Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This is an entertaining, well-researched and charmingly illustrated dissection of the 1920s flapper, who flouted conventions and epitomized the naughtiness of the Jazz Age as she "bobbed her hair, smoked cigarettes, drank gin, sported short skirts, and passed her evenings in steamy jazz clubs." Cambridge historian Zeitz identifies F. Scott Fitzgerald as "the premier analyst," and his muse and wife, Zelda, "the prototype" of the American flapper. Others who invented aspects of the flapper mystique were New Yorker writer Lois Long, who gave readers a vicarious peek into the humorous late-night adventures of the New Woman; designer Coco Chanel, whose androgynous fashions redefined feminine sexuality as they blurred the line between men's and women's roles in society; fashion artist Gordon Conway, whose willowy and aloof flappers were seen by millions of American and European magazine readers; and Clara Bow, who breathed life into the flapper on the silver screen. The Klan, Zeitz relates, denounced flappers as evils of the modern age, and advertisers exploited the social anxieties of would-be flappers by appealing to the conformist at the heart of this controversial figure. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* This lively history looks at the Jazz Age through its greatest symbol, the flapper. A far cry from the staid Victorian angel of the house, flappers wore their hair short, dared to show their legs, drank, smoked, and cavorted with young men. Alhough he didn't invent the flapper as many suppose, F. Scott Fitzgerald did bring the modern woman into the public eye in his debut novel, This Side of Paradise. Zeitz explores the lives of the women who have come to personify the flapper ideal: Zelda Sayre, the southern belle who married Fitzgerald and became his muse; Lois Long, the sharp-tongued New Yorker columnist whose nightlife was often the subject of her writing; Coco Chanel, the elegant designer who carefully crafted her own backstory; and the actresses Colleen Moore, Clara Bow, and Louise Brooks, who brought the flapper to the silver screen only to be left in the dust when the following decade ushered in a less sexually confident feminine ideal. Zeitz's energetic writing does his subject justice, bringing to life the wild coed parties; the colorful, glitzy fashion; and the general energy and enthusiasm with which the decade embraced modernity. An essential exploration of the women Zeitz deems "the first thoroughly modern American[s]." Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1St Edition edition (March 14, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400080533
• ISBN-13: 978-1400080533
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #585,280 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars These Kids Today With Their Charlestons and Their Jazz Music, March 14, 2006

By	Andrew J. Trask "A J Trask" (Alexandria, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Flapper is a rare treat for history buffs: a thoroughly accessible piece of history that both sheds new light on familiar topics and uncovers new facts most readers might otherwise not have encountered. Zeitz wisely chooses to tell the story of the flapper by focusing on four women who helped launch the phenomenon: writer and socialite Zelda Fitzgerald (nee Sayres), designer Coco Chanel, columnist Lois Long, and actress Louise Brooks. Zeitz tells these stories well, deftly sifting through the piles of extant material on Fitzgerald and Chanel, and generating an impressive amount of biographical information on the lesser-known Long and Brooks. Zeitz is equally adept when discussing the larger trends that shaped (and were shaped by) the flapper. In particular, his description of how dating arose in the United States showcases his talents at their strongest, and reads like the better parts of a Garry Wills book. Sound research, clear argument, interesting subject matter, and writing that, sentence by sentence, puts the reader right in the mood of the times make this great reading for historians and general readers alike. Social history should always be this good.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read, September 17, 2006

By	Anyechka (Rensselaer, NY United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This book is absolutely fabulous and was hard to put down. More than just another book about the flappers, it tells a thorough comprehensive story about American culture and society in the 1920s, from so many angles, pertinent to both women and society as a whole--clothing, advertising, cars, smoking, dating, sex, drinking, the movies, literature, feminism, higher education, racism, the haves and have-nots, and illustrators. Along the way we also read about vivid personalities of the era, such as Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Clara Bow, Lois Long, Colleen Moore, Louise Brooks, John Held, Jr., Bruce Barton, Coco Chanel, and Gordon Conway (a woman, in spite of the masculine name). It also chronicles the events and social forces in the decades prior to the Twenties, showing how all of these things came together and ultimately led up to the first truly modern era, an era that actually began around the time of WWI, not when the Twenties began, as many people might think. Things such as women wearing more comfortable and revealing clothing, young people going on dates and even having premarital sex instead of having closely-chaperoned "courtships," and pop culture and advertisements assuming great importance in how people saw and created their sense of reality just intensified and became more prominent as the Twenties began. These changes in society and women didn't take place in a vacuum or happen overnight.

As a woman and a feminist, I'm eternally grateful to these women for what they did, and for the struggles and sacrifices of the generations that came before them. Yes, many older feminists of the era were dismayed at how so many young women were more concerned with things like fashion, the movies, and attracting men than in being political or social activists, but in their own way, they were helping to change society for the better. And by today's standards, the flappers seem relatively tame; today no one bats an eye at a woman who cuts her hair short, wears a skirt showing her knees, smokes in public, goes on dates with multiple guys before getting married, or works and lives alone. It was also interesting to read about how women's freedom went up and down a bit in the eras that came before the flapper generation came of age; for example, about half of the women who went to college between the 1870s and the 1920s never married, in comparison to about a tenth of the general female population. The book also shows how the Victorian ideals of morality were always tenuous at best, not a realistic portrayal of how most people lived their lives. Apparently people in the Twenties were romanticising the past as much as the neo-Puritans of today, lamenting a world that never really existed at best and that was repressive and oppressive at worst, particularly for women and the have-nots. The chapter "An Athletic Kind of Girl" in particular was heartbreaking, reading about how for over a century, women were kept imprisoned and socially controlled in bone- and organ-crushing corset strings and pounds upon pounds of clothing that made it hard for them to walk in anything but dainty little steps.

This book should be required reading for anyone interested in the 1920s and all of the fascinating personalities and the sweeping social and cultural changes of the era. It also covers the era with an even hand; even though there were a lot of good things going for it, there were also ugly things such as racism, the old sexual double standard, and the majority of the nation's wealth concentrated in a small privileged group of people instead of evenly distributed among the masses. Like all historical eras, this one too was neither all sunshine and roses nor all gloom and doom.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Packed full of great information!, September 5, 2006

By	Jacquie Rogers "author of Faery Special Romances" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I bought this book after reading the reviews of several books covering the Roaring 20s. I needed not just facts and figures, but the feel of the era, since I was researching for a short fiction story set then. Joshua Zeitz did it all, covering both individual experiences as well as the essence of the time.

Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern is well worth the price. It's packed with solid research as is also highly entertaining.

Get a wiggle on and go buy it!