Hidden Speakeasies

According to New York’s police commissioner, New York City had 32,000 illegal speakeasies during Prohibition. Four of them were located on the same block as police headquarters. Obviously, hiding was not the issue. Bribery was. These speakeasies were no secret to anyone. I’ve made sure that in my Roaring Twenties mysteries, the speakeasies are in plain view and operating pretty openly. I also put the occasional policeman in the speakeasy, either for a drink or to pick up his weekly “tip.”

I also make sure the plot includes a cop or two on the take. (No offense intended, Officer . . . heh, heh. . . ) One of my main characters is a young policeman who is honest, and even he turns a blind eye at the routine corruption all around him.  

Dating: A Roaring Twenties Invention

Reading Miss Manners last week reminded me that dating began in the Roaring Twenties.

There was nothing resembling our concept of dating until the 1920s. Before that decade, a man courted the Woman of his Dreams in her home, under the watchful eye of her parents. As Miss Manners pointed out when she was settling a who-should-pay-for-dinner question, that meant the girl’s parents provided whatever refreshments were appropriate, whereas in the twentieth century, the man paid for the date.

One of the most scandalous aspects of the Twenties was the propensity for daring young women (“flappers”) to go out to speakeasies, dance halls, restaurants, and parties without a chaperone. They could drink, smoke cigarettes, bob their hair, and dance all the immoral fad dances like the Charleston. But remember, just because some were doing these things hardly meant all young women were.

Flappers

       You can’t talk about the Roaring Twenties without mentioning “flappers,” those modern young women who wore their skirts short, their hair bobbed, and their lips red, who smoked cigarettes, danced in jazz clubs, flattened their breasts, went out unchaperoned, and flouted the Prohibition laws by swilling martinis in speakeasies. I got to wondering, just what—and when—did the word “flapper” come into play?

       Turns out, its origins are British. A flapper was what one called a young bird learning to fly, flapping its wings. At some point—and the earliest known use seems to have been in 1912—it started to mean an impetuous teenage girl. (And in some circles, it was slang for prostitute.) It had nothing to do, as yet, with the Roaring Twenties behavior.

        In 1920, the term crossed the Atlantic in the form of a movie titled “The Flapper.” It starred Olive Thomas, a beautiful silent movie actress and the wife of Jack Pickford who died of poisoning in Paris under suspicious circumstances. (See  http://www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/archive/oldnews/olivethomas.htm  for details.) In this comedy, Olive plays a 16-year-old girl who runs away from boarding school and gets into a world of trouble. So it seems to me, in 1920, the word still held its British meaning: impetuous teenage girl.

       It quickly slipped into a new meaning as the Roaring Twenties progressed; by the early 1920s the word referred to a particular sort of young woman, those who adopted the clothing fashions and behavior described above.