Talk:Flapper/Archive 1

Archive 1

Norma Talmadge

I'm slightly baffled at the inclusion of a picture of Norma Talmadge as an illustration in an article about flappers. Ms Talmadge was an older woman (born in 1893, rather than the early '00's) who specialised in maternal melodramatic roles in her films - the norma talmadge website has an annotated filmography, here:

http://www.stanford.edu/~gdegroat/NT/filmography.htm

...not one of which is in any way a "flapper film"! Better to find a suitable picture of Olive Thomas, Colleen Moore or Virginia Lee Corbin, who were all "the real thing", maybe?

best wishes86.145.188.69 (talk) 22:32, 28 March 2008 (UTC)a passerby.

I agree. Fitzgerald described flappers as "lovely and expensive and about nineteen." Norma need not apply.71.192.4.218 (talk) 20:19, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Woman's who wasn't "flapping",like Talmadge and Joyce, didn't walk the street nude. A high-fashion 1920-dress doesn't qualify you as a flapper. And not necessarily you become one out of age either. Behavior or attitude is the knot. Mentioning F. Scott Fitzgerald, he also said, "They are just girls, all sorts of girls, their one common trait being that they are young things with a splendid talent for living", and added; "Clara Bow is the quintessence of what the term signifies"

"If skirts are decreed short by fashion the flapper goes to extremes and has them shorter than she should", Ida M. Tarbell observes. "She wears loud clothes and has uncouth manners. That is merely a gesture to denote her independence of all things, especially parental control. But it does not necessarily follow that because of this the flapper is an immoral person. This type prevails to an extent among college and high school-girls. There are also her imitators among the industrial classes."

The academic level of this article remains low until the misrepresenting pics are replaced. Parrotistic (talk) 16:05, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Women's Moustache

Did any of the late Flapper fashion involve drawing a thin moustache on their faces with some sort of make-up? This idea seems 'common knowledge', but I can't find any reference to support it.

Flapping Galoshes?

Does anyone have a reference for the claim in "Origins" that Americans thought the term derived from galoshes worn unbuckled? It seems an odd claim since galoshes don't appear to be part of flapper fashion. 7infinity 13:32, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I recently watched "Bare Knees" (1928), a flapper comedy/romance starring Virginia Lee Corbin. In the film, she does actually make her entry wearing a pair of unbuckled galoshes - the camera starts on the galoshes and pans up.: —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.188.69 (talk) 22:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I read references to this in a book about Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle that I purchased at Chicago's museum of Science and Industry (where the castle is). It claimed her character in Flaming Youth was responsible, which seems unlikely, given the timing.Krilia (talk) 16:55, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

my grandmother was a flapper very early on when she was young teenager, before the word came into popular usage. she was from the united states, portland maine, she was very poor, working class, and i do not think what she was doing had anything to do with affecting some european fashion trend. she told me that her and her freinds were reffered to as "the flappers" around town because they wore large black rubber goloshes that were purposefuly unbuckled to call attention to themselves. it was partly done as a sign of solidarity with female factory workers, who, because of factory regulations were not allowed to wear dress shoes to work in order to make it easier to go to dances after they got off of their shifts.young factory girls had a certain reputation for brazen independance,promiscuous after hour partying, and probably a rather fickle aspirational drive to find a fiancially secure husband. Anyway, they were required to wear high boots to work, so to sidestep this rule they would wear dress shoes to work and cover them with high rubber goloshes that could be easily removed and stowed away when they got off of their shifts. the look came to symbolize a certain gesture of independance. till she died my grand mother always had a pair of high rubber goloshes with metal buckles on them in her hall closet. she also told me that they used to get their hair "docked" or "bobbed" at men's barbershops. it was not a cleopatra type haircut that is so often connected with jazz age flappers, but a simple regulars boys haircut, with the bangs flicked down over the forehead in a cowlick. i am not sure of this, but i would not be surprised if this was also of factory girl origins, as long hair must have been considered a hazard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.185.130.149 (talk) 14:18, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Interesting, but please see WP:original research. Beyond My Ken (talk) 14:54, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

i see your point. i do not intend to alter the wikipedia article or insinuate upon the process. i just happened upon this about the goloshes in the discussion section and it reminded me of that anectdote. i thought that it would be helpful to anybody who has an interest in reasearching such things elsewhere.

Yes, very interesting anecdote. As far as I can see the word 'flapper' was originally British slang and from another origin, but it's possible that when the word spread to America folk etymology quickly came up with an explanation for it connected with the fashion for wearing galoshes unbuckled. This association must have happened early on, as the 1928 film 'Bare Knees' mentioned above seems already to reflect it. Could you add some dates to your anecdote, and tell us roughly when your grandmother was wearing this fashion? BeyondMyKen is right, this is original research and we shouldn't add it to the article, but it could help explain where the 'galoshes' theory for the origin of 'flapper' came from. RLamb (talk) 07:24, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

My intuition (in support of which I have neither reliable sources or anectodal evidence) is that the "flapping galoshes" origin of "flapper" is purely a folk etymology -- it just smells like that to me. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:29, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I imagine you're right. The NYT has an article hailing the arrival of the fashion ('Flappers flaunt footwear fads', NYT, 29 Jan 1922). They trace it to imitation of a Douglas Fairbanks costume in the film 'Three Musketeers' in which he wore his boot-tops turned down, 17th.c French style. But you can't be sure of that of course. I wouldn't take the word even of a contemporary newspaper as good authority for the origin of something as spontaneous and ephemeral as a teenage fad. But by early 1922 any girl wearing 'flapping galoshes' clearly identified herself with the flapper image, so the temptation for others to derive the word from that source would be very strong. And yes, I know this is all original research and can't be included in the article - that's why I'm putting it in here. Or maybe it can go in the folk etymology page.RLamb (talk) 07:46, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

More than one meaning?

A story I once heard makes the flapper a person sitting at the side of the (English?) king.

This meaning is also used in Gulliver's Travel by Jonathan Swift, part 3, chapter 2:

... Ay my alighting, I was surrounded with a crowd of people, but those who stood nearest seemed to be of better quality. They beheld me with all the marks and circumstances of wonder; neither indeed was I much in their debt, having never till then seen a race of mortals so singular in their shapes, habits, and countenances. Their heads were all reclined, either to the right, or the left; one of their eyes turned inward, and the other directly up to the zenith. Their outward garments were adorned with the figures of suns, moons, and stars; interwoven with those of fiddles, flutes, harps, trumpets, guitars, harpsichords, and many other instruments of music, unknown to us in Europe. I observed, here and there, many in the habit of servants, with a blown bladder, fastened like a flail to the end of a stick, which they carried in their hands. In each bladder was a small quantity of dried peas, or little pebbles, as I was afterwards informed. With these bladders, they now and then flapped the mouths and ears of those who stood near them, of which practice I could not then conceive the meaning. It seems the minds of these people are so taken up with intense speculations, that they neither can speak, nor attend to the discourses of others, without being roused by some external taction upon the organs of speech and hearing; for which reason, those persons who are able to afford it always keep a flapper (the original is CLIMENOLE) in their family, as one of their domestics; nor ever walk abroad, or make visits, without him. And the business of this officer is, when two, three, or more persons are in company, gently to strike with his bladder the mouth of him who is to speak, and the right ear of him or them to whom the speaker addresses himself. This flapper is likewise employed diligently to attend his master in his walks, and upon occasion to give him a soft flap on his eyes; because he is always so wrapped up in cogitation, that he is in manifest danger of falling down every precipice, and bouncing his head against every post; and in the streets, of justling others, or being justled himself into the kennel. ...

The term, as used by Swift is also mentioned in Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, if I'm not mistaken. It's certainly worth mentioning.

Peter Isotalo 20:03, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

oh, man

Okay, having no proof of certain things, I have taken them out. First, I took out "drank in public" because that implies on the sidewalks, in the streets, not at parties. That means without glasses, tables. That is called a wine-o. If someone can reference it, they can put it back in. Also, I took out "-men that they would have sex with" because that's made clear later without being so cheezy. I took out the "wrapped their breasts in cloth to make them smaller" because that's quite a claim for not having a reference. There it is.

I reverted your edits. But I'll try to find the references for those claims later today. -Amcaja 12:27, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay, here are some references for the flattened breasts bit: here, here, here, here, here, and here. I'll try to reinstate your other changes when I get to work. --Amcaja 13:05, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

The last link is the only one that suggests actual binding the way we know it today, all others talk about bras that were made to flatten. The wiki article as it is seems to suggest that tight bindings were the norm, rather than tight bras and straight line dresses as it seems in these links. It would be fair to mention the occasion of tight binding or dieting to gain the flapper look, but these links say that it was not such a desperate endevor for most. It's a subtle distinction, I know.

slang

Flapper slang expanded, and may be expanded even more than that. The link added is to 1920's slang in general, but the stuff in the article is most assuredly flapper.

