Roaring Twenties
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Roaring Twenties
Nostalgia and age like bacon and eggs,
With buttered toast and jam on the side for breakfast;
And coffee, and a glass of orange juice to drink,
And a memory in-between to rethink.
The day begins with boring continuance:
Of routines, platitudes, and goodwill gestures,
While accepting a life of privileged convenience,
In-between the extremes of social posturing.
Genius flourished during the ‘Noble Experiment.’
And Gibson girls dreamed of being naughty flappers.
Naïve of signals pervading the American dream.,
By a generation indulging decadent behaviours.
In speakeasies, patrons and taxi-dancers
Shed their burdens and danced to jazzy tunes.
Women glitzy primped in short dresses and nylons:
Mascaraed their eyes and powdered their faces,
And hijacked the agenda to vote for men.
***
Notes:
1) Prohibition: ‘Prohibition’ refers to the 18th Amendment to the United States of America Constitution ratified in 1920. It was still legal to consume alcohol; however, the Law banned the manufacture, transportation, importation, and sale of intoxicating liquors in the United States. Prohibition lasted until 1933 when the 21st Amendment was ratified repealing Prohibition.
President Herbert Hoover (31st President of the United States from 1929 to 1933) described Prohibition as “a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching purpose.”
The ‘Noble Experiment’ objectives were to: reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and poverty, and improve health and hygiene in America.
2) Gibson Girl: A ‘Gibson Girl’ was a girl personifying feminine ideals of beauty and behaviors pertaining to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
3) Flappers: Flappers were young American women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and rebelled against acceptable society behaviors. Famous flappers included Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, and Barbara Stanwyck. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda, is credited for being the first flapper. The term ‘flapper’ coincided with a fad in the early 1920s among American teenage girls who wore unbuckled galoshes that flapped when they walked. Another suggestion related to the 1920s fashion trend was that young women left their overcoats unbuttoned to flap back and forth when they walked. This supposedly gave them the feeling of independence with freedom from the tight Victorian Era style of clothing.
4) Speakeasy: A ‘speakeasy’ during Prohibition was an illicit liquor store or nightclub.
5) Taxi-dancer: ‘Taxi dancers’ were dancing partners available for a fee by buying dance tickets. The term comes from the fact that, as with a taxi-cab driver, the dancer’s pay is proportional to the time he or she spends dancing with the customer. Patrons in a taxi-dance hall typically bought tickets for ten cents each, which gave rise to the term ‘dime-a-dance-girl.’ Another term for a taxi-dancer was ‘nickel hopper’ because out of that dime, they typically earned five cents.
6) 19th Amendment: The 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on August 18, 1920 and guaranteed all women the right to vote.
Copyright © Dennis Spilchuk | Year Posted 2018
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