Becoming Modern

Young Women and the Reconstruction of Womanhood in the 1920s

Birgitte Søland

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781400839278
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Studi di genere

In the decade following World War I, nineteenth-century womanhood came under attack not only from feminists but also from innumerable "ordinary" young women determined to create "modern" lives for themselves. These young women cut their hair, wore short skirts, worked for wages, sought entertainment outside the home, and developed new attitudes toward domesticity, sexuality, and their bodies. Historians have generally located the origins of this shift in women's lives in the upheavals of World War I. Birgitte Søland's exquisite social and cultural history suggests, however, that they are to be found not in the war itself, but in much broader social and economic changes.Søland's engrossing chronicle draws on a rich variety of sources--including popular media and medical works as well as archival records and oral histories--to examine how notions of femininity and womanhood were reshaped in Denmark, a small, largely agrarian country that remained neutral during the war. It explores changes in the female body and personality, the forays of young women into the public sphere, the redefinition of female respectability, and new understandings of married life as evidenced in both cultural discourses and social practices. Though specific in its focus, the book raises broad comparative questions as it challenges common assumptions about the social and sexual upheavals that characterized the Western world in the postwar decade. In a remarkably engaging fashion, it shows why the end of World War I did not lead to the return of "normal" life in the 1920s.

PART I

From Victorian Ladies to Modern Girls: The Construction of a New Style of Femininity

BY THE MID-1 920s, it was clear to most contemporaries that the delicate, refined Victorian lady had had her day. As one elderly newspaper editor nostalgically noted, the world would “probably never again” enjoy the sight of a “lady who let her long skirt trail behind her.” Much to his regret, the “innocently blushing young girl” also seemed a character of the past. “Modern young girls,” he concluded, “are so very different from the ladies we courted.”¹

It was the crowning in 1926 of the first Miss Denmark that prompted these editorial musings. In the spring of that year, Vore Damer, a popular magazine for women, announced that it would be sponsoring the first national Danish beauty contest. Such contests had already been held in several other nations—including neighboring Sweden—and it was time, the editors contended, that Denmark caught up with rest of the world.²

In the following days and weeks, hundreds of young women from across the country responded to the magazine’s call for contestants by submitting photographs that gave the requested “clear impression” of their “face and figure.”³ From among these entries a panel of judges selected a number of young women who were invited to participate in the actual contest, and on August 1, 1926, the fortunate few assembled at the upscale Marienlyst seaside resort just north of Copenhagen for what the magazine promised to be a “lovely and stylish” event.⁴

Unfortunately, the weather was less than cooperative that day, but despite cold winds and grey skies the outdoor contest went ahead. In the course of the afternoon, thousands of curious spectators were treated to musical entertainment and “the impressive sight” of “young slender women in their becoming bathing suits.”⁵ After a few hours, the judges announced their decision, and seventeen-year-old Edith Jorgensen was crowned the first Miss Denmark.

Fig. 1. Edith Jorgensen after having been elected the first Miss Denmark in 1926. (Reproduced from Vore Damer, 1926)

In the weeks before the contest, Vore Damer had assured its readers that the judges would not have a particular feminine ideal in mind. They were simply given the task of identifying the woman who seemed to them “the most beautiful.”⁶ Nonetheless, on the day of the contest, the judges apparently felt compelled to justify their choice. From among dozens of contestants, they explained, they had selected the slender young girl as the first-prize winner because of her “childish, sweet smile,” her “natural grace,” “large, beaming eyes,” and “completely flawless and lovely figure.” Besides, they added, the new beauty queen combined in her personality an appealing mixture of girlish spunk, boldness, and charm, enhanced by an unassuming demeanor and an air of wholesome naivete.⁷

With these qualities, Edith Jorgensen embodied a new ideal of attractive femininity that had been gaining cultural currency not only in Denmark but also throughout much of the rest of the world for more than a decade. In marked contrast to the elegant, refined, ladylike ideals of the nineteenth century, feminine beauty had by the mid-1920s become identified with simple, unadorned youthfulness. Adolescent innocence had clearly replaced more mature ideals, and a slight, childlike physique had triumphed over more womanly curves. In addition, attractive femininity had by the mid-1920s become associated with a particular style of spunky, girlish personality. Vivaciousness, exuberance, and cheerfulness had gradually replaced innocence, modesty, and reserve as the most attractive qualities in a woman. No wonder that the elderly newspaper editor was struck by “the enormous changes we have witnessed within the last generation.”⁸ The following two chapters trace the emergence of this new style of femininity, the conflicts this style engendered, and the processes through which it gradually became the dominant cultural ideal.

