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This article examines the pervasive and vehement antijazz crusade of the 1920s as a significant cultural phenomenon that reveals profound anxieties about race, modernity, and social order in post-World War I America. It argues that the widespread condemnation of jazz music by medical authorities, religious leaders, social reformers, and public intellectuals functioned as a proxy war against the rapid social transformations of the Jazz Age, with the music serving as a potent symbol for broader fears regarding racial integration, sexual liberation, and the erosion of Victorian morality. Through analysis of primary source discourse from the period, this article categorizes the…
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This article conducts a comparative analysis of two iconic female figures of the 1920s—the white Flapper and the Black New Negro Woman. It argues that these archetypes represented divergent, often conflicting, responses to the crises and opportunities of modern American womanhood, shaped by the distinct political and social imperatives of their racial groups. While the Flapper has been mythologized as the quintessential symbol of female liberation through consumerism, sexual expressiveness, and hedonistic rebellion, the New Negro Woman was constructed as a figure of racial uplift through education, moral rectitude, and political advocacy. This article deconstructs these archetypes through an intersectional…
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Tag: Flapper
Flapper
/ Jazz era