ABSTRACT

There have been times and places in which it was fun to be good, and others in which it was more fun to be bad. American society today teeters on the balance, where we often find traditions and opportunities which help us live lives as full as any in past history, yet at the same time we sometimes find ourselves saying (occasionally in earnest, often only in wistful jokes) that the best way to have a really good time is to break some of the rules. Is this a heritage from our distant past, or only from the 1920’s? I have recently had a chance to find out a good deal about my ancestresses for six generations back, and have come to the conclusion that for them it was fun to be good; they lived at a time and place where such a life was possible. It was only as conditions changed, toward the end of the nineteenth century, that women’s sphere narrowed down rather suddenly so that there were a good two generations that were either left partially idle or had to fight for the right to use their abilities freely.