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| courtesy of wikipedia |
The Roaring Twenties were the period of sustained economic prosperity and the distinctive cultural edge in New York, Montreal, Chicago, Detroit, Paris, Berlin, London, Los Angeles, and many other major cities during the 1920s in the
United States, Canada and Europe. The French called it the "années folles" ("Crazy Years"),
[1] emphasizing the era's social, artistic and cultural dynamism.
Normalcy returned to politics in the wake of hyper-emotional patriotism after World War I,
jazz music blossomed, the
flapper redefined modern womanhood and
Art Deco peaked. Economically the era saw the large-scale use of automobiles, telephones, motion pictures, electricity, unprecedented industrial growth, accelerated consumer demand and aspirations, plus significant changes in lifestyle and culture. The media focused on celebrities, especially sports heroes and
movie stars, as cities rooted for their home teams and filled the new palatial cinemas and gigantic sports stadiums. In most major countries
women won the right to vote. However, the
Wall Street Crash of 1929 ended the era, as the
Great Depression set in bringing years of worldwide gloom and hardship.
[2] The social and cultural features known as the Roaring Twenties began in leading metropolitan centers, especially Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Paris, Berlin and London; then spread widely in the
aftermath of World War I. The United States gained dominance in world finance. Thus, when Germany could no longer afford war reparations to Britain, France and other Allies, the Americans came up with the
Dawes Plan and Wall Street invested heavily in Germany, which repaid its reparations to nations that in turn used the dollars to pay off their war debts to Washington. By the middle of the decade prosperity was widespread, with the second half of the decade especially in Germany known as the "
Golden Twenties".
[3]
The spirit of the Roaring Twenties was marked by a general feeling of discontinuity associated with
modernity and a break with traditions. Everything seemed to be feasible through modern technology. New technologies, especially automobiles, moving pictures and radio proliferated "modernity" to a large part of the population. Formal decorative frills were shed in favor of practicality in both daily life and architecture. At the same time, jazz and dancing rose in popularity, in opposition to the mood of the specter of World War I. As such, the period is also often referred to as the
Jazz Age.
Flapper Girl ~ from Wikipedia
A flapper onboard ship (1929)
Flappers were a "new breed" of young
Westernwomen in the 1920s who wore short skirts,
bobbed their hair, listened to
jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior. Flappers were seen as brash for wearing excessive makeup,
drinking, treating
sex in a casual manner, smoking, driving automobiles, and otherwise flouting social and sexual norms.
[1] Flappers had their origins in the liberal period of the
Roaring Twenties, the social, political turbulence and increased transatlantic cultural exchange that followed the end of
World War I, as well as the export of
American jazz culture to Europe.
Taken from Hilda Madsen Longdorf's Scrapbook
We, the old-fashioned long-haired, long skirted women of the modestly dressed school must confess there are times when we do admire and envy our beautifully marceled, well trimmed, brillianteened sisters of the bobbed hair and knee length skirt, and we do fight the temptation to "go and do likewise." And become one of the great masses. We assure you it does take a great deal of will power to say, "Get thou behind me Satan".
***
You will acknowledge it takes a more than ordinary strength to come before so many bobbed heads to tell you of your mistake and sins and to defend our long hair and skirts. But thanks to the teachings of our early innocent childhood when we were taught in school and in Sunday School a verse something like this, "Sin is a monster to be hated, needs to be seen, but seen too often, we first endure, then pity, then embrace.
***
Friends, we may well compare that sin, to the sins of the world, to the sins of the short skirt and the bobbed hair today, and are we not advised from the pulpit to "keep ourselves unspotted from the sins of the world?"
***
We have often heard the bobbed hairdo epidemic defended with the illusion that it makes one look younger. are we not taught to honor and respect old age? Is it honest to look like something you are not? Is it honest to deliberately act out a lie?
***
Only a short time ago, a certain Mt. Pleasant man; (you all know to whom I refer, but we shall call him Bob) was taken to a hospital in Salt Lake City, all on account of something that wasn't. He saw at a distance what he thought was a young chicken. He hopped into his automobile and when he overtook the object, he found that it was an old hen and that she was his mother-in-law at that. The result of the meeting was his trip to the hospital. One day while there, there was a knock at the door.
***
The lady sitting by his bedside, who by the way had her hair, bobbed the day before, stepped into the hall and there she saw a sweet young creature with a boyish bob and a short pantilooned skirt that asked to see Bob. Said the first lady to the younger, "May I ask who you are as we do not allow all visitors." "I am his sister." "Oh, said the other, I am glad to know you, I am his mother." Think of that, mother and daughter not knowing each other, not knowing the members of their own family, all on account of looking like what you are not, with bobbed hair and short skirts.
