Editing Flapper (section)

== Etymology ==
The slang term "flapper" may derive from an earlier use in northern England to mean "teenage girl", referring to one whose hair is not yet put up and whose plaited pigtail "flapped" on her back,<ref>Evans, Ivan H. ''[[Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable]]'' (rev. ed.) New York: Harper & Row, 1981 {{ISBN|0-06-014903-5}}</ref> or from an older word meaning "prostitute".<ref>{{Cite web | url = http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/flapper | work = Online Etymology Dictionary | title = flapper | date = April 26, 2007}}.</ref> The slang word "flap" was used for a young prostitute as early as 1631.<ref>[[James Mabbe|Mabbe, James]]. ''Celestina'' IX. 110 "Fall to your flap, my Masters, kisse and clip"; 112 "Come hither, you foule flappes."</ref> By the 1890s, the word "flapper" was used in some localities as slang both for a very young prostitute,<ref>{{Cite book | last1 = Barrere | last2 = Leland | title = Dictionary of Slang | quote = Flippers, flappers, very young girls trained to vice | year = 1889}}.</ref>{{page needed|date=August 2019}}<ref name=teenage>[[Jon Savage|Savage, Jon]]. ''Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture''. New York: Viking, 2007. p. 202. {{ISBN|978-0-670-03837-4}}</ref> and, in a more general and less derogatory sense, of any lively mid-teenage girl.<ref>Lowsley, Barzillai. ''A glossary of Berkshire words and phrases'' 1888 (E.D.S.): "Vlapper, .. applied in joke to a girl of the bread-and-butter age."</ref>

[[File:Violet Romer in flapper dress, LC-DIG-ggbain-12393 crop.jpg|thumb|left|237px|[[Violet Romer]] in a flapper dress c. 1915]]

The standard non-slang usage appeared in print as early as 1903 in England and 1904 in the United States, when novelist Desmond Coke used it in his college story of Oxford life, ''Sandford of Merton'': "There's a stunning flapper".<ref>{{cite web | last1=Barr&egrave | first1=A. | last2=Leland | first2=C. G. | last3=Farmer | first3=J. S. | last4=Ware | first4=J. R. | last5=Lowsley | first5=B. | title=flapper, n.² meanings, etymology and more | website=Oxford English Dictionary | date=March 1, 2024 | url=https://www.oed.com/dictionary/flapper_n2?tab=meaning_and_use&show-all-quotations=true&tl=true | access-date=August 6, 2024}}</ref> In 1907, English actor [[George Graves (actor)|George Graves]] explained it to Americans as theatrical slang for acrobatic young female stage performers.<ref name="Graves 1907">{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times|date=February 3, 1907|title=The Comedy Old Man and His Troubles|type=interview with English comedy actor George Graves|quote=What are 'flappers'? Why, they are the young girls with their hair still hanging down their backs. They are the sort that can climb up ropes hand over hand and pose at the top.}}</ref> The flapper was also known as a dancer, who danced like a bird—flapping her arms while doing the [[Charleston (dance)|Charleston]] move. This move became quite a competitive dance during this era.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Jazz Age. The 20s.|publisher=Editors of the Time-Life Books.|year=1997|location=Alexandria, Virginia.|pages=38}}</ref>

By 1908, newspapers as serious as ''[[The Times]]'' used the term, although with careful explanation: "A 'flapper', we may explain, is a young lady who has not yet been promoted to long frocks and the wearing of her hair 'up{{'"}}.<ref>{{Cite news | newspaper=The Times | date=February 20, 1908 | issue = 38574 |at=page 15, col F}}{{full citation needed|date=August 2019}}</ref> In April 1908, the fashion section of London's ''The Globe and Traveller'' contained a sketch entitled "The Dress of the Young Girl" with the following explanation: <blockquote>Americans, and those fortunate English folk whose money and status permit them to go in freely for slang terms ... call the subject of these lines the 'flapper.' The appropriateness of this term does not move me to such whole-hearted admiration of the amazing powers of enriching our language which the Americans modestly acknowledge they possess ..., [and] in fact, would scarcely merit the honour of a moment of my attention, but for the fact that I seek in vain for any other expression that is understood to signify that important young person, the maiden of some sixteen years.</blockquote> The sketch is of a girl in a frock with a long skirt, "which has the waistline quite high and semi-[[Empire silhouette|Empire]], ... quite untrimmed, its plainness being relieved by a sash knotted carelessly around the skirt."<ref>{{cite news|newspaper=The Globe and Traveller|title=The Dress of the Young Girl|date=April 11, 1908}}</ref>