??But some of the slang quoted seems to predate the flapper era - OED gives 1910 quotations for 'big cheese' and 'bump off' and 1899 for 'hooch'. This slang may have been used by young women in the 1920s but it didn't originate with them and wasn't exclusive to them. RLamb (talk) 23:46, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

confusion

It seems like the origins of flappers talks more about the times leading up to the 1920s, prohibition, speakeasys and gang violence than about the origins of the girls behaviour specifically. They used many words that we still use today, like "the big cheese" or "bump off".

The Magazine Cover

What's the date on the magazine cover? It seems to be pre-World War I. This would be important for dating the term.

The life magazine cover is 1922 and the "Flapper Magazine" was titled 1922 in it's jpeg form by whoever uploaded it.

Flappers are generally tied to speakeasies, and the whiskey that trademarked them was certainly not as common before prohibition, or as fashionable. I guess we all wanna be outlaws, just a little.

Betty Boop

Betty boop is way off as far as being flapper. She hasn't got the boy-look, in fact, she's really curvaceous. She has clevage. While understandably some aspects of the flapper could not be shown in a cartoon, while they couldn't have her drinking whiskey- they could have had her in flapper dress, or have a keen flapper sarcasm. Betty was incredibly malleable and innocent.

Betty is a pin-up girl, which has kind of sort of ties to the flapper, but only if you read flappers as being the end all be all origin of promiscuity.

The only similarity to flappers Betty boop has is having kind of short hair, and dancing.

Also, she was created in 1930, at the end of the flapper era. She more closely resembles the pin up girl Betty Grable who was popular just before the time of Betty Boop's creation.

Minne mouse is at least independent and defiant as could be portrayed on reel at the time. They could have gone that direction with Betty- they didn't because she's not supposed to be a flapper.

I reverted, but you've almost convinced me. I'm reluctant to dismiss Betty Boop, because Charles Solomon considers her "the archetypical flapper". Here's the quote from his The History of Animarion: Enchanted Drawings (1994): "She was the archetypical flapper, the speakeasy Girl Scout with a heart of gold—already something of an anachronism in 1930. Despite the advent of the Great Depression, the Betty Boop cartoons remained rooted in the Jazz Age." But then he goes on to describe how feminine Betty Boop is.

So, did the concept of the flapper change with the times to get away from the boyishness? Or does Mr. Solomon simply misunderstand what a flapper is? (By the way, be sure to sign your comments on talk pages by typing four ~ symbols in a row.) —Amcaja 06:24, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

If she's an anachronism in the time she was created, maybe she's an attempt to remake the flapper for a new generation interested in the old jazz age but knows nothing about it. There were a lot of jazz girls or singers that didn't have the flapper look, mainly burlesque dancers. When Betty Boop was created, the great controversy wasn't liquor or the pushy independence of young women, but the massive shutting down of burlesque houses.

So to the people at the time she was a throwback, because she was having fun in a time when living was easy. To an audience in the great depression, those are pretty remarkable similarities. But to us now, having a good time isn't such a dramatic defining point, and to call Betty Boop a flapper based on her attempt to appeal to half forgotten fantasies about the jazz age in the Depression is to confuse the issue.

This is why we have the characters played by Clara Bow as an example of flappers but not the 1975 musical Chicago. Fictional idealized versions of the flapper are molded to the ideals of that time. So an ideal archetype of fictional flappers may have been formed around the idea that the 1920s weren't just a fun time, but a simpler time when women were sweet, malleable and kind of dumb. We can see that this is kind of a popular idea with the babyish, whining, impulsive Roxie Hart. But from their speech, their habits and anything really historical about them, flappers are not like this. Arguably, within the Jazz age there must be some push and pull between the general ideal of cool superiority and helpless cuteness. But with all the controlled dressforms, sardonic slang and so on, it seems like flappers are almost exclusively cool and superior, and that jazz acts that played up the sexy victim weren't ever called flapper in the sense of the social standing.

So Betty Boop may be an archetype of the flapper in the strictest sense of the word. She's a common ideal for flapper characters in the literary or film world, not because she's the first or most genuine flapper, but because she set up her own roles for the jazz girl from which other versions of the flapper are derived, but that doesn't mean that it isn't just a popularized misconception.

Flappers as they are described in this article would not identify at all with the sweet, innocent, cinched waist Betty. Lotusduck 20:01, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I've removed Betty from the article again. I agree that she is a flapper in her free-spiritedness, love of jazz dancing, etc., but she doesn't fit the archetype as it was understood in the '20s. Better to not, as you say, confuse the issue. —Amcaja 02:07, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Gibson Girls

The article as it was a minute ago had more information on the gibson girls than the page on the gibson girls does. The idea that world war I gender imbalance caused flapper rebellion is neither common nor accepted. If there is a single dissertation promoting that claim, the idea can be used later in notes outside of the main body of flapper origins.

Prohibition is the main idea historians tie to the reckless fun of the roaring twenties. It is the most obvious and neccessary flapper origin. The article as it was seemed to confuse 1910 styles with flapperdom as we know it. The styles of Coco Chanel may have contributed to the boyish look, but the similarity is not clear.

Explanations for when the word came into use and when the word started to mean flapper lifestyle come from the oxford english dictionary.

Sound byte?

I've linked to sound byte from the term catchword, but wikipedia doesn't have an entry for sound byte. I thought it would. Does it have another spelling, or is there another similar concept to catch-word or sound-byte that anyone can think of? Lotusduck 04:37, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps catch phrase? —Amcaja 13:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Oooh, good one. A sound byte basically is a press catch phrase. Similar to a talking point, but not as insidious and political. I'll change catch word to link to catch phrase for now. Since the Oxford English dictionary called it a press catch word, I wanted that phrase to be in there somehow -Lotusduck too lazy to log in

Popularized flappers as they were seen from a different period

Flappers as a popular image outside the 1920s differ from the flapper ideal in the time when they existed, but perhaps to keep these out of the main article, we add another header for the fictional flappeer out of the original context of flappers. None have the slang, and most are fleetingly historically accurate to the flapper ideal, yet still identifyably fictional flappers. If this is a neccessary part of this article, some examples would be Betty Boop, Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly from the various incarnations of Chicago, and Huguette Verberie from Pas sur la bouche- although the original non-musical Chicago was an in-context 1920s play and not really as much of an abstraction.

Anyhow, I haven't even convinced myself that this is worth doing, or how it would be organized, for instance as a list, or with descriptions for how they are flapper and how they are not or what.

I'd say that a discussion of flappers in popular culture and the changing flapper archetype would be a very nice addition. I'd caution against a list format; articles read much better when ideas are organized into paragraphs. Good luck with it if you decide to pursue such an additon. —Amcaja 18:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Eh, I haven't found many scholarly papers comparing the accuracy and flapperdom of speakeasy girls in the movies, so I couldn't do it without original research, and wikipedia is not the place for original research. Lotusduck 17:08, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Alternate meaning

Should the alternate meaning section be below External Links? Aren't External Links traditionally the last section in an entry? --Ben moss 00:50, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

You're right; alternate meanings should be at the top as part of a disambiguation statement. — Amcaja 01:06, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

International phenomenon

The article as it is makes Flappers sound particularly American and English. This is not so. They had a presence in the rest of Europe as well, or at the very least in France and most likely elsewhere. I have French magazine caricatures and fashion images… The idea that American prohibition was that large an influence has to be taken with a pinch of salt. I’d have to say that the ending of the First World War would have had a much greater bearing, obviously (this is supported by most writing on the subject), as well as the exporting of American culture (such as Jazz) by record sales, American servicemen, and cultural exchange through the popular films at the time. In fact the start of the "origins of the flapper" section would seem to have been writen by someone who knows primarly about them through watching gangster films about the 1920's. I will make an edit along these lines, change it back if you find it unacceptable.OzoneO 12:37, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Coco Chanel

A "once over" read revealed no evidence of Coco! Chanel visualized the entire look of flapper dress, how can she ge absent from the article?--Tednor 22:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

There's no reference to flappers on the Coco Chanel page either, maybe you should start there. Lotusduck 19:27, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Another name origin

I have a Hulton Getty Picture Archive book called "Decades of Fashion" (Harriet Worsley, 2000) and on page 74, a section on World War I, there is a photo of a young girl wearing a large hairbow and the following caption: "... A young worker mends army uniforms in America. Her sailor suit-style dress is typical of childrenswear of the time... The bows which girls wore in their hair became known as "flappers" because of the way they fell onto the head. The name would stick with this generation, as they grew up in the Twenties."

Mystery solved. 71.127.4.58 01:53, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

British Term

I dont see why the British origin should be left out. Flappers were not ONLY an American phenomana and they were very close in attitude and style to other countries fads of the time (the garconne look of France, the Modern Girl of Japan, etc). The British Flapper would have been in step with the American flapper, and their term had similar meaning to the later American term. Why remove it? Its noteworthy; but I dont think it belongs in a seperate article. Does anyone have any research either which way on this matter? --Maggiedane (talk) 10:18, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Origins

As the term quite clearly has separate origins depending on which side of the pond you happen to be one than it needs to be covered as one Origins section. Entomology should probably be a separate section as it is supposed to discuss the origins of the word itself and not the origin of its usage persay.Jasynnash2 (talk) 10:24, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't the "Needs in text citations" template go at the top?

