Only Yesterday Frederick Lewis Allen Summary

Only Yesterday by Frederick Lewis Allen was a piece that examined the dynamics of the cultural shift that men and more so women had experienced during the roaring twenties. Women had lived in a world where they had little to no voice for themselves and were pressured into doing the same things that every other woman was doing by society. The new generation was not satisfied with this and set up their own set of rules. Men also became more independent and would scoff at the rules and social codes that their parents and elders had created. We see what the author explains as a revolution in manners and morals led by this new generation of adolescents. This generation would help open the door to making themselves more independent and less concerned about how society viewed them. Many important changes were made to the

Women were seen as “the guardians of morality” ( Allen 67). They were viewed as being innocent and were not as brute and vulgar as a man was. This entailed wearing very conservative clothing that would maintain the woman’s innocence. However, in the early 1920’s woman’s skirts would now be seen as much as nine inches above the ground and eventually would only go down to the knee. Although this does not feel like a big deal today it was huge in the early 1920’s. The New York Times even commented on this saying “the American woman has her skirts far beyond any modest limitations” ( Allen 68) Just the fact that this new generation of women had shorter skirts and thinner dresses drove older generations into an uproar. On top of the skirts, there was now a more widespread use of cosmetics by adolescent girls something that was also