Kewaunee County & The Flappers: A Women's Movement

Thinking about flappers today probably means you're on the way to the hardware store for the rubber disc - a flapper - that allows water out of the toilet tank and into the bowl after flushing. If flappers were on your mind during the 1920s, you'd be thinking of the young women known as "flappers," and they were far more interesting than a toilet component!

Flappers gave rise to the women's movements that came later, however it was the years between that gave others pause. And that's putting it mildly. With the '20s came young women who cut their hair and wore short skirts such as in this 1926 Bach-Dishmaker ad. Who knows what was more scandalous - hair cut short and close to the head, or showing knees? Bobbed hair was thought to be as liberating then as going braless during the 1960s.

Flappers were mostly middle-class young women who listened to jazz and disdained what was thought of as acceptable behavior, rejecting societal morals of temperance and chastity. The women were seen as rebellious. They were shoppers, materialistic, and they even drove cars and danced, however they weren't doing the more sedate dances their mothers did. Was it any wonder the women gave their mothers and grandmothers vapors, the long-time term for emotional agitation, fainting, "hysteria," and more? Wikipedia tells us having "a case of vapours" was later used for melodramatic or comedic effects.

Bobbed hair meant less work for the mothers with little girls such as Grandma with her brood of a dozen. By the time the last 3 girls were born, Grandma had to be exhausted and was no doubt smiling as she cut their hair to a manageable length just at the bottom of the ears. Although Grandma was comfortable with the decision, there was "hell to pay" when her girls got to school. Even at 9, Elaine said what was on her mind, and that was verboten. Hair was worse than an opinion, and Elaine "got it," which meant physical punishment that was far more than a slap on the hands with a ruler. With her dozen kids, Elaine's punishment was the only time Grandma ever "went to school." What happened to Elaine as a little girl illustrates the controversy of the era. The hair that caused punishment is at the left.

It was said flappers wore short skirts to show off their legs and ankles which had always been hidden from view. Short skirts allowed dancing, and the dance of the era was the Charleston, a dance craze that involved waving arms and fast-moving footwork. The dance had its roots in African American dances in the south and then in Harlem in New York. Although the dance gained its popularity almost overnight, it was banned in places due to a seemingly sexual nature and exposure of women's legs. However, some units of government banned the Charleston as a "safety concern." The fast-moving dance was made up of knees twisted in and out while the heels were sharply pointed outward in each step. Since banned for safety sounds better than banned for morals, the bans didn't have much impact on an office seeker (males) who said they were more concerned about breaking legs than showing them.

Until the turn of 1900, women's dresses were floor length, and limbs were generally covered, but it all changed as hemlines began to rise early in the 1900s. By 1910, dress lengths were over a woman's foot, and even that was scandalous to some.

Hemlines rose slowly, although by 1915 the ankle was exposed. Heaven forbid! Surely some wondered what would happen next. The adventuresome found the dress on the left on sale in 1919 at Washburn's in Sturgeon Bay. Who could keep up with a younger generation that didn't know it's place? Hemlines rose a bit higher in 1916, and as the U.S. entered World War l, hemlines were almost to mid-calf. Hems were up and down, but when the war was over and the U.S. entered the 1920s, the "roaring '20s," saw more changes. Although the 1920s brought women the right to vote, it was 1972 when singer Helen Reddy released, "I am Woman Hear Me Roar." 

According to Arena Stage, a center for American theater in Washington D.C., when the 19th Amendment was ratified, the life of a flapper sparked the new-found independence women received through the right to vote. The bobbed hair became a symbol of liberated women, Forty years later, bras were the new symbol of liberated women, and the brans were being burned on the streets of New York.

It was the day of the silent movie, and 1920's star Clara Bow was the woman young American women emulated. It was Bow who inspired much of what came next. Half a century later, her influence was still in what was called "feminism." "Chanel" brings thoughts of perfume, however Coco Chanel was a fashion designer using men's apparel in her clothing lines and in her own androgenous loo, Chanel introduced the :little black dress" and the classic Chanel suit. While Bow was a major influence of U.S. women, it was Chanel who influenced the western world. The old Virginia Slims cigarette ads contained the phrase, "You've come a long way, Baby." Women did by then, although there was a long way to go. As for the cigarettes, 50 years earlier, flappers smoked most often with cigarette holders. The Slims were not short, fat cigarettes.

During the 1920s and  '30s, women wore hem lengths from above shoe top like Grandma did to above the knees like Agnes did. The photo on the left was taken in 1931.

That women smoked or had alcoholic drinks should not have surprised anybody, but those who did such things in an earlier day, did it in privacy. Kewaunee County women were known to smoke cigars before the days of the cigarette. Hotels such as Boedeckers' on the southeast corner of 4th and Steele in Algoma offered "ladies' parlors" where women could privately enjoy a whiskey, beer or a good cigar. In the crossroads' communities such as Pilsen, Rosiere, and Lincoln, the church was often flanked by a tavern, mill and mercantile. Following Sunday services, the men stopped to wet their whistles while women stayed outside visiting. That didn't mean women were forbidden to drink, it was just that the interior of a tavern was for men who would bring out a drink for their ladies.