I believe that the title says it all. In every other article I have seen and read, (Which I dare say is quite a large amount. I have to clean out my browser history every other day!) the {{Refimprove|date=Any date}} goes at the top. I feel that it should be the same for this article. Rengaw01 (talk) 23:12, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Tags at the top are useful for other editors, but not so for the general public who comes to Wikipedia to get some information - the people we're supposed to be serving. For them, the tags don't provide any pertinent information and are intrusive and disfifuring. The current recommendation is that tags concerning referencing can go at the bottom of an article, where they are near to the references section. Ed Fitzgerald ^{t / c} 23:56, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I suppose that makes sense. However, then shouldn't almost all other articles have the same placement? For example, the article List of cars manufactured in Brazil has the {{refimprove|date=Any date}} at the top. If you have a look at the first five articles from ( 10-Yard Fight, 1905 in aviation, 1980 Turkish coup d'état, and 1st Mountain Division (Germany) ) all have the {{Refimprove|date=Any date}} at the top (With the exception of 1906 in music which has a {{Refimprove|section|date=Any date}} at the top of the section.) Rengaw01 (talk) 14:21, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think having the tag near the bottom would be preferable. Ed Fitzgerald ^{t / c} 17:46, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I do agree with you that the article does look nicer with any tags at the bottom. However, when I first read this article I would not have seen that template if my mouse had not slipped during scrolling causing me to go to the bottom of the page. Furthermore, I have yet to see that particular recommendation in all the policies and essays I come across. (If you could provide a link to that I would be grateful.) Also, while the "readers" may not want to see it, It is also important to remember that quite a few "readers" are also editors and may not see said tag at the bottom. (Similar to me.) Therefore, maybe we should either A.Go on a massive editing spree to put all the {{Refimprove|date=Any date}} at the bottom or B.Inform more people about the "recommendation" you mentioned. Rengaw01 (talk) 23:34, 13 September 2008 (UTC) P.S.Sorry about the errors in my posts recently. I have not had much time to devote to editing lately.

Really, the best solution to this dilemma would be to have an icon at the top of the page which would indicate to editors that there were cleanup tags associated with the article, and clicking on the icon would bring you to either the discussion page, where the tags would be placed (out of the way of the reader) or to a new tab specifically for tags. This would solve both problems, I think, providing visibility for the editor and not getting in the way of the reader. As of now, the "tags" subsection, which shows up in the ToC, provides some visibility for the casual editor. Ed Fitzgerald ^{t / c} 00:37, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Revival?

I was at Goodbye Blue Monday, a club in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Saturday evening, November 15, 2008, and I saw a number of women dressed in flapper outfits. There wasn't a 1920s theme going on, so I'm wondering if this is just a one-time one-place fluke or a revival of the style. --Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 21:42, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

the slang does seem to be coming back —Preceding unsigned comment added by Finchtrainer (talk • contribs) 22:35, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I have seen similar fashions in current (early 2012) magazines because the new Great Gatsby film is coming out soon, so maybe.....and yeah I do say "bee's knees" but that's about it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.211.132.57 (talk) 09:22, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

More than fashion

I think this article could use some more information about the flappers' relationship with all kinds of other social issues -- religion, politics, work life -- to balance out all the loving detail in here already about makeup and fashion trends. I've started adding some, but would welcome anyone else who'd like to pitch in. — e. ripley\^talk 18:07, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree, unfortunately I really don't have much along those lines in my library. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:08, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't either, sad to say. I got frustrated and went poking around in Google Books. There are a few that are fairly generous with their previews, which is most of how I managed to add what little I did. It could still use some work in those areas though. — e. ripley\^talk 12:35, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes flappers were more important than fashion, but I disagree that the fashion aspect of flapperdom was unimportant. Flapper fashions weren’t just about changing your skirt length or hair but also consciously or unconsciously identifying yourself with a new social type. I don’t fully understand the forces which allowed the emergence of the flapper model of femininity but she was clearly recognized as something new, and I’d suppose that for this ideal to spread rapidly and become something young women aspired to be, an identifiable ‘look’ would be a terrific help. It would be a way of signalling to others what your allegiances were: an outward sign of inward views. It would also give women support in making this change to see others were doing it too. There’s strength in numbers.

You may think I’m giving undue weight to frocks and hairdressing, but in other countries the link between look and social views was very obvious. In 1905 a Russian noblewoman escaped injury during a Communist riot because she had short hair and so was mistaken for a ‘student girl’ i.e. Red sympathizer. Conversely during an anti-Communist revolt in Canton in 1928 “Many women with bobbed hair were shot. The young Communists all bob their hair; and in many cases that was accepted as prima facie evidence of guilt.” (Both in reports from ‘The Times’).RLamb (talk) 10:53, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I echo the disappointment with the over-emphasis on fashion in this article. Maybe if I have some time and can get some sources I can help out here. AaronY (talk) 12:52, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Etymology: slapper/flapper

Re the suggestion of a link between 'slapper' (Br. slang for a promiscuous woman or prostitute) and 'flapper' - it's tempting, but apparently there's no connection. Amazingly OED doesn’t quote anything earlier than 1988 for ‘slapper’ in the sense of ‘promiscuous woman’. Earliest recorded occurrence of the word at all(1781) is in northern dialect and meaning simply any large thing or object, a usage similar to modern ‘whopper’. Then by 1825 still “any large object; as a big salmon” Finally by 1854 it appears to have been applied mostly to big girls or women, and presumably it thereafter went from appreciative to derogatory.

I feel sure that OED could improve on that 1988 reference though: I’m sure the ‘promiscuous woman’ sense was around earlier. But not early enough to influence 'flapper'. RLamb (talk) 06:07, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Images

An editor changed two of the images in the article, but I did not think it was an improvement, so I've reverted the edit and asked the editor to discuss it here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:39, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Having Louise Brooks to head this article is misleading. Our readers will draw the false conclusion Brooks, set the standards, or was the most significant flapper of 1920s. She wasn't. Olive Thomas was first in 1920. Colleen Moore then did Flaming Youth in 1923 and The Perfect Flapper in 1924 before Clara Bow entered the stage and "killed" Moore's flapper career. Bow's sweet and saucy flapper incarnation brought her ultimate stardom, as she defacto "owned" media 1926-1931. She is widely seen as the premier flapper as well as the portal icon of the entire 1920s. Bow is the only logical maternal saint of this article. She was short and curvy, and not exactly what fashion gurus of the twenties wanted, so in a strict fashion sense, a Brooks pic might be adequate for the fashion sub-paragraph. Flappers is primarily about woman's lib. Work and income. Right to vote. Fashion is a side track. Freedom to be Pippi Longstocking (Bow!) and war against unfair gender formulas. These political aspects of 1920 might feel less funny to ponder, than a stylish shot on gorgeous Brooks. But her in wiki we don't really have to concern us with that. Stick to the sources, as contemporary as possible and we'll be find.

"During the course of an interview with the film director George Cukor, the interviewer mentioned Louise Brooks. Cukor responded: "Louise Brooks? What’s all this talk about Louise Brooks? She was nobody. She was a nothing in films. What’s all this fuss about her?""

Finally, Brooks herself, frank like Bow, found out that Kevin Brownlow, in his book "The parade's gone by" (1968), had covered her career, any many others without even mentioning Bow's name. From her letter to Brownlow; "You brush off Clara Bow, for some old nothing like Brooks...you writing about some old fucks and not even mentioning Clara Bow's name...Clara made three pictures which will never be surpassed: Dancing Mothers, Mantrap and It. Lastly, the old "nothing" had a conversion with Bow back in 1928, and found out that Clara "knew everything about me". How about that for a punchline? best reg. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Flapper&action=submit# —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stovelsten (talk • contribs) 04:38, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

This is not about who was a bigger star, Brooks or Bow, that's really quite irrelvant here. The question is, which images give our readers the best idea of what a flapper looked like? The picture of Clara Bow you presented is not flapper-ish in any respect, it's a sexy-star shot, more reminiscent of Harlow than anyone else. As such, it's a very bad choice to lead off the article. Similarly, the image of Olive Thomas looks as if she's dressed as a gypsy -- again, not a good visual example to our readers about what a flapper looked like. On the other hand, the images you removed, of Brooks and Alice Joyce, do represent the flapper look quite well.

