Life of a Flapper in the Roaring Twenties
The Dairy of Slivia Smith
June 8th, 1921
Dear Diary,
Today was a great day and an even better night. I went to the jazz bar with Zelada and Cathleen, and he danced till dawn. Dirty martinis were coming from all different men trying to court me. Oh, what a time it is to be a rebellious woman. Since the day us women gain the right to vote, the west became a new place for women. The nineteenth amendment has given me a new sense of empowerment. Now that I can give my two cents on politics, you best believe that I’m going to take this freedom and run with it. With my sexual calves shown from underneath my short hemmed sparkly dress that outlines every curve of my body. My dashing pearls paired with my perspicuous plunging neckline, and we must not forget about flappers drinking and smoking that makes all the Victorian ladies shake with their bibles in hand. I love it. I get to dance, be free, and be me, what a time the twenties are.
-Silvia
July 20th, 1923
Dear Diary,
Today I have witnessed the true revolution of flappers in the public eye. Starting with the marketing adds by Helen Lansdowne Resor using flappers to sell products such as soaps and perfumes. Then the dazzling film Flaming Youth with Colleen Moore showing flappers on the big screen, yet Hollywood’s version of a flapper is more conservative. I guess they’re just not ready for the real power of women. Despite the slightly inaccurate representation, it is genuinely refreshing to see women starting to gain representation. With more exposure, hopefully, the public will come to except flappers and treat women as equals. I hope my idol Susan B. Anthony would be happy about the era of rebellion against the social standards for women. I am done with wearing full-length dresses and a bonnet on my head. I am NOT a broodmare, a cook, and a made. I AM a woman, and I WILL dance, drink, smoke, and dress how I please because I am a woman and my body is beautiful; It would be a crime to hide it from the world. The exposure on the silver screen is a start to acceptance. If society does not come around, then I will just keep drinking and playing my loud jazz music.
-Silvia
December 10th, 1924
Dear Diary,
Smoke rolls off my tong as I sip down another drink. The jazz is loud the men are charming, and tonight I am expressing my sexual freedom. I have learned from my older flapper friend that the age of settling down with one man and starting a family is over. I am not conforming to this double standard of men sleeping around, but women are simply sinners for doing so. The topic of sex is very taboo with the older generation, but us flappers are breaking the stigma. I want to have fun and enjoy men’s company. Thanks to Margret Sanger contraception is now becoming available to women despite resistance she is fighting for women’s rights to birth control. This changes the game because women can now act as men have been operating for centuries. I don’t even have to worry about the consequences, such as pregnancy. Due to this, women now live free, stay out late, and have fun. I can dance drink and … more with my new friend Alexander. Alexander and I met two weeks ago in my favorite jazz speakeasy, he bought me a glass a dazzled me with his stunning eyes. He’s a charming man, but I’m not looking to settle down, my free spirit can’t be tamed. If I could live like a young flapper forever, I would, bouncing from jazz bar to jazz bar, dance with a different guy each night. The life of a flapper is the only life where women can truly live.
-Silvia
March 30th, 1925
Dear Diary
Last night was a great night at the speakeasy. The drinks were great, and I am positive I drank too much because getting up this morning was a burden. I find it very funny that the government thought they could ban the consumption of alcohol. Please, have they meet the men out west. No wonder speakeasies and blind tigers were created, and let me tell you to thank the lord they were because I don’t know how else I would spend my free time, sowing? Speakeasies are a great place to have a drink and not worry about being caught due to the futile new 18th amendment. My gals and I never follow these rules, but hell, we don’t follow any rules. The day these secret bars are found by the government, it will be a hard day for everyone in the west. Let’s hope that never happens. Long live drinking!
-Silvia
August 17th, 1927
Dear Diary,
The hate and restriction against flappers have worsened. It deeply saddens me to see the freedom of women being restricted. Utah attempted to pass legislation on the length of women’s skirts. Virginia tried to ban any dress that revealed too much of a woman’s throat as if throats were offending. Furthermore, Ohio tried to ban form-fitting outfits. This is genuinely a palling and violates my first amendment rights. Flappers aren’t trying to hurt anyone, so why does the government care what I ware. My lifestyle is considered unconventional, but shouldn’t I still be allowed to expresses my self, even in this new era of thinking. With books for Ernest Hemmingway, along with the daring literature of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda running wild as the iconic flapper she is. Us flappers may face scrutiny, but we don’t care what the world thinks as long as we have our secret bars to go along with our not so secret lifestyle. Politicians may hold me back, but this is the new way of life, and they might as well get used to it. Women are no longer China dolls; we can make our own money and live our own lives. Thanks to WW1 and the drafting of men it left a shortage in the work fore which paved the way for women to prove them selfs as equal. So now, thanks to Germany having a temper tantrum I have had a job at the local newspaper for eight years now. Flappers are independent and don’t need anyone to boss us around. We are the future of women in society.
-Silvia
September 10th, 1929
Dear Diray,
I fear this is an end or an era. The stock market has crashed, and no one has trust in the banks to hold their money. America is in economic turmoil. Everyone’s standard of living is slowly declining, and I fear what the future holds. The big rolling businessmen no longer have money to spend at the jazz clubs, and I no longer have enough money to keep up with going out and buying new pearls and makeup. With no one visiting the speakeasies, they all closed up shop. There was no more loud music and late nights. Now I am in a mode of survival, just keeping food on the table is hard enough. I have finally sold off the last of my pearls to save me from starvation, but in my closet, within the seams of my last sequenced dress, the memories will live on. The late nights, dancing till my feet fell off, and living like there was no tomorrow, are now just a relic of the past. The fun nights slowly fade into distant memories that I try so hard to hold on to. I hope that one day the lifestyle of the twenties will live on, but as of now, I see no hope. So I say goodbye to the girl I once was as soon I open a new chapter, a chapter of the depression.
-Silvia