[[File:The Flapper (1920) - 1.jpg|thumb|right|200px|An advertisement for the 1920 [[silent film]] comedy ''[[The Flapper]]'', with [[Olive Thomas]], before the look of the flapper had started to coalesce.]]

By November 1910, the word was popular enough for A. E. James to begin a series of stories in the ''[[London Magazine]]'' featuring the misadventures of a pretty fifteen-year-old girl and titled "Her Majesty the Flapper".<ref>James, A. E. [http://www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/f25.htm "Her Majesty the Flapper"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091204031128/http://www.philsp.com/homeville/fmi/f25.htm |date=December 4, 2009 }}. ''[[London Magazine]]'' (November, 1910)</ref> By 1911, a newspaper review indicates the mischievous and flirtatious "flapper" was an established stage-type.<ref>{{Cite news | newspaper = The Times | date = March 23, 1911 | issue = 39540 | at = p 10, col C | title = Review of the 1911 comedy ''Lady Patricia'' | quote = Now the 'flapper' is Miss Clare Lesley, the Dean's tomboy daughter...}} In the play a mature married couple, Patricia and Michael, vainly pursue slang-talking teenagers Billy and Clare, and so "Clare, out of the charity of youth for enamoured maturity, indulges Michael with a little mild flirtation" before at the end finding real love with Billy, who is her own age. The actress playing the flapper is characterized as "full of youth and 'go{{'"}}.</ref>

By 1912, the London theatrical impresario [[John Tiller]], defining the word in an interview he gave to ''The New York Times'', described a "flapper" as belonging to a slightly older age group, a girl who has "just come out".<ref>{{Cite news | quote=Mr. Tiller explained the difference between a "pony" and a "flapper". A pony, he said, is a small dancer who may be of any age. A flapper is a girl who has just "come out". She is at an awkward age, neither a child nor a woman, and she is just as likely to develop into a show girl as a pony. | title=Some facts about the ballet |newspaper=The New York Times |date=March 31, 1912}}</ref> Tiller's use of the phrase "come out" means "to make a formal entry into 'society' on reaching womanhood".<ref>Oxford English Dictionary</ref> In polite society at the time, a teenage girl who had not [[Debutante|come out]] would still be classed as a child. She would be expected to keep a low profile on social occasions and ought not to be the object of male attention. Although the word was still largely understood as referring to high-spirited teenagers,<ref>{{Cite news | newspaper=The Times | date=July 15, 1914 | issue = 40576 | at=page 1, col B | quote = The father of a young lady, aged 15&nbsp;– a typical "FLAPPER"&nbsp;– with all the self assurance of a woman of 30 would be grateful for the recommendation of a seminary (not a convent) where she might be placed for a year or two with the object of taming her. It is not EDUCATION she requires, she has too much of that already...}}{{full citation needed|date=August 2019}}</ref> gradually in Britain it was being extended to describe any impetuous immature woman.{{Efn | In a 1913 letter a man addressed his 21-year-old girlfriend as his "flapper".<ref>{{Cite news | quote = I cannot bear to think of my flapper without an engagement ring. | newspaper = The Times | date = October 16, 1913 | issue = 40344 | at = p 15, col D | title = £600 Damages For Breach of Promise}}</ref>}} By late 1914, the British magazine ''[[Vanity Fair (British magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'' was reporting that the Flapper was beginning to disappear in England, being replaced by the so-called "Little Creatures."<ref>Anonymous (December 1914) [http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/1914-FLAPPERS-pdf "The Melancholy Passing of the Flapper"] ''[[Vanity Fair (British magazine)|Vanity Fair]]''</ref>

