by The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Clothing Through American History 1900 to the Present (pdf)
Thames and Hudson.
Murrin, J. M., Johnson, P. E., McPherson, J. M., Gerstle, G., Rosenberg, E. S.,
and Rosenberg, N. 2004. Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American
People, Vol. 2 since 1863. Belmont, CA: Thomson.
Olian, J., ed. 2003. Children’s Fashions 1900–1950: As Pictured in Sears Catalogs.
Mineola, NY: Dover.
Perrett, G. 1982. America in the Twenties, A History. New York: Simon and
Schuster.
Reeves, T. C. 2000. Twentieth Century America: A Brief History. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
U.S. Census Bureau. 2001. Expectation of Life at Birth by Race and Sex, 1900–
2001 HS-16.
5
The Individual and Family
Families looked profoundly different from the beginning of the century to
the end of the 1940s. In the first years of the century, marriage was seen
as an ideal to which women aspired. Often, marriages were arranged by
the parents. If they were not arranged, they still required the parents’ ap-
proval. Divorce was scandalous, and if a young woman got pregnant, she
was usually forced into marriage.
Men’s and women’s roles in the 1900s were quite different. Men were
seen as the breadwinners, whereas women were the keepers of the family’s
virtue and morals. Women were expected to support and guide the family
as the mother and wife, two roles that were held in high regard by society.
Women began advocating for more rights, including the right to vote.
Not all women agreed that their position should change, and there were
frequent debates about the subject.
Sexuality in the 1900s was rarely discussed, and, when it was, it was
always done in private. Women were expected to suppress any sexual
desires and never to have sex outside of marriage. Conversely, it was
accepted when men had sex outside of marriage. As families sought to
limit the number of children they had, they began seeking birth control
methods but could rarely find reliable information.
For children, the potential for illness was great and a source of fear for
parents. Mothers had the responsibility of caring for their children’s
health and their upbringing. Lower-class children often worked to
115
116
THE INDIVIDUAL AND FAMILY
supplement their family’s income, and educational opportunities for girls
were limited.
The 1910s allowed women more freedom in choosing marriage part-
ners. Many women chose to marry young, and, when WWI began, many
couples rushed to the altar to keep the man from being drafted. During
this period, women who held professional jobs, such as teachers, were
expected to give up the job once they were married.
Sex education and information was a common theme in the 1910s.
Activists pushed for sex education in the public schools and more readily
available information about birth control. There were many critics of
these plans, so they were rarely implemented. Syphilis became a problem
especially during WWI, when men would frequent brothels. White slav-
ery, or forced prostitution, became a sensational topic and the impetus for
legislation outlawing the practice.
Young women began to have more choices in education. Although
there had been many ‘‘finishing’’ programs available, professional programs
for women grew in the 1910s. Activists took on the cause of child labor
in the long fight to protect children from the often hazardous and fatigu-
ing factory work in which many of them were employed.
Women won the right to vote in 1920, and many of them chose to
delay marriage and children. More often couples were choosing marriage
for love over arranged marriages. Families became more affectionate and
nuclear. Pregnancy was less of a risk, and families were eager to have more
control over the spacing of their children. The divorce rate climbed as the
social stigma of ending a marriage began to erode and the expectations of
a loving marriage rose.
People were more open about sexuality in the 1920s than they were in
previous decades. The period was characterized by the sexually open flap-
per who went to parties and night clubs unchaperoned. Cars provided a
way for young couples to get away from the prying eyes of parents and
chaperones.
For children growing up in the 1920s, multigenerational households
were less frequent. Grandparents lived in their own households, and older
siblings moved out once they married or established themselves. More
children attended school than in previous times.
The Great Depression from 1929 to about 1941 colored the lives of
many young couples and families. Marriages were often postponed or pre-
ceded by long engagements. It was common for newly married couples to
live with their parents to save on expenses. Multigenerational households
became more common again, and women often picked up extra jobs to
supplement the family’s income.
The 1900s
117
In some ways, the Depression dampened people’s sexual appetites.
Couples still engaged in premarital sex, and pregnancy continued to be a
stimulus for marriage. The Hayes Code enforced a strict morality on
motion
pictures,
which
forced
studios
away
from
nudity
and
sensationalism.
