Women of Wednesday - On Flappers

These are Flappers

This is you if there had been no Flappers.

Flappers are generally known as the girls who just wanted to have fun, and that may be absolutely true. Still, I think they deserve some credit for the advancement of women.

Flappers were girls who came of age during the 1920's. They were girls born at the beginning of the twentieth century, right smack dab in that hard final push for the birth of the nineteenth amendment giving women the right to vote. They grew up in a world of suffragettes, of seeing women fight for what they wanted. They may have had aunts, sisters or mothers marching in the streets. They may have read about suffragettes being tortured in jail. Or they may have heard nothing about suffragettes at all except for what godless, scandalous, barbaric trouble-making women they were. But they heard about them. They knew they were out there. And even if they only absorbed a suffragette’s creed by osmosis, they knew the times were changing. They knew it was no longer their grandmothers’ world. They knew they could have what they wanted. All they had to do was take it.

By 1920, when the nineteenth amendment passed, many of them would have been teenagers, the perfect age for rebellion. And what did the passing of the nineteenth amendment say to them? We can vote now, just like the men. We’re just as good men. We don’t have to be the women are grandmothers were, or even the women our mothers are. And they weren’t.

They shucked off convention and social mores and, in a mere four or five years, they got women out of corsets and into the workplace. They made it acceptable for women to go out without a chaperone, to have their own apartments, to drive cars and even airplanes. They got women out of God-only-knows how many layers of clothing and into light and sleek and comfortable dresses that didn’t drag on the ground accumulating dust and dirt. They not only showed off their ankles, they showed off their knees. Such a scandal back then.

And they danced. In public. And not those old stodgy waltzes their grandparents danced to. They did the Charleston, shaking and shimmying and showing off their stuff. They made it acceptable for women to drink and smoke and wear make-up, and while we know better now, smoking and drinking were steps forward in the ‘20's. Flappers didn’t care what the older generation thought. They didn’t care what men thought. They did what they wanted because it was fun, and all those “Good women never . . . .” rules came tumbling down. It was that easy.

And that’s probably why they don’t get any credit. It was easy and it was fun. And they didn’t have an agenda. Still, I think we can learn some lessons from those self-indulgent girls of the ‘20's.

Don’t waste your time worrying about what other people think.
Be who you are.
And most importantly, just do it.

Freedom belongs to those unafraid to grasp it.



For some interesting historical articles on Flappers
For a look at the Flappers Dictionary

Women of . . . Wednesday -- Marilla Ricker

Of all the women I’ve profiled, Marilla Ricker is my favorite. She was a woman who knew what she wanted and went after it. Even as a child, she was a force to be reckoned with. She was born in 1840 in New Durham, NH, the second of four children. Her mother was a Baptist, her father a Freethinker. Marilla refused to go to church or say her prayers. “I will not kneel and pray, Hannah,” she told her mother, who she called by her first name.

At sixteen, Marilla was teaching school and was required to read to the students from the Bible every day. Marilla refused. When told it would mean losing her position, she went to school and told her students, “We will now read the startling and truthful account of Jonah whilst a sojourner in the sub-marine hotel.”

Marilla married John Ricker when she was twenty-three. He was fifty-six. He died five years later, leaving her an independently wealthy woman. The next year, Marilla attended the first meeting of the National Women’s Suffragette Association. When she returned, she tried to vote, but was turned away. Marilla protested. “ . . . so long as women are hanged under the laws, they should have a voice in making them,” she said. She also believed there was no point in asking men--her oppressors--for equal rights. Women had to do the work themselves. She said, “I have found that men will listen to all your arguments readily and then will go home and forget everything you have said.”

Marilla traveled to Europe to study with Freethinkers for a few years then returned to the US to study law in Washington, DC. She passed the bar and began working on cases that helped convicts and the poor. It’s said she never charged anyone for her work. When she returned to NH, the state would not allow a woman to practice law. She sued the state and won her case, giving women of NH the right to practice law.

From there, Marilla got involved in politics, and worked hard for the Republican Party. When McKinley became president, she applied to become Ambassador to Colombia, a position that normally went to a NH resident. Although she had supporters, she was still turned down. She was, after all, a woman. Still, it didn’t stop her. In 1910, at age 70, she announced her candidacy for Governor of NH.

“I’m running for Governor in order to get people in the habit of thinking as women as Governors . . . . People have to think about a thing for several centuries before they can get acclimated to the idea. I want to start the ball rolling.”

But Marilla wasn’t allowed to run. Only voters could run for office and Marilla could not vote. Still, she did get the ball rolling. In 1996, Jean Shaheen became the first female Governor of NH. It didn’t take centuries.

In August of 1920, when Marilla was 80 years old, the 19th amendment was passed giving women the right to vote. Marilla died three months later. No one knows if she ever cast a ballot, but I like to think she did.