CHAPTER 1

The Emergence of the Modern Look

IN 1926, when Edith Jorgensen became the first Miss Denmark, nobody commented on the fact that following her victory the new beauty queen chose to meet the press wearing a short, sleeveless dress, silk stockings, and high-heeled ankle-strap shoes. By the mid-1920s such fashions had already become acceptable apparel for young women. Yet only one decade earlier, when short-skirted women first appeared in public, they had elicited considerable attention. As Emilie Spang-Bak recalled, “One year when I was a little girl—it must have been in 1913 or 1914—my parents went to a new year’s party. At that party some young lady was wearing a short dress. Nothing like that had ever been seen in [the town of] Aarhus before, and my mother talked about it for days.”¹

In the mid-1910s, Emilie Spang-Bak’s mother was certainly not the only person to take notice of the changing styles in women’s clothing. Already in the spring of 1914, one newspaper editor noticed that women’s appearance seemed to be undergoing a “remarkable change.”² Instead of sensible or attractive clothes, young women had allegedly begun to wear “the strangest and most impractical form of dress.”³ The following year, one fashion commentator was astonished to find that “the entire female silhouette has been altered.”⁴ Other journalists marveled at the growing numbers of women in “these strange, narrow, tight-fitting dresses” and urged their readers to avoid such “awkward and bizarre” apparel.⁵

Surely, the observer who insisted in 1916 that “all young girls” had fallen for this “latest folly of fashion” was wrong.⁶ Most adolescent girls and young women stuck with more conventional styles at least until the end of the decade. Even in the 1920s a few never adopted the new female fashions. Nonetheless, the second half of the 1910s did witness striking changes in the appearances of many young women. During those years, young women from prosperous families discarded the elaborate, cumbersome gowns that women of their class had previously worn, and large numbers of working-class and middle-class daughters abandoned the shirtwaist blouses and long skirts that had been their daily wear. Instead, these young women began to favor dresses that were simpler, shorter, less fitted, and more colorful than the ones their mothers had worn.

When young women adopted the new styles, they were clearly following the fashion of the day. Since the late nineteenth century the trend in women’s clothing had been changing toward simpler, slimmer, less ornate styles that allowed for increased freedom of movement.⁷ In the early years of the twentieth century, celebrated French fashion designer Paul Poiret had promoted this new look, and in the years preceding World War I many other designers had followed his lead. Departing from an older ideal dominated by the S-shaped corset, frou-frou skirts, and pastel colors, they had turned the world of haute couture into a place where tall, slender women increasingly wore straight, simple, loosely fitted gowns.⁸

From the early 1910s, this new look quickly transcended the elitist confines of Parisian fashion circles. International fashion journals such as La Vie Parisienne, La Mode de Paris, Chic Parisien, Vogue, Weldons, and Vanity Fair introduced their readers to the new trends. In urban areas across Europe, including Copenhagen, the latest fashions were displayed in the windows of clothing shops and department stores, and by the mid-1910s carefully staged fashion shows were becoming an increasingly common merchandising technique, providing at least some women with yet another opportunity to become acquainted with the new styles.⁹ Illustrated fashion columns in newspapers and popular magazines served to familiarize much broader audiences with the new look, and popular films in which actresses sported the new styles helped disseminate the latest fashion information to even larger groups of girls and young women.¹⁰ Popular theater also proved a source of fashion authority, and throughout the 1910s and 1920s, women’s magazines regularly carried feature articles on the hair and clothing styles of celebrated stage actresses. Crucial to the dissemination of the new look in Denmark were also the drawings of Gerda Wegener, a young Danish painter, graphic designer, and fashion illustrator living in Paris. In the 1910s and 1920s, reproductions of her elegant, Art Deco-inspired sketches of fashionable women appeared everywhere from newspapers to book covers and greeting cards. As Stine Petersen recalled, “I grew up on a farm in Western Jutland, far from anywhere, but of course we knew what was in style. We saw it in pictures and magazines and movies. I don’t think you could not know.”¹¹

For fashion-conscious young women, familiarity with the new styles often translated into a desire to model their appearances accordingly. Of course, their ability to do so depended in part on the money they had at their disposal. For daughters and young wives of the social elite the acquisition of a fashionable wardrobe was relatively easy. From their travels to Paris and other European fashion centers they brought home expensive designer dresses, and if unable to make purchases in person they ordered the latest styles from fashion houses and clothing stores that gladly shipped their commodities to anyone willing and able to pay the price.

For most young women, such extravagant spending was never a possibility, but as the production of ready-made clothing increased in the early twentieth century, modern fashions came within the financial reach of more and more people. Middle-class women were certainly able to afford most ready-made dresses, and while department stores carried the largest selection, smaller clothing stores began to offer a range of models and styles at a reasonable price. Even women of very modest means were not precluded from acquiring a new fashionable appearance. In working-class neighborhoods and small towns, local shopkeepers offered products that their customers could afford, and like their counterparts in wealthier areas, they introduced new forms of credit purchases, layaway plans, and installment systems of payment that eased the way to a stylish appearance for many young women.¹² Poorly paid seamstresses, working in small shops or out of their own homes, offered dozens of modestly priced models to local customers. And if women could afford neither ready-made garments nor the work of a seamstress, dress patterns for home sewing were readily available through fashion journals, popular magazines, and special pattern books.¹³ In the second half of the 1910s, not only were fashions becoming familiar to most people, but acquiring a fashionable wardrobe was also becoming a practical and financial possibility even for women of very modest means.

DRESSED IN INDECENCY: PUBLIC CRITIQUES OF WOMEN'S FASHIONS

In the mid-1910s, when the modern fashions were first introduced on the Danish scene, they provoked relatively little controversy. Even though the vast majority of fashion commentators found the new styles unfortunate, and fashion pioneers—such as the woman at the new year’s party—met with gossip and disapproval within their own social circles, short dresses did not trigger much public opposition. After all, wealthy women were known to be given to extravagances, making them the easy victims of any designer whim. That a few working-class daughters adopted similar styles was not surprising either, given their notoriously “poor” taste and unfortunate propensity for flashy outfits. It was only when broader groups of young women began to adopt the new styl...