Despite the frugality and malnutrition of the Depression, people of
the 1930s had a greater life expectancy than before. More children went
to school and fewer of them worked.
In the 1940s, the marriage rate increased in part because of the men
who went off to serve in the war. Women held up the home front by
working in factories and contributing to all of the government campaigns.
The baby boom began as the war was ending.
Sexual messages conflicted during the 1940s. Women were urged to
avoid provocative dress when they worked in the factories. At the same
time, servicemen ogled at scantily clad ‘ pinup’’ girls as motivation while
overseas. Then the government issued literature to servicemen warning of
the dangers of sexually transmitted disease.
Children of the 1940s may have experienced the new child-rearing
techniques espoused by Dr. Benjamin Spock. He exhorted parents to treat
their children with affection, a strange notion to parents who were raised
in an era when affection was thought to warp a child. Children partici-
pated in the war effort just as their parents did. Adolescent boys enlisted
in the services, and adolescent girls often married right after high school.
T H E
1900S
MARRIAGE AND FAMILY
Women in the early 1900s lived life much as their ancestors did. The lives
of women who were born into wealthy families were somewhat easier
than the lives of women born into poorer families, but all women tended
to share some of the same problems.
It was not uncommon for a girl to be married, sometimes against her
will, at a very early age. Girls were, in some cases, considered a dra
in on
the family’s budget. Boys were able to get jobs and produce income.
Although some urban girls were forced to work almost as soon as they
could walk, they rarely earned the salary that their brothers did. It was
easier to marry them to a young man who wanted to start a family of his
own. He, then, had the responsibility of caring for his wife.
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THE INDIVIDUAL AND FAMILY
Marriage was part of the ideal for women. Divorce remained scandal-
ous, but women found that marriage was not an equitable arrangement.
Before 1900, many states would not allow women to own property in
their own name. Any property they had became the husband’s property.
Although the laws that allowed women to keep property were advances,
there were other laws that reinforced their inferior position. In 1907, a
law was passed that mandated that all women take on their husband’s
nationality upon marriage. Women continued to struggle for equal rights.
Girls from the upper-middle class and their wealthier sisters would be
chaperoned when they reached a marriageable age. Group activities were
the norm. ‘‘Proper’ young ladies were not to be alone with any male.
Daughters were expected to marry a suitor of the parents’ choice. A lot of
marriages were arranged many years before the young people were old
enough to be interested in marriage. Marriages were to maintain or
to improve the social standing of a family. Males were not expected to
‘ marry down,’’ but females were expected to ‘ marry up,’’ preferably to a
man who had a good income. Few women were allowed any choice in
their mate. The higher up the social ladder their parents were, the less
choice a girl had in her marriage.
The families of the working poor had few such restrictions. Many girls
were allowed to meet a variety of eligible males, and the couple was fre-
quently able to make their own decision about marriage. In many cases, a
marriage might be ‘‘forced’ because the girl was pregnant, but a poor girl
with a child and no husband did not have the same stigma that her
wealthier sister would have in the same situation.
A marriage proposal, once accepted, carried with it the force of a
signed contract for the man. Once an announcement was made about
a wedding, a man could not change his mind. Some states, usually in the
south, had laws that would allow a man to be prosecuted for breaking an
engagement. This was one situation in which women had more freedom
than men because women could change their minds. Society, perhaps,
granted a woman this option because she was usually forced to remain in
a marriage once it was performed.
Marriage for immigrant families was often difficult. Once a family
had come to the United States, they not only had to earn a living, but
they had to manage with a different set of social customs. Although
women in the early 1900s might seem to have been restricted by the
standards that were prevalent even sixty years later, they were freer than
the women in Europe or Asia. Men and women who came to America
learned that many of their cherished beliefs were not shared by their new
country.
The 1900s
119
An Asian woman, for example, would have learned not to look any
man directly in the eyes. Possibly she would have learned to obey her Jap-
anese husband in all matters. Once in America, she realized that her
behaviors were not as limited as they had been in Japan. Other women
who had been told since childhood that they had to accept their husband’s
drunkenness or physical abuse learned that they had options. If a man was
known to be physically violent or could not support his family because of
alcoholism, a woman was permitted to divorce him. She might leave the
area in search of a new life and call herself a widow, but it was an option
that she would not have had in her native country.
