MORALS AND MANNERS, MODERN CHANGES TO

The Rise of the Moderns

While the Communist Revolution was underway in Russia, a much more subtle erosion of the old order was taking place in the United States. The Victorian manners and Puritan morals that had governed society for so long were being cast aside in favor of all that was considered modern. No blood was spilled, but battle lines were drawn as defenders of the old order fought against what they considered an assault on all that was proper, decent, and holy. Taboos fell by the wayside. Women were exposing previously hidden parts of their bodies, such as shoulders, throats, and even knees; some people actually began discussing sex openly and in public; religion seemed to be losing ground; and parents worried that their teenage children were becoming increasingly restless and difficult to control.

What gave rise to this rebellion? Obviously, it was not an organized revolution that was launched overnight. Some changes that had begun before the war were sped up as an effect of that catastrophic world event. The war itself exposed millions of men and women to unprecedented horrors that caused them to reexamine what they had blindly accepted as truth. It also exposed young soldiers and nurses overseas to "continental" ways and manners, the effects of which are hinted at in the popular postwar song, "How You Gonna Keep ’Em Down on the Farm After They’ve Seen Paree?" Some parents blamed the auto for their troubles, as it gave youngsters the freedom to drive away from the bosom of their family in search of a good time. The good people of Middle America wondered if movies and radio weren’t eroding family ties as they replaced singing, neighborhood small talk, and other forms of make-your-own fun. As if these lifestyle changes and postwar side effects weren’t enough, advances in science and psychology shook the foundations of centuries-old belief systems.

All of these factors made for an exciting, confusing, exhilarating, and, to some people, frightening period of change in the United States.

The Changing American Woman

As the "fairer sex," women were expected to uphold the morals and manners of society. But the new American woman was changing her ideas of what was considered proper. A comparison of popular fashions in 1915 to those of 1925 provides visible evidence of this change. In prewar years, women wore high, lace-up boots, and hemlines were at the ankle or lower, where it seemed they’d been forever. Most women had long hair, and the emphasis in fashion was on the shapeliness of the feminine body. Under their dresses, women wore layer upon layer of cotton underclothes and a restraining corset that could make breathing, much less bending over, a difficult activity. Despite how uncomfortable they were, author Ben Hecht remembered that in 1912, women were arrested for going shopping without their corsets on.

Ten years later, women were wearing low-cut pumps, and hemlines had risen almost all the way to the knee. Underclothes usually consisted of a single layer of silk. Corsets were mercifully becoming a thing of the past, and gone too were the accentuated curves of the female silhouette. Instead, most dresses featured a dropped waist or no waist at all, giving the wearer’s figure a boyish look. The new hairstyles added to the effect as more and more women had their hair bobbed, or cut short.

As these boyish, less restraining fashion trends indicate, women were becoming more independent and assertive. During the war, many women took jobs, and a large portion of them kept those jobs even after the soldiers came home. For working-class women, however, a job was a necessity rather than a career choice, for even during Coolidge Prosperity, many families required two incomes. As time-saving appliances, canned goods, and bakeries became more common, women were tied less to the house. The auto also gave them more freedom.