Bad girls, tough guys, and the changing of the guard

Abstract

Olga Nethersole, Sapho , and the Moral Reform movement By the 1900s, the evolving American culture began to clash with the fixed certitudes preached by establishment politicians and moralists. At the eye of the storm was the “New Woman.” These women, mainly white and middle class, graduated from high school and attended colleges and professional schools in record numbers. Many entered new fields such as anthropology and sociology, and were among the first to propose that gender distinctions were socially constructed. They demanded the right to vote, birth-control information, and abortion services. Social conditions in large cities also induced significant concern. Single men and women, who had flooded into metropolitan areas for jobs, began to dominate the social landscape. After work and on weekends they crowded into the scores of dance halls and amusement parks that had sprung up across the nation. They flocked to vaudeville theatres and to the newly operational movie houses that provided cheap entertainment. Here, they engaged in improvised courtship rituals without the supervision of parents, teachers, and ministers. At the same time, the commercial sex industry flourished as the glut of male workers and immigrants created a fertile market for brothel owners and independent female entrepreneurs. Middle-class moralists interpreted these cultural shifts as an attack on society's ethical armature and mounted a series of counteroffensives aimed at keeping Victorian morality firmly in place. They targeted gambling, alcohol, prostitution, immigration, and homosexuality and enlisted the aid of willing public officials who attempted to suppress transgressive behavior.