Flappers and Philosophers

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The Lost Generation

This Side of Paradise is the book that established F. Scott Fitzgerald as the prophet and golden boy of the newly dawned Jazz Age. Published in 1920, when he was just twenty-three, the novel catapulted him to instant fame and financial success.
"Here was a new generation . . . dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken. . . ." (from F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, 1920)
"That's the whole burden of this novel [The Great Gatsby]--the loss of those illusions that give such color to the world so that you don't care whether things are true or false as long as they partake of the magical glory." (from F. Scott Fitzgerald letter, 1924)In general, the generation that grew up after World War I, and particularly a group of American writers who became adults during the war was known as the Lost Generation. The term comes from Gertrude Stein's remark to fellow author Ernest Hemingway, “You are all a lost generation.”

The Flappper

The term flapper in the 1920s referred to a "new breed" of young women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered "decent" behavior.
The flappers were seen as brash in their time for wearing makeup, drinking hard liquor, treating sex in a more casual manner, and smoking cigarettes, driving automobiles, and otherwise flouting conventional social and sexual norms.
New York

New York The Algonquin Round Table set the standard for literary style and wit long beyond its ten-year duration. After the first World War, Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, and Robert E. Sherwood regularly lunched at the hotel, located a few doors away from Vanity Fair, where they all worked. Friends joined them for one memorable lunch welcoming Alexander Woolcott back to his position as drama critic of The New York Times from duty as a journalist in the war. Case treated the talented but low paid young writers to free celery and popovers and provided them with their own table and waiter, thereby guaranteeing return daily luncheon visits. The group expanded to a core membership that included Edna Ferber, Peggy Wood, Franklin P. Adams, George S. Kaufman, Heywood Broun and Marc Connelly.

Most of the Round Table members were critics and as they lunched, they would exchange ideas and gossip which found its way into Adam's "Conning Tower" column in the Tribune the next day. For one glorious decade beginning in June of 1919, members' opinions and writings strongly influenced young writers like Fitzgerald and Hemingway. Harold Ross, legendary editor and friend of the Round Table, created the New Yorker and secured funding for it at the hotel. It made its debut February 21, 1925. Today, Algonquin room guests receive a complimentary copy of the magazine.

There was no formal membership, so people came and went, but the primary members included

Dorothy Parker , critic, poet, short-story writer, and screenwriter

Tallulah Bankhead, stage and screen actress

Franklin Pierce Adams, columnist

Robert Benchley, humorist and actor Heywood Broun, columnist and sportswriter (married to Hale) Marc Connelly, playwright Edna Ferber, author and playwright Jane Grant, journalist and feminist (married to Ross) Ruth Hale, journalist and feminist Beatrice Kaufman, editor and playwright (married to George S. Kaufman) George S. Kaufman, playwright and director Harpo Marx, actor, comedian, and musician Neysa McMein, magazine illustrator Harold Ross, The New Yorker editor Robert Sherwood, author and playwright Donald Ogden Stewart, playwright and screenwriter Deems Taylor, composer John Peter Toohey, publicist Alexander Woollcott, critic and journalist

New Orleans

Traditional Jazz is a broad term used to define a jazz style employed by musicians working in New Orleans between 1900 and 1917, and musicians from New Orleans who played and recorded in Chicago from around 1917 throughout the 1920s, a period known as "The Jazz Age." It is also used to describe the music played by revivalists from various periods who have sought to perform music in the same style as that employed by these groups of musicians. Some reserve the term to describe a variant of traditional New Orleans and classic jazz styles.The first music that is generally referred to as jazz is that of New Orleans trumpet player Buddy Bolden and pianist Jelly Roll Morton.....And that Funny Reefer Man!!! At the start of the 1920s, marijuana use in America was concentrated in New Orleans – and its intoxicating vapors were mainly inhaled by migrant workers from Mexico, by blacks, and by a growing number of "low-class" whites. Sailors and immigrants from the Caribbean brought this "new" (Its known uses go back to 7,000 B.C.) drug into major southern U.S. ports – above all into the Crescent City.Along with jazz, pot traveled north to Chicago, and then east to Harlem – where it soon became an indispensable part of the music scene, even entering the language of the black hits of the day (Louis Armstrong's "Muggles," Cab Calloway's "That Funny Reefer Man" and Fats Waller's "Viper's Drag").

****Volstead Act****

Prohibition in the United StatesThe term Prohibition, also known as Dry Law, refers to a law in a country by which the manufacture, transportation, import, export, and sale of alcoholic beverages is restricted or illegal. The term also applies to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the prohibition was enforced.(1920–1933) was the era during which the United States Constitution outlawed the manufacture, transport, and sale of alcoholic beverages. The term also includes the prohibition of alcohol by state action at different times, and the social-political movement to secure prohibition. Selling, manufacturing, or transporting (including importing and exporting) alcohol for beverage purposes was prohibited by the Eighteenth Amendment. Though drinking and possession of alcohol were not prohibited by the Constitution, they were restricted by the Volstead Act.

****Speakeasy****

A speakeasy was an establishment that was used for selling and drinking alcoholic beverages during the period of United States history known as Prohibition (1920-1933,[1] longer in some states), when the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol was illegal. The term comes from a patron's manner of ordering alcohol without raising suspicion — a bartender would tell a patron to be quiet and "speak easy".Speakeasies became more popular and numerous as the Prohibition years progressed, and also became more commonly operated by those connected to organized crime. Although police and United States Federal Government agents would raid such establishments and arrest the owners and patrons, the business of running speakeasies was so lucrative that such establishments continued to flourish throughout the nation. In major cities, speakeasies were often elaborate, offering food, live bands, and floor shows. The police corruption at this time was notoriously rampant; speakeasy operators commonly bribed police to either leave them alone or at least give them advance notice of any planned raids.Another slang term similar to a speakeasy is "blind pig". The difference between a speakeasy and a blind pig is that a speakeasy was usually a higher class establishment, where a blind pig was a lower class dive.