The 1920s Lifestyles and Social Trends: Topics in the News

AN UPHEAVAL IN WOMEN'S FASHIONS

With the start of the decade came a sense of new freedom for women. The feeling of emancipation was due in part to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, giving women the right to vote. Young females, in particular, sought more adventurous lifestyles. Whether they were homemakers or coeds, factory or office workers, teachers or nurses, young women were indulging in a variety of new activities shunned by the more oldfashioned older generation. They drove cars, played sports, and performed lively modern dances such as the Charleston and the black bottom. To suit the liberated attitudes of the day, modern females adopted a radical new look.

Women had their long hair cut or boyishly "bobbed" for freedom of movement and easy maintenance. They spurned the restrictions of corsets in favor of loose-bodiced tops that allowed maximum upper body movement and easier breathing. Early in the decade, hems boldly rose from ankle-length, or just above the ankle, to just below the knee, or mid-calf. With the new short skirts, hems no longer dragged in the dirt, and women could take longer strides. When dancing, a woman could kick and swing her legs without getting her skirt entangled in her shoes! Of course, lower leg exposure caused quite a panic among the more conservative members of American society.

From conservative magazines and religious pulpits came pronouncements that short skirts and bobbed hair were indicative of an immoral lifestyle. This unconventional "flapper" look was equated to such behavior as necking, dancing to jazz music, smoking, and drinking illegal liquor known as "bathtub gin." Novelist Fannie Hurst (1889–1968) defended the fashion trends as reflections of "the new psychological, sociological, economic and political status" of the young woman of the 1920s. Despite the controversy, the new look prevailed throughout the decade, although modifications arose through the years. For instance, early in the decade shorter haircuts were "marcelled" or waved. Later, a sleek helmet look became popular, and straight, flattened hairdos were worn with close-fitted bell-shaped "cloche" hats. Hemlines, too, had changed by mid-decade when more radical, knee-length skirts came into vogue.

Many fashions originated in Paris, where haute couture (high fashion) was adapted to meet American styles. Custom dress designers such as Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, Madeline Vionnet, Paul Poiret, and Jean Patou sold their latest designs to department stores such as Bergdorf-Goodman, Lord & Taylor, and John Wanamaker. "Paris originals" would be purchased only by wealthy clients, since one evening gown might cost as much as $10,000. For

the middle class, copies of designer gowns could be purchased at less elite stores such as B. Altman for approximately $100 to $250 per gown. For fashion-conscious women with less money to spend, McCall's sewing patterns, plus the purchase of fabric by the yard, presented an opportunity to make one's own Paris-inspired gown. Hemlines for formal evening wear were usually floor-length or a shorter mid-calf length with a petal-shaped hem.

For daywear, Chanel created her legendary tailored suit. The lines were simple and understated, with a soft pleated or straight skirt and a short, open, collarless jacket. She chose tweeds and jerseys as fabrics. Chanel also introduced the "little black dress" which began as a slightly blousy, plain number. Through the decades, the simple black dress has remained a fashion staple for informal but dressy occasions.

Women began having fun with accessories and started taking on new whimsical looks using cosmetics. They chose to wear T-strap pointed-toe shoes with one-to two-inch chunky heels. They often carried adorned metal cigarette cases and wore various styles of trendy jewelry. For instance, when the tomb of ancient Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen (c. 1370–1352 b.c.e.) was unearthed in 1922, American women accessorized their outfits with an Egyptian motif. When French avant-garde artwork became a topic of conversation, jewelry began mirroring abstract art movements such as cubism, art deco, and surrealism. Women altered their facial features with cosmetics to imitate movie stars. Some completely plucked their eyebrows and redrew them in dark eyebrow pencil. They even wore thick black eyeliner to take on a sensuous look popularized by movie stars Theda Bara (1890–1955) and Pola Negri (1894–1987). Later in the decade, young moderns traced the line of their lipstick to make "cupid-bow" lips like movie star Clara Bow (1905–1965).

During the previous decade, lingerie had progressed from whale-boned corsets and bustles that remolded a woman's body to underwear that reflected the natural form. During the 1920s, this trend continued as rubber girdles and brassieres came into fashion. Eventually, brassieres were made of more comfortable, breathable fabrics such as cotton, silk, and rayon (known as "artificial silk"). At that time, brassieres were meant to flatten a woman's breasts so that she could attain a boyish look. In 1923, Ida Cohen Rosenthal (1886–1973) introduced the more comfortable uplift brassiere through her company Maiden Form, which later became known as Maidenform. In addition, nude-colored rayon or silk stockings were worn above the knee and fastened with garters to a garter belt or girdle.