I can see that you are a big Clara Bow fan, but you shouldn't let your appreciation for her overwhelm your sense of what images work best for the subject of an article. If you could find a free picture of Bow dressed in flapper style, that would be a good addition to the article, and we can then, collectively decide about its placement in the article. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:48, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, I have one or two antibodies on Clara's behalf, sorry about that. But flapperdom, to it's core, have less to do with fashion. There are certain fashion trends who belong to the 1920s, but there is no "typical flapper look". It's a later misconception. Alice Joyce or Norma Talmadge wears typical 1920 dresses, but have nothing to do with flappers. Hook up too some historical newspaper database and see for yourself. After-all, we are not doing any research, nice hard facts straight from contemporary newspapers will bulldoze any myth. In conclusion; The top pic should be on Bow, the standard pic I inserted is adequate, but now when I think of it, there is a even better promotional pic from Dancing Mothers(1926), were she has bobbed hair and smokes and I think she is even drunk. Perfect. I upload it as soon as possible for you to review. Stovelsten 07:00, 2 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added Stovelsten (talk • contribs)

That sounds like it could be very good for the article. I look forward to seeing it. Why don't you post it here once you've uploaded it? Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:04, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

A Bobbed, drunk, smoking and sexual aggressive Bow

Clara Bow exercising her flapper freedoms, targeting a reluctant, (off screen) Conway Tearl in significant Dancing Mother's (1926). I agree that the "gipsy"-pic I inserted to cover for Olive Thomas flapper contribution was a bad choice, I fell for her punk, "none tell me my business", flapperish stare, some pic from The Flapper(1920), should be more appropriate. Incidentally Alice Joyce plays Bow's mother in Dancing Mother's, and belong to the non-flapper generation, as do Mabel Normand. Instead Colleen Moore playing baseball in Painted People(1924) or Joan Crawford dancing about, reviling bare legs to the knees, would be on target. Stovelsten 00:43, 3 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stovelsten (talk • contribs)

It's a good picture, and would make a good addition to the article, perhaps juxtaposed with the one of a more demur Brooks, kinda of the two sides of flapperdom; but, there's a problem with the image: it dates from 1925, and your source is from Life magazine in 1965, both of which mean that it is still under copyright. Only stuff published in the US before 1923 is in the public domain, and sourcing it from a 1965 magazine complicates things as well. We could add it to the article, but sooner or later it's going to be deleted from Commons, because it doesn't fit their requirements.

You wouldn't happen to have access to a similar picture of Bow sate from 1923 or before, would you, or an image that's been released into the PD? Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:52, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

If a copyright issue concerning this pic arises, I will provide a new source for it. Let me worry about that. What I want from you now, is to rest on your guns and let me

1) Move down Miss Brooks to the "appearance" paragraph, instead of Miss Normand. 2) Insert the quintessential flapper Clara Bow to head the article. 3) Replace old lady Joyce with "whimsical" flapper Colleen Moore or dancing flapper Joan Crawford. 4) Delete Louise Brooks from 1920-group of actresses who achieved great popularity (in the 1920s). The fashion aspect of flapperdom is as significant as meet-dresses are to Lady Gaga's songwriting. It's interesting but hardly the main course. Done? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stovelsten (talk • contribs) 05:03, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I cannot allow an image uploaded under false pretenses to be used in the article, it's against Wikipedia policy. Find a free picture that does the same thing, and we can talk. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:19, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

"we have guidelines, and the spirit of Wikipedia lies in treating them as such, as guidance and not as dogma". In Commons repository, there are as many questionable files as there is hair on my scull. Same goes for You Tube and most every human resort on the net. And you with your "thoughts" carried on your head like a crown. Humbug my boy. Humbug. Even if I load my video editor with "dancing mothers" and grab the shot straight out of Bow's public domain ass, you will probably claim it stink. I flatter myself of being totally anal when it comes to sources and verifications. That's my crown. But you rejected it. Further discussion with you leads nowhere. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stovelsten (talk • contribs) 06:20, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Aw, shucks, does this mean we're no longer engaged?

Get a legit picture, stop lying on your Commons uploads -- almost everyone of which is ineligible to be there, get the Clara Bow monkey off your back, start signing your comments, and maybe you'll be taken seriously.

And by the by, image policy is not a guideline, it's policy - see WP:NFCC Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:24, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Origins of the image

Polaire in 1899

Before you both start glassing each other, can the article acknowledge that the 'typical flapper look' originated in Paris, not London or Hollywood? I don't just mean the clothes. As you can see, French entertainer Polaire had nailed the short hair/heavy eyes/lipstick mouth look by 1899 no less. She was in London and New York in 1910, toured the US in 1913, appeared in films before 1920 and was an established star when Irene Castle went to Paris and came back with her astonishingly innovative 'Castle bob'. Polaire was not a flapper (too old) but she and possibly other Parisiennes seem to have come up with the original look which Hollywood adopted, annointed and then sent round the world.

And why the text won't flow round this image, I do not know. RLamb (talk) 12:30, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

"Glassing" - I'm not familiar with this term, although I certainly get your drift.

Do you have a source for the Paris info? I have to say, the photo doesn't look "flapperish" at all, with the possible exception of the hair. The hat and the dress look more folk-ethnic. In any case, a source is going to be essential to establish your contention. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:46, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I moved the image up, text should flow around it now.

Glassing. OED, Draft addition 2007: " glass, v. * trans. slang (orig. and chiefly Brit.). To strike (a person) with a (broken) glass or bottle, esp. in the face."

You just moved it up?? And that worked? Well, obviously.

Polaire's mad hat is some sort of stage costume, ignore it. But compare her essential look ("She wears her hair parted in the middle, and brought down over her forehead and covering her ears. The eyes are blackened so much they seem to creep under her hair at the sides.”- NYT, Dec 5 1909) with Bow's above. Polaire was not a flapper, but she's solid evidence that the huge-eyed, cropped-hair look was already chic in smart Parisian circles even before 1900. Short hair for women didn't arrive with the 20s - it just went global then. There isn't one source for the sudden popularity of the flapper look though. It's a confluence: pre-war fashions in Paris, feminist ideas, women needing to dress more freely for war work, girls having their own earnings to spend, then the power of Hollywood suddenly putting a new look and a new model of behaviour on screen, everywhere.

There's a picture of Polaire at [[1]] which is hard to believe is 1910. Sources for the mainly French origin of the flapper look are mostly in Wikipedia itself, but scattered all over, e.g. the article on Chanel, on Polaire and on the Bob Cut. But I suppose I could pull them all together. RLamb (talk) 23:31, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

That's what I was going to suggest - you seem quite knowledgeable on the subject, pull together information from various places, put it in context with references, and add it to the "Evolution of the image" section - it sounds like it would be very worthwhile. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:58, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Another suggestion

Gents. "Evolution of image". I like the sound of that. I took the liberty to compose a small gallery for you to review. I found the stuff in the garage bin and I relay feel smart about it. Let's make this fruitful trio our new flapper header. Whatusay? Stovelsten 04:11, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Actress Billie Dove, the tomboy flapper wearing a true helmet bob.

Clara Bow in newly discovered "Dancing Grandmothers"(1899)

...and The flapping flapper (courtesy LIFE)

Please sign your comments with 4 tildes (~). This will automatically add your name. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:37, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I've added some images to the article, including the Flapper magazine cover, a young picture of Clara Bow (which you uploaded), in which she looks more naturally flapperish, and some other images from the Commons "flapper" category. The Life cover is too staged to be of interest to this subject, and your later Clara Bow image has not been shown to be freely available. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:14, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

The images are a great improvement and the magazine cover is particularly good. I didn't even know there had been a dedicated Flapper magazine. I also love the shot from the family album. If you rely too much on images from films/stage/fashion shows you get a false idea of what the woman on the street was actually looking like. Not that the girl aboard the ship is exactly a woman in the street, but still.

I have been slogging through stuff on Polaire and ended by agreeing with her own assessment in her (slightly unreliable) memoirs, that though she was a forerunner of many modern fashions she did not influence them directly: “Still, when I look at current fashions I feel I was the forerunner, at least, of a great many of them: short hair, slanting eyebrows, casual hats, simple undergarments, short skirts at a time when fashion dictated lashings of complicated frills - nevermind talk of the layers of heavy lingerie, the bandeaux and the thickly-coiled hair! The only thing was, in those days women did not dare to slavishly copy ‘actresses’ so I could keep my own personal style fresh for a good while.” (Memoirs, 1933)

In other words, the ‘flapper look’ did not come about because women were directly copying Polaire. It took time, and an intermediary like Coco Chanel, who could absorb her style and blend it with other influences on fashion – contemporary ideas about freeing women’s bodies, the increasing upper-class obsession with active sports, the practicalities of fabrics available in wartime – to produce something startlingly new that appealed to the world. I can't believe Polaire wasn't a big influence on Chanel; Chanel after all started out wanting to be a music-hall singer, not a designer, so she can't have avoided knowing how the big names looked. Unfortunately I need to find an authority to back that belief up. RLamb (talk) 12:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Are there pictures of early Chanel designs which show the beginnings of the flapper look? That would be interesting. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:23, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Why Clara Bow should head this page

First the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald. From Motion Picture Magazine July, 1927; "Clara Bow is the quintessence of what the term 'flapper' signifies as a definitive description: pretty, impudent, superbly assured, as worldly wise, briefly-clad and 'hard-berled' as possible. There were hundreds of them, her prototypes. Now, completing the circle, there are thousands more, patterning themselves after her".

