Lea Ballard
The Contributions of Flappers
Many women today, and even some men, consider themselves to be original with their
style and their beliefs. Though it is now seen as normal for people to dress in interesting and
different ways, people in the 1920’s were not used to seeing a new type of fashion style emerge
as well as all of the new changes that were happening for women and for their families. A group
of women called Flappers made their appearance and presence known through all of their
protests and reform movements, which led to the influencing of numerous women. Flapper’s
contributions to society mostly affected women in positive ways by giving them economic,
political, and fashion freedoms.
Because of Flappers, many women were able to go out and get jobs due to their
newfound economic freedoms. Women started to join the workforce in rocketing numbers while
also starting to finally enjoy the new found freedom in their daily lives8. Many of the jobs that
women were now allowed to work in were clerking jobs, office jobs, and some jobs in the
medical field. Though that can seem like a menial job for someone nowadays, women back then
were thrilled to be able to finally be a part of the working class. This later goes on to allow
women to start gaining positions in mostly male dominated fields like, for example, being a
doctor or an engineer. However, many women had to travel and move into the city to start their
new jobs which not only disrupted their family life, but caused urbanization to increase.
Fifty-one percent of Americans were living in the city by 1920 which was a first for America 8.
Women’s economic position had changed so much during this time that they had become equals
to men which was very unexpected4. Countless women’s groups tended to focus more on the
professional advancements more so after they were set in their jobs6. This economic change for
women was very prodigious but was not the only good thing to come from the Flappers.
Since women were not able to participate or vote in anything having to do with politics,
Flappers helped to change that for them. Though Flappers cannot take full credit for helping
women to be able to vote, they had help from the 19th amendment that was passed in 1919.
According to Freedman, when women first started voting, they did not vote for the predictable
candidate like the men did, but instead chose someone else due to their lack of experience in the
political world4. Many of the women who were able to vote chose the candidates who were in
favor of maternity and infancy protection as well as opposing lynching and child labor1. Since
this time period still had an abundance of male voters, many thought the women to be
uneducated on selecting the right people to vote for. Flappers had soon moved on and started