Adventurous and sports-minded women wore special outfits for each activity. For tennis, all-white short-skirted costumes were worn. For driving, some women adopted the look of World War I (1914–18) flying aces, donning leather jackets and large goggles. Swimsuits were clinging knit outfits that looked like modern one-piece bathing suits but extended further down the leg. The swimming costumes often were belted and sometimes the tops were striped at the breast or adorned with cubist art decorations such as floating circles, triangles, and squares.

MEN'S FASHION BECOMES MORE CASUAL

During the 1920s, more than ever before, young men were attending colleges and universities. It was on campuses that men's fashion trends emerged. Because the new vogues were covered widely by magazines and newspapers, they spread throughout American society. Fashions were youthful and sporty, inspired by heroes of sports and aviation. Gentleman golfer Bobby Jones, tennis champion Bill Tilden, Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller, and collegiate football star Red Grange set the standards for sports clothing. Through their influences, knickers and knee-high socks, two-colored saddle shoes, swimming trunks, full-length raccoon fur coats, and other sporty attire replaced the more conventional tweed sportswear of the previous decade. Later in the decade, dashing airplane pilot Charles Lindbergh (1902–1974) inspired men to attire themselves in leather jackets and silk scarves for driving.

Swimwear Grows in Popularity as the Economy Sinks

Interest in beach fashions exploded during the decade. In 1919, the Jantzen company sold about 4,100 swimsuits. In 1930, the first disastrous year of the Great Depression (a period of widespread unemployment after the stock market crash of 1929), Jantzen sold 1,587,388 swimsuits at $2.99 apiece.

Source: Lena Lencek and Gideon Bosker, Making Waves: Swimsuits and the Undressing of America (San Francisco Chronicle, 1989).

Perhaps the most influential fashion trend setter of the decade was the heir to the British throne, Edward, Prince of Wales (1894–1972). When he made a tour of the United States in the autumn of 1924, his sharp fashion sense became apparent as he made public appearances in 1,819 different uniforms and suits and 3,601 distinct hats! For the next two decades, Edward's choice of lapel-lines, cuffed or uncuffed slacks, and the number of buttons down the front of his suits would serve as guides for fashion-conscious American men.

Wide-shouldered suit coats of the previous decade were replaced by slim-fitting suits with no shoulder padding. Jackets were vented at the back, and either single or double-breasted. Younger men preferred the single-breasted look. Slacks were full and loose-fitting, and cuffs became popular. Trousers previously had been creased at the sides, but they now were creased front to back. Belts or suspenders held trousers in place. For the most part, suits were made of woolen fabric. Black, brown, dark blue, and gray were the colors of a mature man's suits, and they were the standard for business wear. During the late 1920s, younger men appeared in lighter, softer tones, often in tweed fabric. Well-to-do gentlemen shopped at Brooks Brothers, where a suit might cost $100 or more. Men of less affluence could purchase three-piece suits (jacket, trousers, and vest, or jacket with two pairs of pants) for $30 or less at their local department store.

In 1925, shirts changed from the detached-collar style to having attached collars. Detached collars had been made of starched white fabrics, celluloid, or more flexible three-ply cotton. They were replaced by one-piece shirts with collars in matched fabrics. Attached collars were button-down, plain-pointed, and pin-pointed (the points of the collar pinned under the tie). In addition to white shirts, men began wearing pastel blue, tan and yellow shirts. Some even wore pin-striped shirts. Ties, too, became more colorful, featuring stripes, plaids, and polka dots.

An unusual vogue in pants occurred on college campuses in 1925 when students began wearing "Oxford bags." Oxford bags were extremely full slacks that had originated at Britain's Oxford University in order for male students to cover their sporty knickers (short pants tucked at the knee), which were banned on campus. These wide-legged trousers often measured twenty-five inches at the knees and twenty-two inches at the cuffs. They were sewn from soft woolen flannel fabric and worn with sports jackets and bright-colored ties. Two sports jackets were popular during the decade: the navy blue woolen blazer with a crest on the left breast pocket, and the modified Norfolk tweed jacket with box pleats down each side and a belt at the back.

Campus outerwear was quite dapper during the decade. Students sported belted waterproof gabardine (a durable twill fabric of wool, rayon, or cotton) Burberry trench coats, just as British army officers had worn during World War I (1914–18). They also wore full-length camel-hair polo coats, knee-length velvet-lapelled chesterfield coats, and raccoon coats. On campus as well as in the business world, fashionable hats included the snap-brimmed fedora with a creased crown and the stiff round-topped derby. In summer, men favored stiff, round, flat-topped straw "boaters." For sports they wore soft woolen, cotton, or linen caps with short front brims.