A ''Times'' article on the problem of finding jobs for women made unemployed by the return of the male workforce, following the end of World War One, was titled "The Flapper's Future".<ref>{{Cite news | newspaper = The Times | date = October 16, 1919 | issue = 42232 | at = page 7, col B | title=Training demobilized women: the flapper's future}}</ref> Under this influence, the meaning of the term changed somewhat, to apply to "independent, pleasure-seeking, khaki-crazy young women".<ref name=teenage />

In his lecture in February 1920 on Britain's surplus of young women caused by the loss of young men in war, Dr. R. Murray-Leslie criticized "the social butterfly type... the frivolous, scantily-clad, jazzing flapper, irresponsible and undisciplined, to whom a dance, a new hat, or a man with a car, were of more importance than the fate of nations".<ref>{{Cite news |newspaper=The Times|date=February 5, 1920|issue=42326|at=page 9, col A}}{{full|date=April 2024}}</ref> In May of that year, [[Selznick International Pictures|Selznick Pictures]] released ''[[The Flapper]]'', a silent comedy film starring [[Olive Thomas]]. It was the first film in the United States to portray the "flapper" lifestyle. By that time, the term had taken on the full meaning of the flapper generation style and attitudes.<!-- citation needed  -->

The use of the term coincided with a fashion among teenage girls in the United States in the early 1920s for wearing unbuckled [[galoshes]],<ref>{{cite news|url= https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1922/01/29/107046892.pdf |title= Flappers flaunt fads in footwear |work=[[The New York Times]] |quote= But you have perhaps heard that there is a movie play, ''[[The Three Musketeers (1921 film)|The Three Musketeers]]'', in which [[Douglas Fairbanks]] is the D'Artagnan. You may remember having seen, in the long ago, illustrated editions of Mr. Dumas's novel showing D'Artagnan in his musketeer costume. And you may possibly remember that he wore boots, with turned down tops, which flopped as he walked. It is merely that we girls are following the style set by D'Artagnan. |date=January 29, 1922 |access-date=2021-07-18}}</ref> and a widespread [[false etymology]] held that they were called "flappers" because they flapped when they walked, as they wore their overshoes or galoshes unfastened, showing that they defied convention in a manner similar to the 21st century fad for untied shoelaces.<ref>{{Cite book | last = Basinger | first = Jeanne | title = Silent Stars | publisher = Wesleyan | year = 2000}}.</ref>{{page needed|date=August 2019}}<ref>Strong, Marion in {{Cite book | quote = The more noise the buckles made, the better they flapped, that's why we were called flappers | last = Brady | first = Kathleen | title = Lucille: The life of Lucille Ball | publisher = Billboard | year = 2001}}.</ref>{{page needed|date=August 2019}} Another suggestion to the origin of the term, in relation to fashion, comes from a 1920s fashion trend in which young women left their overcoat unbuttoned to allow it to flap back and forth as they walked, appearing more independent and freed from the tight, [[Victorian fashion|Victorian Era style clothing]].<ref>Corrigan, Jim. ''The 1920s Decade in photos: The Roaring Twenties''. Berkeley Heights, New Jersey: Enslow Publishers, Inc, 2009, p. 19</ref>

By the mid-1930s in Britain, although still occasionally used, the word "flapper" had become associated with the past. In 1936, a ''Times'' journalist grouped it with terms such as "[[blotto]]" as outdated slang: "[blotto] evokes a distant echo of glad rags and flappers ... It recalls a past which is not yet 'period'."<ref>''The Times'' (London, England): "Delivering Drunkards", December 2, 1936, p. 15</ref>