The media presence of a star defines his popularity. To underline, what Fitzgerald said, I ran some simple statistics on "newspaperarchive.com" today, covering the flapper-craze climax, January 1th, 1925, to December 31th 1930:

• Louise Brooks 2.638 hits
• Clara Bow 21.209 hits
• Greta Garbo 13.943 hits (non-flapper, only for ref) Incidentally her entire career through out the 1930s couldn't match Bow's.
• Joan Crawford 6.074 hits
• Mary Pickford 9.786 hits (non-flapper, only for ref)
• Billie Dove 6.729 hits
• Norma Shearer 10.791 hits
• Colleen Moore 12.064 hits (In mid 1924; to LAT; "no more flappers..I am tired of soda-pop love affairs" -kept her bobbed thou, my com)
• Norma Talmadge 4.929 hits (non-flapper)
• Alice Joyce 5.381 hits (non-flapper)

From a historical point of view, Louise Brooks presence on this page is wrong. Brooks found a pseudo-stardom thirty years after the actual heydays. Good for her. By keeping her as hostess, we feed a myth rather than uprooting it, and hence, fail our encyclopedic ambitions. Talmadge and Joyce are not even flappers, only 1920s fashionable women. They got to go as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stovelsten (talk • contribs) 03:50, 5 October 2010

The images in this article are included to illustrate what a flapper looked like. All of the current images serve that purpose well which is actually the bottom line here. There's no "from a historical point of view" to cover as this article is about a flapper - not what various actresses fit into your definition a flapper. If they looked the part, that's all that matters as far as images go. Additionally, Louise Brooks is not the "hostess" of anything here. Her picture just happens to be at the top of the article. Like it or not, Brooks is closely associated with that era and with flapper image. She also played the part of a flapper in films and has been cited as a flapper in various sources (which I can cite if need be), so to claim her presence on this page is "wrong" is puzzling at best. In my opinion, this whole brouhaha seems to be more about having the article be all about Clara Bow than anything else. Clara Bow isn't the end all be all and she certainly wasn't the only actress or person to represent the look. Unless you can prove that the non-Bow images do not clearly represent what a flapper looked like, the images you don't personally like do not "got to go". Pinkadelica^♣ 08:07, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your input P. Again, Today we believe that any fashionable dressed woman of the 1920s was a flapper. If you stick to sources of today, it's easily verified. It's certainly not in line with historical events, but Wikipedia is not an academic journal, and primary sources are not generally recommended. I find that dubious. It's not a winning concept, in days to come, where not the quantity of articles, but rather the quality of them will be in focus. The "Flapper" text in itself is rather good, and using movie stars to illustrate it is OK, but since the core-issue of flapperdom is

social behavior my suggested pics on smoking, drinking, man hunting and fashionable Clara Bow is the obvious choice. Added to this, Bow's stature as the leading flapper of the era, described above and in mainstream literature as well, makes someone else to head this page illogical. The Categorization should be revised, "Social behavior", "Women liberation" is more adequate.S.81.231.109.201 (talk) 15:22, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I think you're missing the point again. It doesn't matter if the women in the picture walked the proverbial walk. The pictures are here to illustrate what a flapper looked like - nothing more. The points about the social behavior of the flapper are discussed within the article text. The reader isn't going to understand the text any less if they don't have a picture of Clara Bow smoking a cigarette. While I believe you raise some interesting points, I still don't believe the photo of Louise Brooks is inappropriate or misleading and should be removed. If the article didn't feature a photo of Clara Bow in any capacity I could see a problem, but she is clearly represented in both text and photo. I believe that to be sufficient. Pinkadelica^♣ 01:53, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

No, you are missing the point. The pictures are here to illustrate what a flapper was like - in particular. General 1920s fashion pics belongs elsewhere. The Billie Dove football-pic hits the nail, while Louise Brooks totally misrepresents the text. There are better, true flapper-attitude pics on Brooks in the repository. If cigarette-Bow is too lame, I think I can source a movie pic from 1924, showing her defeating a villain with her fists. Almost as flapperish as the fact that Governor-offices in Texas and Wyoming where held by women in the 1920s. Miriam A. Ferguson and Nellie Tayloe Ross could make an educational duo. Whatyasay? No other than Adolf could possible head the Nazi-party page. That goes for Bow too I'm afraid.81.231.109.201 (talk) 16:11, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

You're right! Clara Bow would definitely be an improvement on the Nazi party page. :-) Yworo (talk) 16:43, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

MoS guidelines on images

The previous image arrangement did not meet several points of the MoS guidelines. For instance, images are supposed to be in the section, not above the section pushing the section heading to the left. Where possible, images should not be manually sized. Left-facing images should be on the right and right-facing images on the left. I've fixed all these defects with minimal image movement, but it was reverted en masse with the inexplicable comment "not improvements". Please explain how conforming more closely to the MoS is not an improvement before reverting again. If you have a problem with a specific image placement or size, please address that on the talk page, not by reverting all my improvements. Thanks. Yworo (talk) 19:21, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Point 1: The article has been in this state (absent the recent addition of some images) for quite a long time, so it is the status quo. WP:BRD means you were Bold and changed the status quo and I Reverted. The next step is that we Discuss. You do not change the page back after I reverted, the status quo remains in effect while the discussion goes on. For that reason, I have restored the status quo. I am more than willing to discuss this with you, as long you don't edit war to restore your alterations.

Pont 2: MoS is a guideline, it is not intended to be hard-and-fast rules. They are a guide to editors in making decisions, and I took them into account, and made the decisions which improved the visual look of the article. I'm willing to discuss anything specifically with you, but a blind adherence to rules for the sake of rules, as opposed to decisions made to improve the look and flow of an article, is not going to be an argument which cuts much ice with me. After 5 years of editing and close to 70,000 edits, I have a very good idea of what works for an article and what doesn't, many times that right inline with MoS, but slavish adherence to MoS can get in the way of making an article look better and be easier to read for our users, and that must be the primary concern, not guidelines (which in any case, are meant to be descriptive and not prescriptive. 21:29, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinion. Now let's wait for other editors to chime in. I can't help but notice that haven't actually given any reasons for reverting other than that you seem to believe that you own the article. You don't. Length of time in a non-compliant state is a pretty weak argument. Please justify each and every diversion from the MoS and image use policy (which is a policy, by the way). In my opinion, my changes actually make the article look better and easier to read. That being the case, there is no reason to be idiosyncratic. Please detail how you think my changes make the article look worse or harder to read. Yworo (talk) 21:33, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Of course I don't own the article, but I've put a great deal of time and effort into getting it into good shape, and making it look good, and I am, understandbly, a bit annoyed when someone who's never edited it before comes along and says, "You can't hang that picture on the wall right there before Local law 17A Sub-section 451 says that a picture weighing more than 2.7 lbs cannot be hung more than 3.72 inches from the closest stud." MoS guidelines guide us, they do not rule our lives, they are not policy and they are not laws. We are all human editors, with the gift of thought and the ability consider what's good and what's not, without reference to arcane regulations. You can file that under WP:IAR, if you like, but "It looks better this way" is a perfectly valid argument. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:41, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

To be blunt, the way you arranged the images looked like crap. Got it? Yworo (talk) 21:42, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, to be blunt, only an [redacted] would template for edit warring after a discussion had already begun.

As I said, if you have specific problems, I'm happy to try and fix them -- tell what and where, and also what browser you're using. I check pages under Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome and IE and it looks fine to me, but if you've got something specific,tell me. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:46, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I've been specific, you hung images into sections from outside the section in two places, indenting the heading. You had unnecessary sizing on many images, breaking things for visually disabled people. Let's start with MoS and IUP compliant placement and sizing and you tell me how it disrupts the article, which is the only reason for not adhering to the guidelines. Yworo (talk) 21:48, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Yep, all that is deliberate, and it all works well - I just checked it again on all those browsers (except Opera, couldn't get that to open), and it looks good.

Remember, under BRD, you don't have the right to revert back, and compliance with MoS is not an acceptable excuse for edit warring. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:53, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

BRD is a guideline, not a policy. It also assumes that more than one regular editor is doing the reverting. Not a single editor edit warring. You're not discussing, you're simply asserting superiority. Yworo (talk) 21:55, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I see you've been wikistalking me, reverting changes I made to article, just to retaliate. This estalishes two things: you are a grade A asshhole, and this conversation is over. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:57, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't much of a conversation on your side, anyway. Oh and don't forget no personal attacks. Yworo (talk) 21:59, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Yworo, comments like this are rather dickish and do nothing to help your cause. I have reverted back until there's an established consensus about the placement of photos because, to date, you're the only one who seems to have a problem with it. You can't cite guidelines and rules and then follow only the ones you choose. Establish a solid consensus per an RfC to implement the changes you want and stop edit warring please (edit warring is actually policy, not a guideline). You know proper procedure - follow it please. This tit for tat is beyond childish and appears to be personal in nature. Following Beyond My Ken to various articles and reverting him and then "suddenly" showing up here to implement needless changes defines wikistalking. Your edit history is telling. If you have issues with Beyond My Ken, keep it out of the article space please. If you believe he has violated some kind of rule or has ownership issues, take him to AN/I and stop following him around. Again, that kind of behavior does nothing to help your cause. Pinkadelica^♣ 00:29, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I can't help but notice that you are neglecting to discuss the content. Yworo (talk) 00:35, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

