The Sassy Jazz Age

Those who were young in the 1960s tend to think that theirs was the first era of social and sexual revolution.  But the 1920s was a time of radical change when  Western civilization truly entered the modern age. The burgeoning middle class embraced consumerism, and soon there was a Model-T Ford – available for as little as $290 - or other automobile in nearly every yard. People enjoyed new innovations such as radio, Kleenex, rayon, electric shavers, Popsicles, air conditioning, and Jantzen swimsuits – “The Suit that Changed Bathing to Swimming”.  

Liberated from confining corsets and floor-sweeping gowns, women stepped out of parlours as well as domestic service to pursue careers, or at least jobs that afforded them independence. Unchaperoned, they smoked, drank illegal booze, wore daring makeup, bobbed their hair, danced the Charleston with wild abandon in nightclubs, necked with boyfriends in the back seat of automobiles, and sometimes believed in “free love”.  Poet Dorothy Livesay spent a summer at the Muskoka Chautauqua where she went blueberry picking in the nude with friends. There were topless shows on Broadway, and Hollywood movies became so steamy that moral censorship guidelines were instituted through the “Motion Picture Production Code” in 1934. Banned on screen were such things as “excessive or lustful kissing” and profanities, including “God”,  “Christ”, “hell, and “damn”.  

But Paris was much more liberal. Homosexuality wasn’t a crime there, and sexual predilections of all kinds enjoyed unprecedented freedoms. With the franc devalued to mere cents compared to the dollar, it was little wonder that so many North Americans – then under Prohibition - moved to the “City of Light”. Among the 30,000 plus ex-pat Americans were artists and authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. It was an exciting time to be young and mingling with the artistic and intellectual avant-garde, whose names still resonate as the voices of their generation.

It was great fun to portray this sassy era - which is remembered as both “The Jazz Age” and “The Roaring 20s” - in my latest novel, Under the Moon.

Where have all the dancers gone?

 Whether summering at a Muskoka cottage or one of the many resort hotels in the last century, one of the fun activities was attending lakeside dances. Elegantly attired enthusiasts would canoe, row, or cruise over to a venue, sometimes in a chauffeur-driven launch.

According to Muskoka Traditions by Andrew Wagner-Chazalon and Bev McMullen, “The Lake Rosseau Club at Cleveland’s House… was so popular in the 1930s that people were known to wait in shifts for their turn to dance. Other resorts had their own style - Windermere House was known for quiet, sedate music, whereas the Charleston and jitterbugging were popular at the Royal Muskoka.”

One of the most renowned dance halls was Dunn’s Pavilion (renamed The Kee to Bala in the 1960s), which hosted big name bands like Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Guy Lombardo, and others. It was built mostly over water, with a large sundeck that enticed couples to snatch a few minutes from the hectic activity to watch the moon shimmer across the lake. There were live bands every evening except Sundays, since dancing was not allowed on the Sabbath in Ontario in those days. Weekends were so popular that special trains from Toronto were added to accommodate the crowds of partygoers who, locals lamented, “were sleeping all over the place, on the beaches, in the park.” Those who couldn’t get into Dunn’s would sit in the grounds or on their boats and listen to the music drift into the star-studded night.

Less formal but no less popular were the dances once rock and roll invaded The Kee with bands like April Wine, Lighthouse, The Tragically Hip, and numerous others. Those of us who've been there have never forgotten those magical evenings.

The Kee to Bala still attracts top name bands for concerts on summer weekends, but unfortunately, the few resorts that remain no longer have dances. I’ve missed those on my holidays in Muskoka these last couple of decades. Fortunately, my characters can dance to their heart’s content in the Roaring 20s.

Sexy, Scandalous, Revolutionary

One of the fun aspects of writing fiction is that you get to create the world your characters inhabit. So you design or select their homes, furnishings, cars, boats (in my case), books, music, and, of course, clothes. So I’ve recently been drooling over photos of fabulous sequined, beaded, bejewelled, gilded, feathered, fringed, flirty, flapper frocks.

The Roaring 20s was an age of opulence and excess, as illustrated in the works of Evelyn Waugh and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and, indeed, in the latter’s own outrageous lifestyle with his wife Zelda. It was also a revolutionary era when young women rebelled against the strictures of Victorian society and morality. They scandalized the older generations because they smoked and drank in public (this, during Prohibition), wore makeup, danced “immodestly”, dated unchaperoned, bobbed their hair, and hiked their hemlines. No longer confined by breath-snatching corsets, they wore comfortable clothes in which they could easily participate in sports or dance the night away, and which facilitated sexual exploration, often in the back seats of cars.

The most influential couturier of the “modern” woman was Coco Chanel, whose “garçonne” look or flapper style, made some diehard complain that “women no longer exist; all that’s left are the boys created by Chanel.” If the clothes didn’t show women’s curves, they did reveal unprecedented lengths of leg. One Baptist minister opined:

“Mary had a little skirt,

The latest style no doubt,

But every time she got inside,

She was more than halfway out.”

To see some stunning gowns, visit these websites: Antique and Vintage Dress Gallery and Vintage Textile. It’s evident from the descriptions that the fully beaded dresses were heavy (4 pounds or more), and instructions are given for how to get out of the ones that have no closures (and ergo, no openings). “Bend way forward at the waist, pull the skirt up and then raise your arms over your dropped head and let gravity help you wiggle out of the dress.”

To see how these gowns scintillated, especially when dancing, have a look at this clip on YouTube. The dress that Carol Channing is wearing wouldn’t have had an underskirt slit that high at the side, but otherwise is representative of the period fashion.

I would love to wear one of these vintage dresses (or a replica) at my next book launch, as Book 3 of my Muskoka Novels takes place during the 1920s. In the meantime, I have to go and design half a dozen houses and cottages, a 6-slip boathouse, and a slew of costumes for a fancy dress ball!

For a fascinating look at the Jazz Age, read Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern, by Joshua Zeitz.