The '20s were different though. So-called unladylike flappers entered bars which earlier were a man's domain. It didn't take long for the ladies' parlors to go by the wayside.

Readership no doubt enjoyed Record Herald articles that made fun of flappers in summer 1921. At that point, the city was short on such women. Nevertheless, the paper reported the women necessitated rigid rules for the beach, regulating that they wear two-piece suits with skirts reaching to the knees. Also mandated were stockings and high-necked yokes for all females appearing to be older than 10. Algoma provided a bit of levity with other rules in jest. Women from 10-12 were to wear hoopskirts that came to 1 inch of the ground while those from 20 – 30 would wear regulation diving suits of solid rubber with steel helmets having glass-covered eyeholes. Women from 30-40 were to stay in the bathhouses. Pretty woman were to stay home and bathe under the garden hose. Men over 10 were allowed to bathe wearing a full-dress suit, monocle, silk hat and patent shoes from 11 P.M. to 5 A.M., but not during daylight.

But flappers? They would be arrested on sight with vamps, bathing beauties and beach shimmy dancers. Who knows what a beach shimmy dancer was then, but it is belly dancing in 2021. More than likely such a display would have been banned one hundred years ago even while the joking was going on.

The paper continued tongue-in-cheek saying a board fence 30’ high would be built 2 miles straight out into the lake. The ladies would bathe on one side and the gents on the other. Any person going around the end of the fence would be arrested. Apparently, the ridiculous was humorous. 

The papers jested about the women and their fashions, but the joking didn't seem to affect Bach-Dishmaker's advertising. It appeared that women were jumping on the fashion band wagon. Judging from the amount of advertising the company, and other stores did, women were jumping on the band wagon. 

Flappers raised eyebrows in the cities. Even in small town Algoma, they were ridiculed on the street and in the paper. How many flappers could there be in a small rural county? “Puerile Patter” was an Algoma Record Herald society column in the early 1920s. In September 1923 it ran an article about a directive issued by “General Gans Capelle, to All Member of the PeeWee Platoon.” Clarence “Gans” Capelle was a World War l veteran who said the Platoon was “directed to capture all the flappers in town, scrape the paint off their faces, photograph the captives and distribute the pictures so citizens would know what the other residents of the city looked like.” The paint in question was lipstick, rouge, powder, and other enhancing cosmetics.

Flappers even made the newspaper’s auto page in February 1924. The joke was that the new Fords had a bible turned upside down on the hood so if the owner ran out of swear words, he could read the bible backwards. The paper said it was a good invention to which would soon be added a scoop shovel attached to a long arm to be shoved outward to the sidewalk where it could be used to scoop up flappers thus avoiding unnecessary delays in stopping. Somebody must have enjoyed that bit of humor.

The Record Herald’s editors apparently spent some time in Milwaukee because comments were made on the faces of those women and questioning how there would be enough rouge left to “cover the maps of Algoma flappers.”

It was winter 1925 and Algoma was seeing snow. By the folks knew flappers could make it into any report when they made it into snowstorms, The paper was questioning winter sports in knickers, and how flappers could resist tobagganing or skiing. After all, the magazines showed models wearing beautiful clothing that wasn't "wowrth a whoop" in wind-swept country.

The issue, January 9, called attention to the Supreme Court ruling saying Chicago had to stop stealing “our lake water.” ARH said the ruling was a test case so there should not be much trouble keeping Sturgeon Bay flappers from “appropriating our so-called men.” What is “so-called?” In another dig, the paper continued saying if some of the flappers spent as much time using soap and water on the backs of their necks as they did with powder and lipstick on their faces, they’d be more attractive. Then the paper likened the women’s hair fashions to Mongolian tribesmen.

When the Farmers’ Cooperative Co. had their annual dance at Bruemmerville in July 1925, 276 men paid admission and brought with them “5 or 6 times as many gold-diggers, pseudo-flappers, plain housewives” and more. The paper described the kinds of dancing such as the latest wiggles which was stalling traffic. Capelle’s Pee-Wee’s Platoon was out in force when the paper continued the dancing descriptions. It said women were born to be steered, not to steer, and any woman raised havoc on a dance floor when she could neither pilot nor allow a partner to pilot. Once again in jest, the paper appealed to Assemblyman Anton Holly for a law to rotate clockwise on a dance floor and urged unattached women to attach themselves to chairs.

By 1927, folks were beginning to wonder what would happen when flappers married. Rolling socks, cigarettes, dollars, and dice was what flappers knew, but where grandmothers had a special day for washing, baking, and cleaning, the new generation flappers had days for golf, bridge, and motoring. Canned goods made market inroads and prepared foods were meeting demands. Prepared foods could be served at the flick of a wrist as ingenious flapper housewives found clever uses for canned goods. To serve a healthful frozen dessert, the shrewd woman opened a can of her favorite fruit - peaches, for instance – and set the can in a pail of ice and salt. Three hours later, dessert was ready to serve. That did require some planning because city housewives were dependent on the iceman.

