The term flapper originated in Great Britain, where there was a short fad among young women to wear rubber galoshes (an overshoe worn in the rain or snow) left open to flap when they walked. The name stuck, and throughout the United States and Europe flapper was the name given to liberated young women. The 1920s were an age of dramatic social and political change. The nation's total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929, and this economic growth swept many Americans into a prosperous but unfamiliar “consumer society.” Flappers were a generation of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior. The slang word "flapper," describing a young woman, is sometimes supposed to refer to a young bird flapping its wings …show more content…
The slang word "flap" was used for a young prostitute. By the 1890s, the word "flapper" was emerging in England as popular slang both for a very young prostitute, and in a more general and less derogatory sense, of any lively mid-teenage girl. Flappers became the image that represented the tremendous change in women’s lives and attitudes. The term flapper was also invented to describe this so-called new breed. They were branded for their enjoyment of casual sex, drinking, immoderate makeup, smoking, and driving cars. The origin of flappers, ideologically, were seen as being rooted in liberalism. After World War I, the flapper generally represented a disreputable woman who consistently flouted the conventions of society at the time of the 1920s. Still, despite the fact that a flapper’s conduct was at the time considered less than respectable, it still helped to redefine the role of women in society at