Style-conscious men, particularly the younger crowd, were clean-shaven and wore their hair combed back and parted in the middle. Underwear styles had started to change at the end of the previous decade from one-piece full-length union suits to thinner short one-piece garments with a drop seat, or more modern two-piece outfits consisting of an undershirt and loose shorts that featured a button-adjustable waist. During the decade, men began sleeping in pajamas in pastel solids or striped patterns instead of wearing nightshirts.

SKYSCRAPERS DOMINATE URBAN LANDSCAPES

More than any other type of building, the skyscraper filled the burgeoning business districts of cities across the nation during the 1920s. Commercial structures moved away from a style of ornate neo-gothic (a revival of the architecture style which had flourished in Europe from the twelfth through fifteenth centuries) of the previous decade to the clean, sleek Bauhaus school of design.

The Bauhaus was a popular German school of architecture founded by Walter Gropius (1883–1969) in 1919. Three years later the Bauhaus trend spread to America, spurred by a competition among architects to design the proposed Chicago Tribune Company building. The winning entry was the gothic-style drawing submitted by American architectural designers John Mead Howells (1868–1959) and Raymond M. Hood (1881–1934). Despite the winning choice, the bulk of the architectural world's attention went to the entry that received second prize. Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen (1873–1950) stunned his colleagues with a proposal for a mountainous structure with setbacks at defined levels that eventually receded to a square unadorned peak. The Howell and Hood design was used to create the towering Tribune structure, which opened in 1925; however, Saarinen's design was so impressive that even Hood stepped forward to praise its innovative plan. Encouraged by the praise and publicity, Saarinen moved to the United States in 1923 to design American buildings. His influence eventually helped to give a sleek and modern look to many of America's big cities.

Even so, the neo-gothic design with its buttresses (projecting wooden or masonry supports), spires and ornamentation, hearkening back to the Middle Ages, dominated commercial building design during the early years of the decade. From 1924 until late in the decade, the ziggurat (a pyramidal structure created by a series of setback blocks as the building attained height) provided the main design for business architecture. It emphasized a sense of power and understated adornment. At the end of the 1920s, commercial high-rises began taking on the look of a more slender, flat-roofed, horizontally defined slab that stressed function over ornamentation.

Certain changes in building design arose from legal necessity rather than from aesthetics. In New York City, a zoning law passed in 1916 limited the width of buildings in order to allow for air movement and admission of light onto the streets. That legislation brought in the trend of building pyramid-shaped towers that narrowed as they rose. Two skyscrapers that incorporated this ziggurat design were the New York Telephone Company Building (1926) and Raymond Hood's dramatic black American Radiator Building (1924), with its gold-gilded top and abstract gold-gilded decorations at setback points.

Saarinen's building designs were not the only foreign influence on American architecture and design in the 1920s. In July 1925, the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs and Industriels Modernes was held in Paris and proved to be a significant and influential exhibition of modern decorative style. The items on display showed a radical change from the older, gingerbread decoration of the Victorian style. From this event came the term "art deco." The art deco style of geometric shapes and simple lines would soon be integrated into such Manhattan landmarks as the Chrysler Building (1930) and the Empire State Building (1931). The popularity of art deco styling would carry through the 1930s.

CITY RESIDENTS MOVE FROM TOWNHOUSES TO APARTMENT DWELLINGS

During the 1920s many people moved from rural homes, a trend that had begun during the previous decade. Individuals were drawn to the lively lifestyles of large urban centers where there were theaters, concerts, restaurants, speakeasies (night clubs that served illegal intoxicating liquor during the era of Prohibition), and the hope of obtaining a lucrative job. Certainly those aspects of city life were attractive; however, cities also spelled problems. Air and noise pollution, crime, and traffic congestion plagued big-city lifestyles. In Pittsburgh and Chicago, carbon monoxide in tunnels actually poisoned residents.

For affluent people, the trend in urban residences changed from one-family brownstones or townhouses to luxury apartment living. One reason for the conversion was the decrease in the number of people willing to work as in-home servants. By the late 1910s, the majority of servants had left their positions to make better wages in factories, retail stores, or offices. Without readily available household help, it no longer was practical to have a dining room that could accommodate one hundred diners. By the 1920s, wealthy people were buying large apartments in high-rise buildings, and they were building opulent weekend and summer mansions in adjacent suburbs or in the countryside.