Algoma – or at least part of it – was laughing late in 1928 when Ernest Haucke Post of the American Legion co-sponsored what was called the biggest social stunt of the season, a play titled “When Men Marry.” The production had a cast of 70 local men who were transformed with cosmetics and evening dresses into petite flappers, stately matrons, hot mamas, charming vamps, and "drug store shebas." The director of an Iowa theater company was in town teaching the men dainty steps, femininity and grace. The play was guaranteed to be a “scream.” But it was at the expense of the women ridiculed.

Even the prominent Mrs. Henry Ford was quoted in August 1931 when she commented on the knickers (short, loose pants gathered at the knee) and overalls worn by young women. That brought the little ditty, “I can show my shoulders, I can show my knees: I am a free-born American, I can show what I please.” Girls in Minneapolis had a football chant: “Root-a-tee-toot, Root-a-tee-toot, We’re the girls from the Institute. Although we freeze below the knees, We  still persist in BeeVeeDees.”

The Charleston caught on and dances began featuring contests such as the Charleston Contest and dance at William Paul’s Maplewood hall. That was followed in August 1926 when the six-piece Lyric Orchestra played for a dance at Bruemmerville. The dance featured a Charleston contest for which, proprietor W. Velicer said, there were prizes.

Arthur Murray was franchising dance studios as early as 1912. A March 1926 ad in Algoma Record Herald said one could learn the Charleston in as few as 6 lessons. Murray, who taught the Prince of Wales and 400,000 others, taught with clear and explicit instructions. In an article republished in the Record Herald, the Milwaukee Sentinel pointed out the 40 New York girls who became Charleston experts after watching the instructive movie reels. The Record Herald told readers  the series was shown in the best theaters and that one lesson a week would begin at the Majestic just after Easter. At the 7^th week, the Majestic would hold a local Charleston contest.

Algoma Record Herald commented in August 1933 on the dance marathons being reported by big city newspapers. The local paper told of the records being set by the “bob-haired flappers with rouged cheeks” who could dance all night and day without a pause. The paper felt some all but died of exhaustion. 

Then came an enterprising Illinois farmer who apparently felt mid-west girls weren’t interested in new-fangled flapper life while saying they could beat the world when it came to milking cows. In today’s world, one might feel he insulted mid-western women, but not so. His comment led to another kind of marathon when fourteen women and girls won their way into the milking finals.

Fourteen high-producing cows, beautified (cows are girls) for competition, were ready to milk. A few minutes after the ref gave the signal, Mrs. Hattie Garrelts bowed to the cheering crowd. She won a cash prize and a gold banner. As she accepted the honors, she told her audience that she  knew her Betty would win. As Mrs. Garrelts pointed out, Betty got proper rations, her stable was clean and, and regular intervals, her flanks and udders were clipped for better health, larger production and sanitation.” That prompted one farmer to wonder how much milk a cow would produce “for one of those bob-haired dancing flappers?” The farmers felt the milkers showed the world a real marathon even though milking didn’t make the front page.

In the early issues of Ahnapee Record, the 16- and 17-year-old editors, George Wing and Charles Borgman, advocated rights for women. That was 1873, but there were murmurings throughout U.S. history. Seneca Falls was a milestone. Women would not be denied and “it” started in the 1920s. In early 1942, women were expected to do their duty for the war effort. That meant many went into production jobs at places such as Algoma Plywood and the shipyards of Kewaunee and Sturgeon Bay.

Hemlines were calf level in the 1950s, but then came the 1960s with short shirts, the pill and bra-burning. Some schools checked the length of girls’ skirts. In some places the girls had to kneel on the floor. If the hem did not reach the floor, the girl was sent to the home ec room to let her hem down. The 1990s saw another woman’s movement and the baby steps taken toward equal pay for equal work while calling attention to those who were held in place by a glass ceiling. “Me Too” began a few years before 2020.

The flappers emerged as the world was coming out of the Pandemic of 1918-1919. They started a movement. Kewaunee County’s 1920 population was just over 16,000, and Kewaunee County was a part of that movement.

Note: Bach-Dishmaker, on the northwest corner of 4th and Steele, and Englebert's, which occupied the building occupied by Walters' Hardware today, advertised the latest fashions, which appeared to be more conservative than those hawked by stores in larger cities.

Sources: Algoma Record Herald, Kewaunee Enterprise, Sturgeon Bay Advocate, Wikipedia. The Last Collection by Jeanne Mackin, c. 2019, a World War ll era novel centering on the contentious relationship between Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli. It was the novel that piqued this blogger's curiosity about Algoma and the young women of the 1920s.

Graphics: Photos are the author's while the ads come from the newspapers noted.