An Obsession with Flappers

I don't know when I exactly became obsessed with the Flappers and the Roaring Twenties. All I know is I read two books that were set in the Twenties and it went from there. Now I'm rapidly consuming information about this period in American history and one of the books I've read on that journey is Flapper by Joshua Zeitz.



I started reading this maybe a month ago, but I put it down for some reason, although it was interesting and on a subject that I enjoy.

But on this past Saturday I picked it back and rapidly got consumed in the book again. It starts off focusing on the Fitzgeralds. Theirs is a fascinating story. From there each chapter mentions some of the major players in the 1920s. Of course it's more of general book, but I liked the glimpses of Clara Bow, Coco Chanel, etc. I'll definitely be looking into more definite biographies of some of the women that helped make America modern.

In two chapters Zeitz mentions non-white flappers, which is really interesting to me as I'm women of color. But it was more like a paragraph. That was my only qualm with this book. It would have been great to learn about WOC flappers as well. But I got the general idea.

The book introduced me to people I'd never heard of before and it touched on one of my favorite people from the Jazz Age: Dorothy Parker. I felt like the book served as an introduction to some of the most important people from the Twenties.

I thought the ending was nice. In previous chapters Zeitz talked about how Americans became consumers. The Stock Market crash of 1929 changed things a bit of course. I thought it was great that Zeitz showed how the flappers influenced even today's generation. That really hit a chord for me.

I give Flapper a solid four stars!