How did both the reality and the image of the flapper alter women's role during the 1920s?
For some American women, the 1920s were a time of important changes. The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1919, guaranteed women's right to vote, enabling millions of women to cast ballots in the 1920 elections. More women, including married women, took jobs in the booming economy, although the range of careers open to them was still limited.
The most famous image of women in the 1920s is the flapper, usually a young, single, working woman who defied Victorian ideals of proper womanhood by adopting modern dress styles, cutting her hair short, and perhaps drinking, smoking, and frequenting dance halls and other places of entertainment in her leisure time. While only a small portion of American women were flappers, the image of a newly-liberated woman was powerful throughout the decade.
Many women's lives were also transformed by the greater availability of birth control. The American Birth Control League, led by Margaret Sanger, succeeded in persuading many Americans that using birth control was not immoral, but would improve the quality of their lives.