How was life different for american women in the 1920s?

· Increasing numbers of women were entering work

· Mechanisation meant that women could take on jobs which would have beforehand required great physical strength

· They were preferred in the radio industry – there was also expansion in office work with women being taken on.

· Employers could pay women less money than men so were willing to take them on.

· There was a 25% increase of women in paid employment by the end of the decade

· Middle-class women had more free time, partly through domestic products such as vacuum cleaners.

· Many had cars – they were no longer bound to the home.

· Women’s magazines sold in their millions.

· The radio and cinema were well aware that women made up a main part of their audience and so aimed advertising at them as well as men.

· “Flapper” was a name given to a liberated urban woman

· They wore short skirts and bobbed hair.

· The new clothing gave greater freedom of movement as well as being more daring.

· Short hair became a sign of liberation.

· Make up became popular and sales boomed.

· Women now smoked in public and drove cars – this would have been frowned upon before the wartime.

· Women in rural areas continued to play their traditional roles.

· Among 10,000 farm houses – only 32% had running water, 96% did their own washing, 47% had Hoovers.

· The wages were low – so many women cared for children and the house and worked as well.

.The working class had very few electrical aids – only half had a phone.