation for being
hypocrites. Are the young people in the story “frank” and “honest” or are they too
hypocrites? Does the answer vary depending on which character one considers?
4. How does Fitzgerald portray the men in this story? Vapid buffoons? Sexist
oppressors? Clueless in the face of sophisticated and manipulative women?
5. Drawing on Fitzgerald’s descriptions, what are the most noticeable
characteristics of the youth in this story? What did these young people value?
What were their good and bad qualities?
6. Ultimately, in the battle of the sexes, who has more power over the other in this
story – the men or the women?
7. Does Bernice change for the better or for the worse over the course of the story?
Was the “sophisticated” environment that Bernice enters corrupting or character
building?
8. Why did Bernice bob her hair? Why did she bob Marjorie’s hair?
9. Does this story have a “happy ending?” Did Marjorie deserve her fate?