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The "Dangerous Chance of Being a Flapper:" The Black Flapper's Challenge to Respectability in the Chicago Defender, 1920-1929

Sparks, Emily
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1523038600884478

Abstract Details

2018, Master of Arts, Case Western Reserve University, History.
A potent symbol of the Roaring Twenties, the archetypical flapper was invariably portrayed as a young woman wearing bobbed hair, heavy makeup, short skirts, and rolled stockings. She enjoyed drinking, dancing, and dating. This thesis explores how flappers were portrayed in the Chicago Defender, a major African-American newspaper. This lens unearths the black flapper – long overlooked by historians and media – and interrogates her meaning in terms of racial uplift and respectability. In turning away from respectability, the black flapper threatened to derail the ongoing project of racial uplift. The exception was a performance context, in which flapper characters onstage were seen as respectable workers instead of threateningly independent young women, and, as performers, often drew praise. The Chicago Defender’s response to the flapper, a figure who epitomized women’s new roles in the decade, illuminates contemporary discourse around sexuality, youth culture, and racial uplift.
Renee Sentilles, PhD (Advisor)
Daniel Cohen, PhD (Committee Member)
Peter Shulman, PhD (Committee Member)
Einav Rabinovitch-Fox, PhD (Committee Member)
42 p.
African American Studies; American History; Black History; Gender; Womens Studies
flapper; Chicago Defender; 1920s; performance; racial uplift; respectability; African American history; gender history

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Sparks, E. (2018). The "Dangerous Chance of Being a Flapper:" The Black Flapper's Challenge to Respectability in the Chicago Defender, 1920-1929 [Master's thesis, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1523038600884478

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Sparks, Emily. The "Dangerous Chance of Being a Flapper:" The Black Flapper's Challenge to Respectability in the Chicago Defender, 1920-1929. 2018. Case Western Reserve University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1523038600884478.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Sparks, Emily. "The "Dangerous Chance of Being a Flapper:" The Black Flapper's Challenge to Respectability in the Chicago Defender, 1920-1929." Master's thesis, Case Western Reserve University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1523038600884478

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1523038600884478
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© 2018, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.
Release 3.2.12