Changing Role of women 1920s

Question 1

What was the impact of WW1 on women?

Answer 1

• Many women worked on behalf of the war effort, in jobs such as manufacturing
• This helped to shift public perception of them- they are just as competent as men, patriotic and deserving of citizenship.
• However most lost these jobs to men as soon as the war was over

Question 2

When did women receive the right to vote in federal elections?

Answer 2

In 1919, with the 19th amendment.

Question 3

How many women voted in elections for the first time in 1920?

Answer 3

Over 8 million women across the US

Question 4

How did the economic boom provide new employment opportunities?

Answer 4

Many women became secretaries, telephone operators, typists= more financial independence, tens of thousands moved to big towns and cities and lived independent lives.

Question 5

Who were flappers?

Answer 5

• Young, fashionable women who rejected the idea that a woman’s place was in the home looking after the family
• Went against the expectations of acceptable behaviour: wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, drank and smoked, listened to jazz, partied in dance halls.

Question 6

What industry saw a rise in value as a result of women’s’ increasing financial freedom?

Answer 6

• Cosmetics industry saw its value increase from $17 million to $200 million by the end of the decade
• Beauty salons opened up across the USA

Question 7

What was the impact of increase in labour-saving technology?

Answer 7

• 1912: only 2.4 million electrical goods sold a year
• 1929: 160 million sold a year
• Housework became easier and much less time consuming= women more able to spend leisure time

Question 8

What did women become more involved in in the 1920s?

Answer 8

• More women buying and selling stocks

- New York Times in 1927: claimed many women were successful and amongst the best brokers in Wall Street

Question 9

How many divorces took place by 1929 and what did this signify?

Answer 9

• 200,000 divorces by 1929
• Shows that women no longer economically dependent on men to live as they had more financial freedom
• Women increasingly going against the societal expectation of being a wife

Question 10

How many women were employed in the US by 1929?

Answer 10

• 10.6 million women employed

- 25% increase in working women in 1920s

Question 11

How many women by 1928:

• became state governors?
• were delegates in congress?

Answer 11

2 became state governors
2/435 delegates in congress
= men still dominated politics

Question 12

How did women’s new job opportunities have less of a significant impact? How many were civil servants?

Answer 12

Career opportunities were still very limited as women mostly had low-paid, menial labour jobs e.g. 700,000 women were domestic servants

Question 13

What were the differences in pay for men and women in manufacturing jobs? For black women in Mississippi?

Answer 13

• Men: $34 a week in 1926
• Women: $8.34 a week
• black women in Mississippi got only $5.70

Question 14

By how much did the number of women achieving a college degree fall in the 1920s?

Answer 14

5%

Question 15

How was the experience of Flappers limited?

Answer 15

• It was only an urban phenomenon, confined to northern cities. Southern and rural women did not experience this.
• Only rich middle and upper class women could afford the flapper lifestyle.
• Most still expected to be housewives and perform their domestic duties
• Women’s Christian Temperance Movement was heavily against their ideals

Question 16

Shephard Towner Act 1921 and it’s impact?

Answer 16

• Federal aid to states to develop infant and maternity programmes- 3000 care centres set up
• decrease in infant and mother deaths from childbirth
• however reinforced that a woman’s role was being a mother