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Youth (Living the Twenties #AtoZChallenge 2020)

The 1920s were the time of the Youth. In a very solid, practical way. 

It was the first time in history where a social group emerged that was identified by age and presented homogeneous characteristics. 

Youth became a social group distinct from all others, with their own value, their own rules and their own aspiration.

The birth of Youth

Up to before WWI, a person often passed from being a kid, to be an adult. That was a passage that could occur quite early in life, the lower the social class, the earlier it would happen, since children’s labour was vital in the economy of a family. 

But already in the course of the 1800s, among the middle class in particular, things started to change. This was a very moveable class, whose members knew that by their activity, their entrepreneurship, their intuition and hard work, an upward movement was possible. The idea that education was the single most important weapon in this battle became widespread over the century. 

At the beginning of the 1900s, college attendance started to rise. Colleges were still very exclusive and expensive, but the middle class was becoming steadily more affluent, and as this happened, families preferred to invest in the education of their children rather than introduce them straightaway to a job. 

After WWI, the number of enrollments in colleges throughout the Western World rose considerably. 

When young people left for the college, they entered a particular state where they were not children anymore because they were expected to work for their own advancement, but they were not adults yet because they were still not required to shoulder the responsibilities of adulthood. 

They spent most of their time away from family, with an obvious lessening of the control that families had on their life. These students that lived on campus had the most freedom people their age had ever had before. 

Youth’s culture strengthens

The Youth’s culture first emerged in the US and then spread all over the Western World and beyond, reaching even Japan, where a Western-inspired youth culture became very prominent in the 1920s. 

There were two environments in particular where this culture found fertile soil to bloom:

The college
College Style 1920s

The college was the place where the youth culture first emerged and where it found its true aspiration. 

In colleges, students went about their life with very little monitoring from family and elders in general, and so they were free to create their won society. 

The ‘collegiate style’ became a look that all young people tried to imitate, not only college students because that was how modern young people were supposed to look like. Collegiate attitudes also broke out of the colleges and became the attitude of young people in general. It involved a more modern idea of the relationship between men and women; the acceptance of new social situations, like women working outside the house and seeking their own careers; a rebellious attitude towards tradition and the traditional values of the elders; also a certain disillusionment about the future, which pushed young people to seek fun and gratification while they could. 

Flappers and college

Inside the colleges, fraternities and sororities became a steady point of guidance for young people. They were a bridge between family and adult life since they often act as a family to the members, who would find acceptance and guidance in the group. But it was a peer group, where everyone – at least in theory – had the same power and influence. 

Speakeasies

When Prohibition went into effect, it didn’t magically erase any opportunity to drink alcohol. Bars simply went underground, which made them appealing to a larger population than that who had been frequenting the saloons. These new bars, the speakeasies, were accessible to a lot of people that would have never gone to a saloon, in particular women. 

In these places that were to some extent shady, a rebellious form of life flourished, and it was in this environment that a freer form of sexual expression manifested, especially on the part of women. Daring dancing, dating, petting, all of this was part of the regular life of the speakeasy, though young people follow this line of conduct even outside of it.

But it was in the speakeasy, with its bootleg alcohol, its devil jazz music, the promiscuity of the patronage, that the rebellious aspirations of youth found its more visible expression. 

In the 1920s for the first time youth became a social group distinct from all others, with their own value, their own rules and their own aspiration #history Click To Tweet
1920s speakeasy


RESOURCES

Writing Educator – Youth Culture, Higher Ed, Flappers: The Origins of Youth Culture in the 1920s
The Roaring 20s – Youth and the Pop Culture

Fass, Paula S., The Damned and the Beautiful. American Youth in the 1920s. Oxford University Press, New York, 1977


8 Comments

  • Tarkabarka
    Posted April 29, 2020 at 10:37

    I love seeing old photos of goofy, happy people πŸ™‚ Sometimes it makes me see history differently.

    The Multicolored Diary

    • Post Author
      jazzfeathers
      Posted May 19, 2020 at 07:32

      That’s why I love doing research with photos and videos. History is fascinating, but seeing the actual people makes it real and near to us.

  • msjadeli
    Posted April 29, 2020 at 18:35

    Your photos are good every day, but today they are particularly good. I like the one where the women are showing off their legs, as if this is some bold move. My how times have changed. In some ways it would be nice to go back to a more modest attire.

    • Post Author
      jazzfeathers
      Posted May 19, 2020 at 07:33

      I love hunting for photos, even if it takes a hell of a long time to find the good ones. But then, one good photo may tell us a ton more than a well-written paragraph πŸ˜‰

  • Ronel Janse van Vuuren
    Posted April 30, 2020 at 17:10

    I agree with Csenge and Li. Great photos!

    An A-Z of Faerie: Krampus

    • Post Author
      jazzfeathers
      Posted May 19, 2020 at 07:34

      Thanks. Photos are always a good chunck of my research. I’m so happy I reserch a time where photos were already quite common and even films.

  • Anne Nydam
    Posted April 30, 2020 at 17:41

    I have a photo of my grandmother – who by the time I knew her was about as un-adventuresome as you could imagine – in her teens with her silk stockings rolled down to below her knees like the young women in one of your photos. It shows what you’re saying about the styles of the rebellious youth influencing even the more traditional, because while not doubt my grandmother was at least a little wilder when she was young, I’m sure she was not a Flapper and she never went to college. Interesting stuff; thanks for sharing!
    (Click the Blog link on the second row) : Y is for York

    • Post Author
      jazzfeathers
      Posted May 19, 2020 at 07:35

      Thanks so much for your contribution. I always love to hear about true history πŸ™‚

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