***
The bobbed hair is robbing the women of today of motherly love, of that sacrificing spirit that has made motherhood so hallowed. Compare the long hairdo mother of yesterday with the short hairdo mother of today, for instance. A few days ago a schoolboy asked his patient, red faced, perspiring father, who was busy preparing the midday meal, for some money with which to buy a belt. The poor father sadly replied: "Son, never before have I refused you any of the necessities of life, but since Ma bobbed her hair, it is all I can do to keep her on speaking terms with the barber and the marcellor and attend to the housework. And friends, that poor boy, that son and heir, that representative of the future generation, say perhaps the future mayor of Mt. Pleasant, was forced to go without a belt. And we all know how necessary a belt is to a pair of trousers. Think what might have happened.
***
Now there is an example of following the styles. There was a time when men were blessed with gallowses,then fashion said suspenders. Soon they discarded them and left only a belt. And, Oh what agony the men's belt has caused.
***
We ladies used to have petticoats, underwear and hose supporters. Gone are the petticoats, fast going is the underwear and we roll our hose. We used to wear sweeping long skirts, sometimes with a graceful train. Then they gave us the ankle length, then the eight inch from the ground, then knees and above. Ah, can you not see the inmodesty, the brazenness, and the trickery of it. i warn you. Stop your sinful style-following ways, or yhou, like the men, will only have a belt left.
***
Already a man who often occupies the pulpit, and whose wife is a Relief Society worker has written this verse: Mary had a little skirt, 'twas the latest styles no doubt. But every time Mary got outside, she was more than halfway out."
***
Recently I noticed an ad in a journal to the effect that with the short skirts now in vogue, the hose must match the complexion of the jewelry. And after reading that I stepped into J.C. Penney to see the effect it had had. And there, my friends, I saw old women, young women, grandmothers and stepmothers if you please, clambering to be waited on. One dear old lady was in tears, because they had told her the freckled hose had not arrived. A grandmother rushed in to match some purple beads. Had their skirts been long andmodest, like mine, they could have worn any kind of hose, and avoided that grief and worry.
***
A few days ago, I saw a North Ward Relief Society Teacher in tears. I asked her the cause and she replied, "Lost,yesterday, somewhere between Bart's and Slim's Barber Shops, two golden braids, each set with sixty golden hairs, now reward is offered for they are gone forever." She like so many poor bobbed hairdo women here today, was forced to wear her hat or stay at home. Oh, could they only have had a 10-day free trial, could they only have seen the effects of before and after.
***
The bible tells us, that in bible days, men wore long hair and flowing beards. What have they done? They have cut it off. They have shaved them off, until what do we have now? In Mt. Pleasant alone there are so many bald or almost bald headed men.
***
Oh, what is the world coming to when women, who's doting mothers gave them saint-like names will brazenly parade the streets with bobbed hair and short skirts and unblushingly show their shapely or unshapely calves, I mean limbs?
***
In last week's Pyramid there was the followning verse; Henry Snmith is dead, we loved him so, just what caused it, we did not know, until they cut him open, and there they found, short marcelled hairs, floating round and round. Reason tells us, had they been long hairs, they never would have gotten there, for Henry would have seen them, and taken them out of his gravy, pudding, or pie and saved his life before he died.
***
A short time ago, as I was walking through the cemetery, I saw a mound all heaped up with Job's Tears, Love in the mists, Bleeding hearts, and For-get-me-knots. And I thought there has been a great loss. I stepped nearer and read the inscription. "Here lies Randy Lee, the wife of Gus. She bobbed her hair and it ended thus." now think of it. She might have lived forever had she listened to the dictates or that still small voice and the advice of her husband. On a little father in the same cemetery, I heard a man weeping. I went near him to console him, he turned to me with a knowing light in his eye and said, and "Here lies the body of my bobbed-haired wife. Tears cannot bring her back to life. Therefore, I weep."
***
I was told that a husband, who had not kissed his wife for more than twenty years, did so, after she was bobbed. The examiners for mental trouble, pronounced him incurable.
***
One could go on and on and tell of the sins and sorrows that bobbed hair and the short skirs have caused on the earth. Hee the warning, we are all preparing to be angels bye and bye. Have you ever seen an angel or the picture of an agel with bobbed hair and short skirts? No, they all have flowing robes. Let me plead with you as you are as you shall be. As you sow, so shall you reap. With all the proofs we have offered, with all the sadness that has been caused and all the calamities now existing, how can you unblushingly accept the bobbed hair and the economical short skirt?
***