P.S. that claim about wikistalking is bogus. I was referred to three specific articles by a complaint that I read. The other articles I edited have not been edited by BMK for some time, some were already on my watchlist, others I added recently because they are within my interests. As I am sure you know, Wikistalking only applies to following an editor to harass them; it does not apply to good faith attempts to improve articles. Yworo (talk) 00:38, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I can't help but notice that you completely missed the fact that I clearly stated that the changes you're attempting to implement are needless which would mean I did give my opinion (albeit briefly) about the content. From the looks of things, you're not terribly interested in various opinions anyway but there you have it. To be frank, I really don't care why you want to make changes or what brought you here. You can deny all day long but arriving on an article Beyond My Ken frequently edits and maintains after getting into a disagreement with him on another article only minutes before is coincidental to say the very least. That's an issue better left for AN/I which is where I suspect this will end up. I commented on you edit warring and not following proper dispute resolution steps which is the problem here. If someone takes issue with your edits, you're well aware that you're not suppose to keep edit warring in an attempt to shove them in. Leaving baiting edit summaries [redacted] and claiming I'm a part of some phantom "tag team" isn't collegial. If you're passionate about picture placement and the MOS guideline, open an RfC and clearly state your case. If you'd rather prove your point by being blocked for 3RR, that's ok with me as I honestly don't care enough about any article to do that myself. Pinkadelica^♣ 01:06, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Sure thing. Yworo (talk) 01:09, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Image placement

The image placement in this article did not conform to Manual of Style guidelines and Image Use Policy. I made minimal corrections to improve compliance without significantly altering size or placements. Which looks better:

• MoS compliant version (support changes)
• Idiosyncratic version (oppose changes)

Responses

• Support changes as originator. Yworo (talk) 01:14, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support. I came here from the RfC notice and do not otherwise watch the page. Looks like an improvement to me. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:54, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support. I see no huge difference between the two and support the proposed changes. Pinkadelica^♣ 04:04, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - as the editor who made the current version. The suggested changes, while strictly following MoS, do not improve the visual look of the article, nor do they improve its readability. To those who voted to support the change, may I suggest that you log out of your account, and look at the two versions of the page as they will be seen by every reader who comes to Wikipedia without an account, with no personal preferences set. It is those readers who are my concern. I'm especially concerned with the lack of overall balance in the suggested version, and the clunkiness of the visual flow. Thanks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:00, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
• Comment I logged out and looked at both versions with two different browsers (IE and Firefox) and see the same minimal differences between the two versions I do when logged in with Firefox. Pinkadelica^♣ 10:05, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

• Really? That very much surprises me, the one seems clearly better to me, for the reasons I've given. Beyond My Ken (talk) 12:45, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

• Likewise, I did the same thing (Firefox), and saw no difference depending on whether I was logged in or not. The MOS-compliant version is clearly more attractive, readable, and visually-balanced, in my opinion. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:53, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

• SupportParrotistic (talk) 11:46, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support. On my widescreen monitor they look similar at first glance, but when I squash the window to a common browser width the Manual of Style-compliant version is much more pleasing to the eye; the pictures are lined up with the text. It degrades gracefully. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 16:55, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

Archive 1

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Flapper/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Actually FLAPPER was a term Edwardians used to refer to a girl. I am doing research about Edwardians for the last three years (for a book) and have to read books from that time. I have found FLAPPER in books from Edwardian times the word FLAPPER used to describe a girl.

Last edited at 22:34, 5 February 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 14:47, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Discussion needed on contentious changes

The editor User:Jsneed8542 has been making edits to the article which, in my opinion, do not improve it. Some of these edits have removed sourced material and replaced it with unsourced (or badly sourced) material. When I have reverted these changes, Jsneed restores them, without discussion. This is, of course, not in the spirit of WP:BRD, which calls for Bold edits that are disagreed with to the Reverted, followed by Discussion, not by edit-warring to restore the bold edit.

I have formally and specifically asked Jsneed to comment on their edits here, and make arguments for how they improve the article, so that a consensus can be found. I hope to see his or her response here soon. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:23, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Well guess what im showing its not just dresses they wore other to show there rebellion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jsneed8542 (talk • contribs) 00:34, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

No offense but is English your first language? If this comment is a demonstration of your grasp of the English language, perhaps you should take more care when contributing to English language articles.24.111.54.158 (talk) 07:28, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

You responded to them eight years later. (oh the irony) Googleguy007 (talk) 02:52, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Slang

Huh. I'm trying to introduce some accuracy, and some NPOV. The majority of the expressions/words previously quoted in this section as being 'flapper slang' - in fact all except two - were coined well before the flapper era. They pre-dated the 1920s, sometimes by several decades (e.g. 'speakeasy', which to my astonishment goes back at least to 1889, in Pittsburg). 'Jake', as in 'that's so jake', is first cited in 1914 in a dictionary of US criminal slang. With the exception of 'cat's meow' and 'snuggle pup', everything this section called 'flapper slang' is sourced earlier in OED; so, though flappers may well have used these words, they didn't invent them and wouldn't be the only people to use them.

The exceptions: 'Cat's meow' is first quoted in NYTimes as being spoken by a flapper (1922);'snuggle pup' is quoted in OED as being early 1920s US slang. It always meant a pretty girl however - not a man. To me that strongly indicates it was coined by men to be used about women, not by women speaking about other women.

The only expression I can't be sure about is 'barney mugging', as that doesn't feature in OED at all, nor in NYTimes. So I've put 'citation needed' for barney-mugging.RLamb (talk) 17:46, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

You put in a positive declarative statement to the effect that those slang words were not invented by flappers, but in order to make declarative statements like that, you need a citation from a reliable source. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:42, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It also seems to me you have misunderstood what the section is saying. It's not claiming that flappers invented these words, but that they used them and popularized them. That they existed before is really not all that relevant, especially if they came from a secretive segment of the population, like criminals. Flappers were not secretive, they were well covered in the popular media, and were therefore an important vector in spreading the argot.

I also suggest that you read our policy on original research. We are not allowed to amass data and draw conclusions from it, if we want to include analysis, interpretations or conclusions, we have to find a citation from a reliable source that does that for us. This is the reason that I have, once again, removed unsourced declarative statements from your re-write, since they are, as presented, original research, and need to be properly sourced. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:20, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

'You put in a positive declarative statement to the effect that those slang words were not invented by flappers, but in order to make declarative statements like that, you need a citation from a reliable source.' Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:42, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

My source for saying these words weren’t invented by flappers is the OED, which quotes much earlier usages. The section as it was written before made a positive declarative statement - hereafter a ‘pds’ - to the effect that these words were flapper slang. It said ‘Flappers had their own slang ...’ That would certainly suggest to the reader that these expressions were in some way peculiar to flappers – that flappers alone created or used them. Which, as we know, ain’t so.

'It also seems to me you have misunderstood what the section is saying. It's not claiming that flappers invented these words, but that they used them and popularized them.'

Was that really what the section was saying? I quote:’ Flappers had their own slang, using terms like snuggle pup...’ Had. Their. Own. Slang. That phrase certainly implies these expressions were peculiar to flappers in some significant way. In fact that’s the sort of pds which would lead the trusting reader to conclude (wrongly) that either a) the girls made them up themselves, or b) only flappers used them. Both these conclusions would be wrong. As we can easily demonstrate by citing reliable sources.

'That they existed before is really not all that relevant, especially if they came from a secretive segment of the population, like criminals.'

A lot of slang, even today, starts with marginalized groups, crooks included. But the first non-criminal usage of ‘That’s Jake’ that I’ve seen in the New York Times was from a young sportsman in 1920. Do you somehow think the guy must have heard it first from a flapper? If not, it’s evidence that even criminal slang finds its way into circulation by many routes. ‘That’s Jake’ evidently didn’t need flappers to popularize it.

'Flappers were not secretive, they were well covered in the popular media, and were therefore an important vector in spreading the argot.'

That an interesting pds, and it sounds perfectly likely; but where’s your source?

