03/19/14
Library book
This book tells the story of the flapper and the roaring 20's througb the eyes of these six women:
Josephine Baker - Her style beauty and voice made her the epitome of the jazz aga.
Nancy Cunard - poet and heiress
Tamara de Lempicka - Pish-Russian artist
Zelda Fitzgerald - wife to F Scott
Lady Diana Cooper - Daughter of the 8th Duke of Rutland
Tallulah Bankhead - actress
These will womens' stories will provide the framework of life as it wa s in the Jazz age.
5 A London editor commented on the right for women to vote I this era with,"dismissing them as...feckless...frivolous scantily-clad jazzing flappers (to whom) a dance or a new hat or a man... is more important than the fate of nations.'"
6 1922 Victor Marguerittte's La Garconne creats a scadal with tales of lesbianism. Later Garconne would be the new name for the flappers.
Women were working. Disposable income spurred the ad men to target them with feminine products they just couldn't do without. It was all 'dyed hair, bee-stung lips, and Charleston frocks."
Some speculated that is was the massive world war that had so scrambled values and morals and created the flapper. Whatever it was it happened. These ladies found themselves coming of age after the war in a world where men were noticeably absent. Such was the devastation that the war reaked on the males of the species. What the war didnt take the flu did.
15 The little girl was out of the yard and out of her ever-loving mind. Mabel Potter Daggett also thougbt it was the War. She wrote, "August 4 1914 the door to.the dolls.house opened." This phenomenon would always be. Later Sara Evans would sing about "Suds In A Bucket," but its all the same.
Diana
"I'll eat a banana with Lady Diana
The aristocracy's working at Guys."
20 the Gibson Girl was giving way to the Flapper. The corsette came off but now a new problem "slenderizing"
to fit the new style which was much less forgiving. The Victorian age gave way to the Edwardian age. Cigarette was marketed to women as a way to diet. A period ad said,"reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet." That ad did very well for the company.
22 Maude Allan"s Salome caused a sensation among Britains women. A London editor accused hed of promoting lesbianism and "spreading the cult of the ciltoris."
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Heres Lady Diana Manners herself posing nude for her brother. Nothing weird about that huh?
Well it would be a picture of her but the link thing doesn't work in blogger.
25 London was coming alive to little Lady Di. There the post-impressionist artist, little Siggie Freud was dreaming of his mother and then...a brand new type of night club. The Cave of the Golden Calf. Jazz and Blues and ragtime had come to the continent. They were doing the Turkey Trot and The Grizzly Bear while sipping on a Pink Lady.
32 Her life changed wifh the assination of Archduke Ferdinand. She volunteered to be a nurse at Guys Hospital with the VAD service.
48 As war ravaged London editor Billings went after Maude Allans Cult in the papers and Diana reports overhearing Lord Albemarle saying "I've never heard of this Greek chap clitoris they are all taking about."
Nancy
This is the grand daughter of that Cunard yes the shipping Cunard. Now we here about this poor little filthy rich girl's life and times.
Tamara
Tamara de Lempicka (Łempicka) (16 May 1898 – 18 March 1980), born Maria Górska in Warsaw, Poland,[1] was a Polish Art Deco painter and "the first woman artist to be a glamour star".[2]
It is her painting "Self Portrait in the Green Bugatti" that adorns the cover
102 Alice B Toklas was Gertrude Steins "wife"?
Tallulah
120 Spiritualism was big busines in America in the 1920's
122 She says Tallulah was "cock -a-hoop" when she "first saw herself on the screen." Really?
I saw ms Bankhead on an old Lucy show.
123 She finds herself at the Algonquin hotel and bumping into famous celebrities like the the Barrymoores: John Ethel and Lionel. The resturaunt the will later host the famous round table.
127 Estelle Winwood woke her up in the middle of the night to borrow her douche bag and poor lil Tallulah did not know what that was. Great set up for a married lady though,"my douche bag is passed out on the couch if you can wake him up you can borrow him though" This stuff writes itself.
128 We speak of the arrival of the "Dutch Cap." I assume its not a hat. And why Dutch? Mr Shorto assures us that mocking the Dutch as so is an ages old stereotype that was first established in the pamphlet wars between England and Holland in the 1500's. And I see Russell still hs true with tbe Dutch Cap.
Tallulah says her father warned her about men and booze but forgot to warn her about women and cocaine. This is the 1920's!
130 Early film was called "the flickers." I guess before "talkies" the sound of the projector itself was prominent.
133 Lil Tallulah was finding he voice and establishing the persona she would assume. When she mispoke about a play she had done to a writer he splashed it on the front page. He maxe this innocent mistake seem like a purposeful and cynical comment which is was not. But the tone stuck and now she was to be the funny cynical quip girl and so she ran with that.
"Im as pure as the driven slush"
135 Good foreshadowing Judith. We find here Eugenia, Tallulah's older sister is "running wild" in New York and "adulterously tangled up in the marriage of" F. Scott and Zelda.
139 Jan 6, 1923 Tallulah heads to London for her appointment with destiny.
Zelda
This from Wikipedia:
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald (July 24, 1900 – March 10, 1948), born Zelda Sayre in Montgomery, Alabama, was an American novelist and the wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was an icon of the 1920s—dubbed by her husband "the first American Flapper." After the success of his first novel, This Side of Paradise (1920), the Fitzgeralds became celebrities.
Much like her friend Tallulah Bankhead, she also came from Alabama and rose to new heights In the roaring 20's.
Josephine
This from the Official Josephine Baker site:
Josephine Baker sashayed onto a Paris stage during the 1920s with a comic, yet sensual appeal that took Europe by storm. Famous for barely-there dresses and no-holds-barred dance routines, her exotic beauty generated nicknames "Black Venus," "Black Pearl" and "Creole Goddess." Admirers bestowed a plethora of gifts, including diamonds and cars, and she received approximately 1,500 marriage proposals. She maintained energetic performances and a celebrity status for 50 years until her death in 1975. Unfortunately, racism prevented her talents from being wholly accepted in the United States until 1973.
Holy Mackrell! What a great and informative book. This book gets a heart in the title because it has it all. I actually felt like a real time traveler. A book should transport one and inspire one to find out more. This book did that and more. Kudos.
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