The+role+of+women+in+the+1920s

Ricki-Lee Lombardi American History Block 6 May 11, 2008

The 1920’s were a period of [|American History] that brought many changes to the lives of Americans. Some of the most important events that occurred in the 1920’s were [|the 19th Amendment], equal rights movement for women, and the rapidly changing fashion and the flappers, who were introduced. Also, on Monday, October 29, 1929, the [|stock market] crashed and the [|Great Depression] began. The 1920’s were one of the biggest known decades in American history because of these events, which is why this decade is also known as the roaring twenties. These events influenced all people during this time, but the greatest impact was made on the women. Women’s [|roles] continued to bring genuine strides towards equality in the United States. Besides the 19th Amendment, the equal rights movement and fashion of women, other roles women brought to this time period were the women in the work force and their education and [|training]. This all pulled together and showed many people who women really were, and finally they started to live better lives. One of the biggest changes that women received in the 1920’s was the right to vote. The 19th Amendment was passed in 1920 and it gave women the right to vote. However, they still had to register to be able to [|vote], and many people quit the [|jobs] to register people because they wouldn’t register women. Many people feared that women were not intelligent enough to have the vote and became worried they might vote important people out of office. Also, people [|feared] women’s voting because they realized that race, [|social class], [|religion], [|education], and family experience would change if women voted, and the way they voted. However as the 1920’s continued, women usually did the right thing while voting, which changed the way people felt. Because women did not do the wrong thing by voting, this created a huge impact towards equality. However, as the late 1920’s came around, even though women could vote, they still did not have a fair share of political power, or equal right as everyone else. A new amendment needed to be passed to insure this. [|The Equal Rights Amendment] was a suggested change to the constitution guaranteeing equal rights for all Americas no matter their sex or race. Although this amendment was passed in 1972, giving women the same equal rights as men, it was written by [|Alice Paul] in 1921, and was introduced to congress in 1923. Alice Paul had written three sections of the ERA including, “ Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex, The [|congress] shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate [|legislation], the provisions of this article, and this amendment shall take effect two years after the date of [|ratification].”(Equal Rights Amendment.) Some people supported the ERA, stating that there was not [|sufficient] protection against [|sex discrimination]. Alice Paul was one of these supporters stating, “Men and Women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subjected to its jurisdiction.”(Flappers and the new American Women.) Another very strong believer of the ERA was [|Senator Depew]. In an article written in discussion of equality between men and women, Depew stated, “I do not believe that all this preaching against woman’s activity has any foundation in fact or in theory. I believe that any public thing a man can do a woman can do equally well.” (Depew discusses woman.) Others thought the ERA had no purpose and may even hurt women. For the rest of the 1920’s and a little while later, the equal rights amendment was in action and women had equal rights as men. This made important changes towards women’s equality, however the ERA was [|ratified] by only 35 of the 38 necessary states on its deadline in July 1982. (Equal rights amendment.) The ERA was never part of our constitution. Even though it brought genuine change towards equality for a short amount of time, women’s new style in fashion led them to be introduced to people in many new ways. Short skirts, leather jackets, a [|cigarette] in one hand and the other hand on the wheel, was the look on the women in open cars in the twenties. These were [|the flappers] who were introduced in the 1920’s changing the way women felt about themselves. They wanted to show who they really were, and they expressed this by changing the way they looked. For women, the fashion started in Paris. The most famous designers in the 1920’s were [|Jean Patou], [|Paul Poiret], [|Coco Chanel], and Madeline Vionnet. (Flappers and the new American Women.) The flappers were adopted in the 1920’s as well and new fashion for women started. This new style created a more [|mature] female look by flattering their breasts, dropping the waists to hip lines, and in 1925, shortening skirts. This started changing the way women felt about themselves, and the way other people starting feeling about women. Many [|accessories] became known in the 1920’s. Hats were one of the most popular daytime accessories. Women also wore leather helmets with goggles, headgear, leather jackets and long scarves in open cars. Other accessories were jewelry, handbags, cigarette cases, motif scarves, compacts, earrings and necklaces.(Flappers and the new American women.) These changes spread through out all women during the 1920’s, and these seemingly minor changes were really major changes. People started appreciating women more, by admiring the new ways of fashion. This had somewhat of an impact of women equality, but any impact at all made a difference, because there was still some things women were let down on. Obviously, the workforce never became equal between men and women. Women in the workforce had many differences from men, most being terribly unfair. In the 1920’s, Men’s [|salaries] started at forty cents an hour, and women started at twenty-five cents an hour. Also in 1920, 23.6 percent of women worked in the labor force and 8.3 million worked outside of home. By the end of the 1920’s, this increased to 27 percent and 11 million. (Women in the workforce in the 1920’s.) Something needed to be done about this, and finally on June 5, 1920, congress established the Women Bureau of the U.S department of labor. The Womens Beueau and the [|WTUL] fought for shorter hours of women’s long workdays. (Women in the workforce in the 1920’s.) Women’s Bureau director Mary Anderson reported of a typical workday of women in the 1920’s. She said, “Ten hours at the factory and the double duty at home was not bad only for women’s health but bad for family life.”(Women in the workforce in the 1920’s.) Could you imagine being a woman during this time, a working this hard throughout your day, and then getting paid terrible wages? World War I ended in 1918, and increased women’s employment to 25.6 percent in office-staff jobs, 23.8 percent in [|manufacturing], 18.2 percent in [|domestic service]and 12.9 percent in agriculture. (Women in the workforce in the 1920’s.) Even thought the [|wages] were still not equal for women, more of them joining the workforce proved to others that they were trained to do the same industrial work as men and they had the same potential. The increase in women working made a huge influence on the way people viewed women and their equality. The 1920’s brought efforts of education and training to women workers. The reason many people were scared for women to receive the right to vote was because they thought women didn’t have enough education and would vote important [|officials] out of office. Women were however educated in the 1920’s. There were summer schools for women, workers in industry. This provided much education, and even influenced other people during this time, even starting to believe in women more and give them more credit. The schools taught academic training, union [|organization]skills and lessons in participatory [|democracy] to women recruited by unions and the YMCA.(Women in the workforce in the 1920’s.) This brought many change to the lives of women’s in the United States and towards their equality. Some people started to have some faith in them, and could start to trust them. In conclusion, this [|decade] brought many changes to the lives of women in the United States. Women had to fight so hard for how they are looked at today, and these changes made many genuine strides for all women of this time period. Because of the new rights that women received, their new fashion, their work, and their education, many different people during this time started seeing women in a different way. The beginning of the 1900’s was a bad time for women. Many women were mistreated and women did not have all the same or equal rights as men. The 1920’s were one of the most important decades of the 1900’s, changing women in all ways. This decade was also one of the toughest decades for women, which is why they give it the name, “the roaring twenties.”
 * __The Roaring Twenties__**