Blacks, after the Civil War, adopted most of the rules of the southern
white culture. Women would get wedding dresses and follow the ‘‘tradi-
tional’ southern wedding ceremony. Former slaves brought with them one
tradition: that of stepping over a broom. The couple might have been
married by a preacher, but the marriage was not really final until they
stepped over a broom handle as they entered the house in which they
would live. Some couples, especially in areas without a preacher, would
simply step over the broom. Once it was known that a couple had done
that, they were considered legally married.
According to the accepted philosophy of the day, women’s work was
primarily to produce and raise children; therefore, the lives of women
deviated sharply from the lives of the men in their families. Women
remained in the house, running the household and raising the children.
The men would be expected to work outside the home. As fathers, men
were supposed to establish the rules of the home and provide the financial
support, but otherwise, men were not expected to have much to do with
the daily operations of the household.
Southern women were not supposed to need any skills other than
managing a home and raising children. Occasionally, however, a woman’s
husband would die or become unable to manage the work of a plantation.
Women, somehow, were expected to step in and manage, and many
women did. Some women, however, found they had so few skills that they
would have to remarry or depend on some male to oversee the work of
the plantation. Women who were able to assume the responsibilities of
their dead or incapacitated husbands were allowed much more freedom
than other women. Although some people still expected a woman to have
a man be responsible for her, a widow was allowed more latitude than her
single or married sisters.
Men worked outside the home; therefore, they developed an extensive
set of social contacts outside the home as well. Men generally engaged in
leisure activities that excluded their wives and children. Men could engage
120
THE INDIVIDUAL AND FAMILY
in some sports, depending on where they lived and how old they were, or
they could join men’s clubs and engage in whatever activities were accept-
able for men in their community
The concept that a woman’s life revolved around her house and home
whereas her husband’s life revolved around his work and leisure activities
tended to be more accurate for the urban middle classes, although there
were exceptions to that rule. Most poor families had to put almost every-
one to work to have enough money to pay the bills and buy food and
clothing. The farther west one traveled, the less likely the woman’s role
was very different from her husband’s. There was just too much work to
do to tame the wilderness, and both men and women shouldered much of
the work together.
The one thing that did not seem to change for women, under most
circumstances, was that the woman was responsible for the home and
housekeeping. This included raising the children, keeping the house
clean,
and ensuring that her husband was cared for and fed. Whereas
women might have worked in factories or put their shoulders to a plow,
men were never expected to feed the children or stir the cooking pot. This
attitude began to change with the coming of the 1900s.
By 1900, women had started organizations to make changes. Some
women wanted the right to vote. Some women wanted more autonomy in
their lives. Some women wanted nothing to do with suffrage but wanted
to abolish liquor. Other women’s organizations had different agendas, but
they all wanted change.
The new millennium was being called the age of ‘‘the new woman.’’
Depending on where one lived, that phrase had a variety of meanings, but
as the decade developed, the phrase came to mean that women did not
want to be the compliant, self-sacrificing mothers and wives that they had
been in the past. Although many people advocated abolishing marriage
totally, that was one of the more radical views and was never really accepted
by the majority of men or women; however, it might have been discussed
at length in some of the more liberal newspapers and magazines of the era.
The industrialization of the workforce indirectly contributed to the
changing views of morality. Technology and science had begun to make
noticeable changes in people’s lives. As new products were developed and
distributed, the nature of work began to change. Workers moved to urban
areas and companies needed larger offices and a larger sales force. Bu-
reaucracy was developed to help streamline production. Efficiency experts
were creating new ways to increase production. Women entered the work-
force as typists, phone operators, and office workers because they did not
need to be paid as much as men. The mingling of men and women
The 1900s
121
The Gibson Girl. Charles Dana Gibson
young woman with soft, feminine fea-
was a popular illustrator for magazines
tures and hair arranged in a full pompa-
and advertisements at the turn of the
dour. His illustrations were so popular
century. The ideal woman he created in
that they were merchandised on a wide
the 1890s continued to be extremely
variety of items, including ashtrays,
popular until WWI. He created pen
fans, pillow covers, souvenir spoons, and
and ink drawings of a wasp-waisted