🗳️ The vote
Women won the vote nationwide in 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment became law. They could vote in the presidential election that November. This was a huge step after decades of campaigning.
The Roaring Twenties » Women in the 1920s and the Flappers
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: Paper 2 Section A, Investigation A3, Key topic 1
- How the vote, work, fashion and behaviour changed for American women in the 1920s
- Who the flappers were
- How limited the changes were for most women
- How to answer a 16-mark interpretation question
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Unlock This CourseA new kind of woman?
In the 1920s many Americans noticed that women's lives were changing. The newspapers were full of stories about daring young women. But did the changes reach most women? That is the question to keep in mind.
Key terms:
- Suffrage: the right to vote.
- Nineteenth Amendment: the 1920 change to the US Constitution that gave women the vote across the USA.
- Flapper: a fashionable young woman of the 1920s who broke old rules about dress and behaviour.
- Chaperone: an older person who went along to watch over a young woman.
The vote, work and the flappers
💼 Work
By 1920 one wage earner in five was a woman. Many worked as typists, secretaries, telephone operators, shop assistants, teachers and nurses. Offices and shops opened up more jobs for women.
💃 Fashion
Flappers cut their hair into a short bob, wore make-up and shortened their skirts to the knee. Their loose dresses were easier to dance in than the tight clothes of earlier years.
🎉 Behaviour
Flappers danced the Charleston, smoked in public and drove cars. They went out with friends and boyfriends without a chaperone.
How limited was the change?
The flapper was famous, but she was not typical. Most flappers were young, white and from city or middle-class families. Millions of women lived on farms or in small towns and carried on as before.
- The vote: fewer women than men used their vote in the 1920s, and the parties found there was no single women's vote. In the South, laws such as poll taxes and literacy tests kept most African Americans, women included, from voting at all.
- Work: women were paid less than men and mostly stayed in a narrow range of jobs. Domestic service was still a major job for women. Only about 1 in 11 married women had a paid job in 1920, because most were expected to stay at home.
- Equal rights: in 1923 the National Woman's Party proposed an Equal Rights Amendment, but it did not become law.
Common mistakes
- Writing that all women lived like flappers. Most did not.
- Saying the vote ended inequality. It was a first step, not the finish.
- Using a source without asking who wrote it and why. Magazines often wrote about flappers because they made exciting stories.
Exam-style question
This is a Paper 2 Section A (c) question. Use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge. Give evidence that supports the view and evidence that challenges it, then reach a judgement.
Source A: From an article by Bruce Bliven, a journalist, in the magazine The New Republic, 9 September 1925.
Women have highly resolved that they are just as good as men, and intend to be treated so. They don't mean to have any more unwanted children. They don't intend to be debarred from any profession or occupation which they choose to enter.
Source B: From a report by Agnes L. Peterson for the Women's Bureau of the US government, 1929.
The data for 1920 show in addition that 1 in every 4 of the wage-earning women was reported to be married. ... In 1920, on the other hand, nearly 2,000,000 married women were employed, constituting 9 per cent, or 1 in 11, of all the married women of the country.
Extract C (a practice extract written for this lesson, in the style of a modern history book)
The 1920s transformed the lives of American women. The vote gave them a political voice, paid work gave them independence, and the flappers swept away old rules about dress and behaviour. By the end of the decade, women were the equals of men.
Study Extract C. Extract C suggests that the 1920s transformed the position of American women. How far do you agree with this interpretation? Use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge to explain your answer. [16 marks]
Model answer
Extract C says the vote, work and the flappers 'transformed' women's lives, and there is real support for this. In 1920 the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the vote across the USA, which was a huge change. Source A, from 1925, says women 'intend to be treated' as equals and refuse to be 'debarred from any profession', which suggests a new confidence. Own knowledge agrees: flappers bobbed their hair, shortened their skirts and drove cars, and by 1920 one wage earner in five was a woman.
Source B also supports part of the view. It shows that 'nearly 2,000,000 married women' were employed in 1920, while own knowledge adds that the figure had been only 4 to 5 per cent in 1890. Paid work was clearly spreading, and that gave some women independence.
However, Extract C goes too far. Source B shows that only '1 in 11' married women had a job in 1920, so for most married women life at home carried on. It is also an official report using census figures, so it is more reliable on numbers than Source A. Bliven's article is a magazine piece, and its confident words may describe the young women he was writing about rather than most women.
Own knowledge also challenges 'equals of men'. Women were paid less than men and worked mostly as typists, teachers, nurses and servants. Fewer women than men voted, and in the South poll taxes and literacy tests kept most African Americans from the ballot box. The Equal Rights Amendment proposed in 1923 failed. Flappers were mainly young, white and urban, so they were not typical of farm women or poorer families.
Overall, I only partly agree. The vote, the growth of paid work and the flappers were real changes, and they altered what young urban women could expect. But judged by how many women were affected and how equal they became, Extract C overstates the change. The 1920s began a transformation rather than completing one.
What lifts this to the top level: it tests the extract's claims with both sources, judges which source is more reliable and why, adds precise own knowledge, and reaches a judgement based on a stated criterion, how many women were affected and how equal they became.
Exam tip
When Extract C says 'transformed' or 'equals', test the big word. Ask how many women, and how equal, then use a source figure to prove it.