Print media in the 1920s played a pivotal role in defining, popularizing, and marketing the image of the flapper to women across the country. Colorful magazine covers and amusing cartoons celebrated the flapper lifestyle, influencing the public’s perceptions and encouraging the adoption of this new, emancipated identity. Sheet music, with striking illustrations that conveyed the energetic and celebratory mood of the time, allowed people to engage with the era’s vibrant musical culture directly at home.
The flapper was both glorified and ridiculed—sometimes portrayed as a modern, liberated woman and sometimes as a silly, self-absorbed caricature—but always recognizable by her distinctive fashion and unconventional behaviors. By consistently highlighting the flapper’s style and attitude, print media helped solidify her role as a symbol of the Roaring Twenties, while reflecting broader social changes and the growing desire for personal freedom and self-expression.
Robert Patterson (1898-1981) Cover of Judge, June 2, 1928 Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum
John Held, Jr. (1889-1958) Cover of Life, June 3, 1926 Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum
John Held, Jr., one of the most in-demand illustrators of the 1920s, captured the exuberance and dynamism of the Jazz Age with his distinctive style. His use of simplified forms, exaggerated, angular proportions, and lively compositions made his images instantly recognizable.
Humorist Corey Ford observed, "Fitzgerald christened [. . .] the Jazz Age, but John Held, Jr. set its style and manners. His angular and scantily clad flapper was accepted by scandalized elders as the prototype of modern youth, the symbol of our moral revolution. Frankly I had never seen anything remotely resembling that fantastic female until Held's derisive pen portrayed her. My guess is that she sprang full-blown from his imagination."
Held’s covers often included a clever title that gently poked fun at flapper behavior, like “The Sweet Girl Graduate” who, upon graduating, immediately sets her diploma ablaze in order to light her cigarette.
John Held, Jr. (1889-1958) Cover ofLife,September 15, 1927 Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum
“It Won’t Be Long Now” depicts a gangly girl with rouged cheeks and rolled stockings getting the quintessential bob haircut—the defining moment in the transformation of regular girl to full-fledged flapper.
John Held, Jr. (1889-1958) Cover ofLife, September 30, 1926 Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum
Here, the flapper is in a pose reminiscent of a patient on Freud's famous psychoanalytical couch. Freud's theories, which encouraged a more liberated lifestyle and a more open attitude towards sexual expression, became popular in the 1920s.
John Held, Jr. (1889-1958) "It's all right, Santa—you can come in. My parents still believe in you." fromLife,December 1925 Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum
“For Surf or Sun Bathing Modes for Smart Resorts,” from The Delineator, June 1927 Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum
By the end of the decade, what was once considered scandalous had become commonplace. The illustrations for these clothing patterns subvert gender norms, with the female figures dressing and behaving similarly to the male figures, in short bathing costumes and smoking in public.
Barksdale Rogers (20th Century) Cover for Judge, February 2, 1929 Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum
“Excuse My Dust” features a flapper applying a thick layer of powder to her already heavily made-up face. Both her hair and her dress are short and cut close to her body.