'I also suggest that you read our policy on original research. We are not allowed to amass data and draw conclusions from it, if we want to include analysis, interpretations or conclusions, we have to find a citation from a reliable source that does that for us. This is the reason that I have, once again, removed unsourced declarative statements from your re-write, since they are, as presented, original research, and need to be properly sourced.' Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:20, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

What is it about OED that you find unreliable, or original to me? Or indeed copies of the New York Times, written before I was born and easily verifiable online? No, I’m taking this to whatsit, you know, that wikithing where you challenge someone to a duel. The thing you have going with JSneed. I shall see you on the field of battle, BMK.RLamb (talk) 09:23, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The OED is certainly a reliable source for the etymology of a word, but where in it do you find a statement such as "Flappers did not invent the slang they used" or its equivalent. You cannot draw conclusions without citing a reliable source. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:06, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. OED is not only reliable for etymology, but dating too. If it shows a word predates the flapper era - actually cites a usage that is decades earlier - then there is no other logical conclusion to draw but that said word does not originate with flappers. So, the only way we can call it 'flapper slang' is by coming up with a reference that demonstrates it was being used mainly by flappers, or was associated with them or that other slang-using groups at the time e.g. lower-class young men, sportsmen - tended not to use it. Otherwise it's not 'flapper slang', it's just 1920s slang that flappers, among others, used. The NYTimes article is contemporary and does quote words which it identifies as being popular with (one) flapper, possibly implying others may use them too. Trying to prove slang was unique to a single social group is very hard. The Flapper magazine whose covers illustrate the article would be a good source to check...but I have no access to it. RLamb (talk) 09:55, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

To show that flappers used particular slang words is easy - you sinply have to provide examples of their using it, but to show that flappers did not originate any slang is not quite so easy. Yes, for any particular word you can show that it was in use pre-flapper, but to make a broad statement of non-origination, you need a source that says (in effect) "Flappers adapted slang but did not originate it" and that's what you're missing. If you want to dial down that claims to specifics, that's fine, but as long as you're interested in making sweeping claims, you're going to need a source. Beyond My Ken (talk) 10:06, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Glad you think it's going to be easy to come up with examples of flappers using slang; you put some up and we'll take a look. But even if we find such examples of young women of the era who, seeing themselves or being perceived by others as 'flappers', are shown using slang...how do you prove it isn't just current slang that everyone else around them was using? And if it was, in what way was it then 'flapper slang'? And though it's true I would need a source to show that slang never, ever under any circumstances originated with flappers, I can at least name a reliable source to show that the slang already cited in the article - including that blithely quoted by the New York Times in 1922 as being 'flapper slang' - didn't. The OED shows these words were around much earlier. The only way we can then call them 'flapper slang', if we have demonstrated flappers didn't create them, is to show that flappers tended to use them more than any other group. Can we prove that? And when I say 'we' I mean you, because I already know I can't.RLamb (talk) 09:24, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

The problem here seems to be that we're using two different meanings for the expression "flapper slang". You appear to believe that to be called "flapper slang", a word must have originated with flappers. I, on the other hand, think it is sufficient for a word tohave been used and popularized by flappers. Given the vagaries of etymology, the latter is a more reliable (and interesting) usage than the former. Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:49, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

To quote from H.L. Mencken's The American Language:

Today we know that much if not most slang is argot which emerges from or is discarded from the subculture of the professional criminal on many levels and in many different specialities. The "wit of Broadway", while still the immediate source of much slang, always wax -- and still is -- closely attuned to the underworld for new and salty terms. ... Nowadays there are many otheer channels which also pipe words from criminal subculture into the speech and writing of the dominant culture -- TV, movies, newspaper columnists, jazz musicians, teen-age pseudo-hoodlums, a few novelists and short-story writers and, certainly not to be overlooked, a growing body of trained sociologists and linguists ... The contempt in which the criminal subcultures hold the dominant culture accounts for much of the element of derision mentioned above. Invention of slang words by the literati of the dominant culture appears to be meager, most of the, it seems, are borrowed from underworld sources.

It's hardly a surprise, then, that what we call "flapper slang" has roots in the underworld, especially when considering that Prohibition brought the criminal element into closer contact with fashionable society than had probably ever been the case before: the "Jazz Age" is, to a great extent, the creation of that intermixing. Trying to separate out a virginal "flapper slang" untouched by criminal speech is therefore not an endeavor likely to bear great fruit -- it's best instead to mark those terms that were used by flappers, and which they popularized. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:05, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Okay then, we need to decide exactly what we mean by 'flapper slang', and give the definition in the article for the benefit of readers. My problem - some kinds of slang are easily defined, others are not. If a word or expression is called 'American slang' then it's both usual and reasonable to assume it a) originated in America or b) is used more by Americans than other national groups. If it's called 'criminal slang' then ditto, the word either originated with criminals or was used more by them than the ::law-abiding majority. So if we say something is 'flapper slang' readers are likely to make the assumption that flappers created it/used it more than others. But I haven't yet seen any citations of any words that can be proved to have a) originated with flappers or b) been used more by them than by other social groups. This is why it frustrates me that you define 'flapper slang' as words originating elsewhere but 'popularized' by flappers. Where's our proof they popularized any particular words? Even the NYT article is slender evidence (and I cited that myself). Reason tells me it's geographically-biased - hardly likely to be accurate regarding the speech of flappers living far away from New York; and it's hardly widely-researched, as clearly the author was a middle-aged male journalist basing it on a recent conversation with a teenage daughter. I cited it because it's useful up to a point, girls who self-defined as flappers not only used slang, but particular words which they and others took to be one of the distinguishing marks of being a flapper. It's also important to remember flappers were not a purely American phenomenon, and that flappers in Britain and elsewhere would have used different slang. It might be better to rewrite along the lines of 'Flappers were associated with the use of contemporary slang' and try to back it with a citation like the NYT article. I would also keep the NYT 'cat's meow' reference, as it's both an early use of the phrase and the user is identified as a flapper. Everything else will need backing up with citations, as and when they can be found. It's a real pity no-one has access to The Flapper magazine. I'd lay money they included articles on 'flapper slang'. Actually, I've just found an article from 'The Flapper' online...not about slang though.RLamb (talk) 09:34, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I've found a new source, and will be rewriting the section soon. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:44, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Phew, that was quick. I also just had a google and found a title by Tom Dalzell, who seems very reputable - is he your source? He would be a lot more reliable than some online sites I've seen. I even toyed with the idea of buying his book but I am too cheap.(Eight dollars? EIGHT DOLLARS???)RLamb (talk) 09:57, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Yep, that's it, and, like you, I thought about buying it, but I think there's enough available on Google Books to source a better section. Probably won't get to it until Sunday, though. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:31, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Irrelevance of 'Backfisch'

It is possible that some people compared German backfisch with flappers. However, the hallmark of a the German backfisch is immaturity, and the age group is younger (about 1415-17). A German backfisch was supposed to be well behaved and demure, though sometimes giggly: she was certainly not expected to be wild, woolly, independent or rebellious. This needs to be made clear, or these misleading references should be removed from the article. Norvo (talk) 01:02, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree, and I've removed that section from the article. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:10, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The stuff you took out was contemporary evidence countering the suggestion that flappers evolved from backfisch. Now the backfisch suggestion is left unchallenged, which makes it read as if there may be something in it after all. This is the opposite of Norvo's comment. RLamb (talk) 20:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

So, fix it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I moved it from Etymology to Behavior. "Backfisch" didn't have any influence on the etymology of the word flapper when I think about it. I don't agree with the suggestion about "backfisch" but I wouldn't remove it because I'm impressed by the source. Graves wasn't an academic but he was a good novelist and shrewd observer, and he'd lived through the flapper period.RLamb (talk) 22:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

It's certainly much clearer now. Thanks! Norvo (talk) 23:24, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion

Something in the article on the social and geographical spread of flapper behavior and apparel would be useful. From photos (and general comments) one gets the impression that flappers came mainly, perhaps almost exclusively, from rich families or from the professional strata, with perhaps a few followers just a little lower down the social scale. Were flappers predominantly middle-class? If yes, were they imitated lower down the social scale – and how far down? – or were they a rather isolated group? Some aspects of the independence mentioned, such as car ownership, would have surely been way beyond the means of most single women in the 1920s (despite Henry Ford).

Some comments on geographical spread are also needed, too. For example, aspects of the behavior mentioned suggest – to me, anyway – a phenomenon of the big cities. For example, I find it hard to envisage 'petting parties' in small towns, whether in New England, the Mid West or the South, or in industrial areas, but of course I could be mistaken. Norvo (talk) 03:20, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree more solid information on flappers as a social phenomenon would improve the article. My problem is, I haven't done all the background reading required to edit usefully in the areas you suggest.

I just don't know whether American flappers were more middle-class than not. From the newspaper references I've seen while exploring the etymology, in pre-WWI England there seem to have been two stereotypes converging to create the idea of a "flapper", and they came from both ends of the social spectrum. There was the upper-middle-class flapper, portrayed in fiction and on stage as a cute-but-naughty teenage girl whose outrageous behaviour was indulged because she was so spirited, flirty and fun. Then there were young working-class girls who might be sexually available. One of the early usages of "flapper" in England clearly just means "teenage female office worker".

It's only by 1920 that our usual idea of the flapper crystallizes, when some professor castigates the "scantily-clad" good-time girl who thinks of nothing but jazz-dancing, fast cars and men. Since she has so much leisure time, I'd guess she's middle-class.RLamb (talk) 15:22, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. At the moment, the lack of any information about social and geographical distribution is a gap.

I wonder, incidentally, whether notions of young working-class girls who might be sexually available aren't essentially a long-standing Victorian and Edwardian stereotype and/or fantasy. The prospects for a single woman, whether middle-class or working-class, who became pregnant were generally grim (committal to mental hospital) unless the man married her.