“Depew Discusses woman.” __Nytimes.com__. 22 Feb. 1900. The New York Times. 11 May. 2008 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A0DE6DB153FE433A25751C2A9649C946197D6CF
 * SOURCE A:**
 * This source was primary source of an article I found on the internet. I was researching my topic of Women in the 1920’s, and found this article. I chose this article as one to use because there was many useful quotes in it, which I used in my research paper.**

Deutsch, Sarah Jane. __American Women 1920-1940.__ New York : Oxford University Press, 1994
 * SOURCE B:**
 * This source is a book I found in the media center, which was very broad. I chose this book to start me off with my topic, and giving me the most important information about it. It was very useful for me to start off my paper.**

“Equal rights amendment.” __Now.org__. 20 Oct. 2004. National organization for women. 11 May 2008 
 * SOURCE C:**
 * This source is an internet source, which gave me the basic information for the equal rights amendment, which was a big part of my topic. I used it just to give me a broad idea of it.**

Gourley, Catherine. __Flappers and the new American woman.__ Minneapolis. Twenty First Century Books, 2008.
 * SOURCE D:**
 * This was another book I found, and I used it for the flappers and the fashion for my topic, which was a huge part of my paper. Even though I had a set paragraph for the flappers and the fashion, I used it all throughout my paper. It was a very important part of it.**

“Women’s fashion in the 1920’s.” DISCovering U.S. history. Gale Research, 1997. __[|http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/HistRC/]__
 * SOURCE E:**
 * This was a reference source I used also for the fashion of the women in the 1920’s. This was a huge part of my paper, and using more then one source from it helped.**

“Women in the work force in the 1920’s.” DISCovering U.S. History. Gale Research, http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/HistRC/__
 * SOURCE F:**
 * This was another reference source I used for my paper. This was about the women in the workforce during this time. It helped me with many statistics for the topic.**

__**SOURCE G:** “Women’s role in the 1920 fundamentalist movement.” AuthorsDen.com. 21 Sept. 2006. Joy Robbins. 9 April. 2008 .______
 * This was another internet source I used. This gave me the best information for the main roles of women in the 1920’s. My job writing this paper was not to write what their roles were, but if the roles were genuine of superficial. In order to do that however, I needed to know the most important roles, and this website helped me with that.**__

 women in the 1920's. Photograph. __google__. 12 May 2008 .  **I used this website to get a very useful picture to put as my title page that would summarize my topic.**
 * SOURCE H:**