In 1925, Vanity Fair magazine advertised ten-to fourteen-room (with four to five bathrooms) Manhattan cooperative high-rise apartments at 1020 Fifth Avenue for sale for $40,000 to $105,000 per unit. By contrast, less expensive New York City high-rise housing, mainly marketed to young professionals, could be purchased for $4,000 to $9,100, with 25 percent down and the remainder to be paid in monthly installments, plus a monthly operating charge from $37 to $85. Those specific prices represented the costs of apartments at Hudson View Gardens at 183rd Street and Pinehurst Avenue. Even though the majority of factory and office workers could not afford such apartments, for those who earned higher salaries the urban lifestyle could be quite luxurious and enjoyable.

AMERICANS PAY ATTENTION TO INTERIOR DESIGN

More than in any previous decade, Americans of the 1920s were interested in interior design. In 1924, Vanity Fair magazine identified eight schools of interior design. Most were centered in New York City, with others in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, and still others in San Francisco, California. Two movements had European branches in Paris, France; and Florence, Italy. Styles of interior decoration were named to reflect past eras such as (the reigns of) Louis XVI (Sixteenth) and Charles II, or American Colonial. Magazines such as House Beautiful and Garden and Home (later known as Better Homes & Gardens) catered to the new American pastime of interior decorating.

Conservative homes might be decorated with copies of eighteenth-century French furnishings, while trendy families might choose Art Moderne (a marriage of French art deco with German Bauhaus) decor. Surprisingly, the understated lines of the art deco and Bauhaus schools played only a small part in home furnishings until the very end of the decade. Instead, modernism in interior decoration meant choosing a period from the past and then adapting that choice to modern usage. The move to cloak modern design with period atmosphere was called historicism. Only the kitchen appliances appeared modern; the rest of the home was furnished with antiques, or more likely copies of older pieces. Modern radiators were covered in ornate grillwork, and electric lighting fixtures were styled to resemble candles and old-fashioned candelabras (branched candlesticks).

FADS AND CRAZES IN A YOUTH-ORIENTED CULTURE

For many Americans, the 1920s was a time to expand interests and take time for recreation. While the war years had proven to be a period of sobriety and tension, the following decade provided a return to relaxed lifestyles and amusements. In this atmosphere, a number of games became popular and several frivolities captured the attention of many Americans, especially among the younger generation.

Crossword puzzles became a widespread craze after the world's first collection The Cross Word Puzzle Book was published in 1924 by Richard Leo Simon (1899–1960) and Max Lincoln Schuster (1897–1970). Simon and Schuster were so concerned that the book would fail to sell that they published it under a separate imprint, rather than under the name of their own well-known publishing company. With a pencil attached to each volume, the book became a best-seller. Crossword puzzles became a nationwide rage. Newspapers began publishing crossword puzzles, and the University of Kentucky even offered a course in crosswords as "educational, scientific, instructive and mentally stimulative as well as entertaining."

A Boom in Suburban Homelife

Millions of Americans were repelled by the bustle and pollution of large urban centers, but most wanted to remain near the recreational and cultural advantages of cities. For middle-class families, city life was not only crowded and hectic, but it also was too expensive. For those folks, a home in the suburbs was the key to contentment. During the 1920s, the housing industry was booming. In 1922 alone, 767,000 units were constructed, and 1,048,000 homes were built in 1925. Most of the new homes were located in expanding suburban communities.

Originally, suburbs such as Grosse Pointe, Michigan; Lake Forest, Illinois; and Tuxedo Park, New York were constructed as country getaways for wealthy city dwellers. By the start of the 1920s, a small family with an annual income of $2,500 could purchase a house in the suburbs by making most of the payments in monthly installments. In 1920, attractive bungalow homes could be purchased for $3,000 to $10,000.

Families with lower incomes could purchase prefabricated houses. A prospective homeowner could buy all the necessary materials in a package but would need handyman skills to put the structure together. In 1923, the Aladdin Company advertised plans, precut lumber, and hardware for a simple five-room house for $538. Their twelve-room Dutch Colonial home cost $1,932. Despite the inexpensive price tags, prefabricated residences never became a hit with Americans.

Another diversion that became a national pastime was the traditional Chinese game of mah-jongg, introduced in the United States in 1922. Women, in particular, formed mah-jongg clubs, but the game also intrigued many college students in dormitories and fraternities. Playing mah-jongg required a set of 144 carved tiles made of ivory, bone, celluloid, or later plastic. The game's constantly changing rules for what constitutes a winning hand called for frequently publishing new guidelines. More than twenty rule books were published during the decade.

