Articles from 1922
A collection of low opinions concerning the Flapper and her confederates, gathered from numerous clerical magazines throughout the fruited plane:
There is a great deal of frank talk among them that in many cases smacks of boldness. One hears it said that the girls are actually tempting the boys more than the boys do the girls, by their dress and conversation…
Since the preceding article was jam-packed with intolerant remarks from the lip-service corner of the Holier-Than-Thou clerical crowd, it seemed only fitting that we post this article which dwelt upon the far more accepting and just a wee-bit more Christian feelings of yet another clergyman who tended to think that the flappers were not really as queer as everyone liked to think they were.
Painting faces is no new thing except on occasion. Belles and famous beauties of the past painted for State occasions. But then it was not good form to wear paint in daylight. Now it is, apparently. That many young women now carry this to extreme is not unusual…
Click here to read an article about the demise of a popular 1940s hairstyle.
This funny announcement from the yellowing pages of FLAPPER MAGAZINE made it clear to one and all that all flappers were eligible to enter their Flapper Beauty Contest:
You don’t have to be beautiful to be a flapper, and if you’re not a flapper you wouldn’t be considered beautiful. So there!
(But we’re sure it helped)
In the attached column, a high-spirited editorial writer hails the Flapper Revolution and singles out Paris fashion designer Paul Poiret (1879 – 1944) for being so out of step with the women of his day for continuing to design long dresses:
When flappers rise en masse and say that they can see no reason for giving up a style that means comfort, freedom and health, then indeed, out of this welter of strikes, injunctions and warfare may be seen a glimmer of hope for mankind.
M. Poiret, designer of Paris, has seen fit to take up the cudgels on behalf of the long skirt, and therefore he cannot object if the shafts of ridicule are hurled at him in return…
Will Paris succeed in imposing long skirts on the flappers of America?
Not if most of them have their way! When Paris started the short skirt fad and America eagerly aped it, the dressmakers figured that it would probably run its course and then die a sudden death. But no! For American flappers may be fickle but they know a good thing when they see it. And they intend to hang on to it.
Click here to read about another icon of the Twenties: Rudolph Valentino.
A marvelous interview with the thirty-four year old playwright, Eugene O’Neill (1888 – 1953) -coincidentally published just as it seemed his stock was on the rise.
Click here to read a 1930s article about Eugene O’Neill.
Franklin Knight Lane (1864 – 1921) recalled his service as President Wilson’s Secretary of the Interior and the eventful year of 1917 when Wilson lead the U.S. into it’s first European war. Some may be amused as he reminiscences about the time Army Chief of Staff General Tasker H. Bliss (1853 – 1930) fell asleep during one of the cabinet meetings.
This gag concerns itself with another kind of American Expeditionary Force – when Pershing’s Doughboys left, they were replaced by the American tourists.
There is another article on this site that states a popular belief held by the Europeans of 1919 that American men were all clean shaven, tended to sport gold teeth, and were most easily recognized by their big tortoise shell glasses; however, this is the first visual manifestation of this caricature that we could find. This cartoonist did not simply believe that this was a fitting description of the white guys, but black guys, too -and the women as well; an entire nation resembling Harold Lloyd.
Some ninety-eight years ago, as it is also true this day, many people living outside the borders of the United States had a laugh, from time-to-time, concerning America’s commonly held belief that they are an idealistic people whose motives are not always driven by self-interest; this is a broad topic and sound arguments can be made on both sides as to whether it is true or not. The British thinker Bertrand Russel (1872 – 1970; Nobel Prize for Literature, 1950) had some thoughts on the matter and in an address made to a number of assembled Americans he submitted that, in his view, Prohibition was not a ‘noble experiment’ which sought to inspire all Americans to lead a righteous life, but rather a gross perversion of Christian doctrine.
A magazine review of John Maynard Keynes book, A Revision of the Treaty (1922). The reviewer wrote that it lacks the prophetic fire of it’s author’s earlier book, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, but continues the argument of that book:
Mr. Keynes claims that almost everyone now has come around to his point of view. We practically all recognize, he says, the over-severity of the reparation clauses written into the Versailles Treaty.