Office workers would presumably have been regarded as lower middle class and, if living away from home, would have had enjoyed considerable independence (albeit on a very modest income) but there are real limits to the extent to which social phenomena can be illuminated via etymology. :) Norvo (talk) 22:28, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

I think that the UK flapper experience was distinctly different from the US one. The US came out of WWI relatively unscathed, and the years afterwards ("the Jazz Age") were prosperous, with enough wealth spread around to the middle class to support the protypical flapper behavior: sexually uninhibited, promiscuous, hard-drinking, etc. The UK, on the other hand, lost a tremendous number of men in WWI (the "Lost Generation"), and while its economy picked up in the post-war years, it wasn't nearly as well-off as the US. It may be (I'm speculating here) that the British word "flapper" was applied to the new American phenomenon, and then that mode of behavior was picked up in the UK via American movies. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:43, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Notes and references mixed

I find the mixing of notes and references confusing. What about a ‘Notes’ (or something to that effect) section, consisting of a call to Template:Notelist, with all the explanatory footnotes formatted with Template:Efn, these referring to references either with the ref tags or the Template:Sfn and similar ones?

— Lgfcd (talk) 02:14, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

I generally don't mind the mixing of types of notes, but if it bothers you, and you're going to separate them, I'd suggest calling them "Citations" and "Explanatory notes". Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:24, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Reversion of "ENGVAR changes"

Beyond My Ken,

How are you going? I've noticed that you've reverted a few edits which I'd made to the article on the grounds that they were "ENGVAR changes". Good on you for reverting such things when you find them. We don't want ENGVAR changes. May I, however, plea "not guilty"?

In my edit summary I claimed that the changes we're "consistency of dates, fixed punctuation & removed irrelevant/repeated links". If you have the chance, I hope you'd have a closer look at the edits I made and see whether my description is true. Let me be bold enough to suggest that I think you might find that it was.

I got rid of four links. Is it necessary to have "United States" linked three times? Surely once is enough (if not more than enough). I deleted two of these. Also "cigarette" and "boy" were linked. Do we need these? Getting rid of redundant and irrelevant links is not an ENGVAR change.

I made the inverted commas all double and straight. Some of the inverted commas in the article were single. I made them double. Some of them were the curly style. I made them straight. These were not ENGVAR changes but MOS:QUOTEMARKS ones.

I edited dates to conform to a single standard format. There had been a mix of day-month-year, month-day-year and year-month-day dates sometimes with the day of the week added, sometimes with the month abbreviated. I got rid of the days of the week, spelt out the months and put everything into day-month-year format. Again these were not intended to be ENGVAR changes but MOS:DATEUNIFY ones.

Perhaps the objection was with my choice of day-month-year format. I'd have been happy enough with month-day-year but one or other ought to have been settled on and neither of them seemed to predominate. The year-month-day format was not much used. Without any good reason not to I just chose day-month-year over month-day-year.

Of course, what I should have done was to dig into the history and see which was first. Had I done so, I would probably have found this. It appears that the first date to appear in the article was in day-month-year format. It could be argued that returning the article to this format is justified but if you can come up with a better reason to go for month-day-year, go ahead. Let's just chose one and stick with it.

Jimp 09:24, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

ENGVAR is set by initial edits only when the topic isn't clearly predominantly about one place or another. As much as the folks in the UK may want to claim the flapper phenomenon as their own, it's clearly primarily a US thing, promulgated by US-based cultural vectors (jazz music, Hollywood movies, F. Scott Fitzgerald, etc.) so the choice of dates should be MDY. All quotes should be straight, not slanted (agreed), all quote marks should be double (US style) with embedded quotes single (US style). Reducing overlinking was fine, but I had no interest in combing through your edits looking for the good parts. Perhaps next time you might want to separate them out by type? BMK, Grouchy Realist (talk) 09:42, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough, mdy it is. I've also gone through & fixed the punctuation & overlinking again too. Jimp

Well done. The only overlink edit I'd quibble about is "brooch", a word I think a certain proportion of the readership may not be familiar with. BMK, Grouchy Realist (talk) 09:07, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

"Western"

An editor is removing the word "Western" from this article with the claim that flappers did not have to be Western. However, the entire articles deals only with flappers in the West, and essentially serves as multiple sources for flappers being a Western phenopmenon. If the editor feels that there were also flapper in the non-Western world, I believe he or she will need to provide a citation from a reliable source which goes to show that flappers were also a phenomenon in the non-Western world as well. Until them, with the rest of the article showing flappers as being a Western phenomenon (and, in fact, primarily in the US and the UK), the wrod should remain in the article. BMK (talk) 01:30, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

I think the usage of the word "Western" is justified and needed. Flappers were a Western phenomenon - starting in the US and spreading from there, as you already know. It doesn't make sense to remove it. Arotaes (talk) 16:02, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

POV

The POV of the article seems to be that a bourgeois white woman is the definition of a woman. "No longer would a woman have to be a homemaker" - This is nonsense on several levels, but exemplifies a classist racist and elitist tone throughout the article. I think we need to re-word most of this in a more objective, factual and neutral way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.45.113.248 (talk) 20:22, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

And what, exactly, would you suggest, considering that flappers were overwhelmingly a white middle-class American and (to a lesser extent) British phenomenon? Do you have a source to back up your contention? Something which says that the flapper phenomenon perrmeated working- and lower-class families and women of color. If you have such a source, then by all means let's look at it to determine if the theories of the author are accepted by mainstream historians or not. Wothout such a source, there's not much that can be done. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:16, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, the definition is backed up by tons of historical evidence. The flapper culture was regulated primarily to the Western white upper/middle classes. Arotaes (talk) 16:04, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Heavy editing needed to be done to "Gibson Girl" section

The section is largely trivial and contains opinionated information that needs to be reviewed. As well, it's horrendously formatted - without any semblance of flow or structure. In essence, the section looks like it was written by a middle schooler. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arotaes (talk • contribs) 15:58, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Flapper term

The term is an American/North American term. My History teacher in Canada years and years ago told us that it came from the shoes/boots the girls wore. She said they wore a type of galoshes or boots and they didn't fasten the top, so when they walked the tops flapped and made a bunch of noise. It was a way of not conforming to the norms of the times. They were the first rebellious teenagers as a group, not the 1950's as what books on culture state.

In all social phenomenons, there is usually a starter group, and then it spreads out the mainstream to a larger group of people, and many times the starter groups involvement is negated or is lost in the documentation and history. I think thats what happened here. This social trend was most likely started by lower to middle class girls and then spread to a mainstream population. A blog write up about the boots Flappers, Galoshes, and Zippers in the 1920s https://witness2fashion.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/flappers-galoshes-and-zippers-in-the-1920s/Starbwoy (talk) 21:07, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, but neither your history teacher nor the blog is a reliable source. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:14, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Okay Sargent/ Officer, I'm just illustrating that its a widespread ideaStarbwoy (talk) 21:33, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Adding to the "Hair and accessories" or "Cosmetics" section(s)

For my history class we were assigned to add information to a Wikipedia article. I've chosen this page because I believe there is more information that could be added. I will be basing my information from sources similar to the ones that I've referenced below. My overall goal will be attempt to improve the section a bit more. If anybody has any suggestion on reputable sources please let me know! Thanks. Histedit110m (talk) 23:26, 24 May 2017 (UTC)Histedit110m

References

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Image layout

See previous discussion. Bright☀ 12:14, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

End of the flapper era

BmK - the text I removed is duplication of text in the section and already had {{cn}} tags.

"The flapper lifestyle and look disappeared in America after the Wall Street Crash and the following Great Depression" which is then duplicated in the next paragraph with: "It wasn't until the Wall Street stock market crash of 1929 that the roaring '20s era of glitz and glamour came to an end, and with it, the flapper dress"

Secondly, you say "markw ith CN if needed" - if you look at the original you'll see that the removed text already had {{cn}} tags from both October 2018 and November 2018 - almost 12 months old.

What's your justification for insisting on pointless duplicated text and reinserting material already marked with long term {{cn}} tags? Why was it "better before"? Chaheel Riens (talk) 16:27, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

I have made adjustments to reduce the duplication. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:18, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Flappable

I have long heard the word flapper came from the word flappable. Is this true? 69.5.103.209 (talk) 07:11, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Judith Mackrell

Started on her book "Flappers" today, having read a mostly negative book- review online (in german). But her book is very very good.--Ralfdetlef (talk) 10:11, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

"The only man" and "the only girl"

@Wolfdog: I think the quote is saying that the parties were notably different from parties typical in the previous generations in that the participants were promiscuous and not looking for committed relationships with a regard to eventual marriage. Don't quite know how to put that in a succinct, encyclopedic way though (it's also kind of already implied in "where the activity was the main attraction"). Nardog (talk) 22:47, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

I would assume something like this too but can't be sure. Shall we wait for a more expert opinion? Wolfdog (talk) 22:52, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

As far as the source is concerned I don't think there's any other way it could be interpreted. At any rate, "in youthful imagination" makes no sense and does not appear in the source, so it should be removed or rephrased. Nardog (talk) 23:04, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Alright. So should we turn In youthful imagination, it gave the lie to the old clichés of "the only man" and "the only girl" into something like At these parties, promiscuity became more commonplace, breaking from the traditions of monogamy or courtship with their expectations of eventual marriage.? Wolfdog (talk) 15:00, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

 Done Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:17, 17 June 2020 (UTC)