Flagpole-sitting may have been the most ridiculous fad of the decade. A flagpole sitter would balance while seated on a small disc atop a flagpole with stirrups for bracing oneself. He or she would take a five-minute nap each hour. A champion flagpole sitter might stay aloft for days or even weeks!

Dance marathons consisted of couples dancing for days on end until only one couple remained on the dance floor. Young couples struggled to keep their feet moving while they watched the competition collapse around them. In 1928, ninety-one couples danced in a marathon that lasted nearly three weeks—482 hours—in the hopes of winning a $5,000 prize.

One youthful craze that was frowned upon by parents was petting parties. During the 1920s teenagers formed a new type of peer culture. They went to school together where they formed attachments and socialized after school by going to movies or riding unsupervised in automobiles. Boy/girl relationships arose, leading to necking and petting without a commitment of marriage. The new range of behavior in social encounters for high school students, without actual sexual intercourse, proved quite a change from old-fashioned chaperoned dances.

THE BIRTH CONTROL MOVEMENT

In the 1920s women in all economic brackets gained greater ability to limit the number of their pregnancies. This new freedom of choice was due to the dedicated work of women's rights advocate and nurse Margaret Sanger (1883–1966). In 1921, Sanger organized the American Birth Control League, which became the Planned Parenthood Federation in 1942. In 1923, she opened the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau in New York City. Sanger spoke out against false claims that birth control devices, such as diaphragms, were obscene.

THE RISE AND RETREAT OF RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM

One of the most dynamic conflicts in organized religion during the 1920s arose between fundamentalist and modernist Protestants. During the early years of the decade, fundamentalists controlled much of the American Protestant church and, indirectly, many phases of American culture. By the end of the decade, the modernists had taken over the Protestant church.

One contemporary issue that split the Protestant church in the decade was Darwinism, or the theory of evolution. The idea that species could evolve based on concepts of survival of the fittest clashed with the fundamentalist concept that the human race emerged from Adam and Eve, as created by God. This issue was brought to the public's attention through the much-publicized Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, during which John T. Scopes (1900–1970), a biology teacher in Tennessee, was accused of breaking a new state law by teaching evolution. After the trial, many Americans came to see the anti-evolution fundamentalist viewpoint as ignorant and unsophisticated.

In addition, the prohibition of manufacturing, selling, and transporting intoxicating liquor, set into law by the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1920, became a very unpopular restriction for many Americans. A good number of anti-Prohibitionists blamed the passage of the amendment on conservative Protestant fundamentalists, which damaged the popularity of their opinions even further.

Smaller Families and Scientific Child Rearing

Families consisted of fewer children during the 1920s. In 1900, the average number of children born to a woman who lived the usual number of childbearing years was 3.56. In 1920, that figure dropped to 3.17, and further decreased to 2.5 in 1925. By 1935, the average was 1.8 children per child-bearing woman.

These changes meant that adults could pay more attention to each child. Since families did not send their children to work as frequently as they had earlier in the century, youngsters were considered economically useless but emotionally priceless. Yet many middle-class parents followed the strict child-rearing teachings of psychiatrist John B. Watson (1878–1958), the founder of behaviorism. This "scientific" approach, which prevailed in many homes until the 1940s, involved limiting the show of affection and enforcing a strict regimen of habit training in feeding, toilet training, and discipline.

RELIGION AND POPULAR CULTURE

As movie attendance and riding in automobiles began filling weekend time, church attendance declined. As a result, religious leaders, journalists, and radio broadcasters who dealt with topics of religion started to wage campaigns against popular culture. They especially disliked Hollywood films that featured love affairs, crime, and other "immoral" activities.

Early in the decade, motion picture stars became involved in two notorious scandals that gave moralists ammunition against movie-going. The first scandal focused on the trial of silent film comedy star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle (1887–1933), who was accused of raping a young woman at a "wild party." Arbuckle was acquitted, but months of headlines about the immorality of Hollywood stars led the conservative public to develop a general distrust of Hollywood film folks. The second scandal revolved around the murder of Hollywood director William Desmond Taylor (1877–1922). Suspects included film stars, and the evidence linked Taylor to drugs and illicit love affairs.

To tame Hollywood's apparent recklessness, movie executives, who feared a loss of box office revenue, agreed to bring in a committee to ensure the morality of the movies. Presbyterian elder Will Hays (1879–1954) was chosen in 1922 to head the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc. (MPPDA) to improve the image of the Hollywood community and otherwise "clean up" the movies seen by millions of American families.