Flappers: The birth of the 20th-century woman
1 2020-01-10T18:59:04+00:00 Katie Bauer edee6c7ef934f719db613c56c705c45916075d84 1 8 Short video segment showing flappers and smoking. plain 2020-01-10T19:33:05+00:00 Films on Demand Flappers: The birth of the 20th-century woman [Video file]. (1999). Retrieved December 3, 2019, from Films on Demand. https://digital.films.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=104667&xtid=11563 1999 Katie Bauer edee6c7ef934f719db613c56c705c45916075d84This page is referenced by:
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2020-01-10T18:57:25+00:00
Flappers, Suffragettes and Cigarettes
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After World War One, women demand more equality and freedom, and take up cigarette smoking. Cigarette manufacturers see and opportunity.
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2020-02-13T17:12:41+00:00
After World War I, younger women began to reject old ways and customs and embraced more modern styles of dress and behavior. Flappers emerged after World War I, and were seen as younger women who wore shorter skirts, wore their hair in a bob and were sometimes also suffragettes. Cigarettes became an integral part of what became known as the flapper persona. The challenge for cigarette manufacturers was to make the adaptation of cigarettes among women more acceptable to a wider group of women.
Changes were not just about clothes, and women were also increasing demanding equal rights. Cigarettes could be seen as part of this.
Girls begin smoking to demonstrate that they are strictly modern and up-to-date in their views and habits of life. Girls, too, make the point that they have as good a right to smoke as have men. (Benson 193)
In this change was an opportunity for the tobacco industry, which began to advertise cigarettes directly to women. These often featured celebrities or society women endorsing the cigarette, and sometimes showed cigarettes as part of an elegant life.
