ABSTRACT
The most effervescent symbol of the twenties was the flapper. She was a new American girl, a new woman, a new arrangement of the elements of sex and love. The generic flapper is the nice girl who is a little fast, who takes the breath of staid observers with her flip spontaneity, her short-lived likes and dislikes, her way of skating gaily over thin ice. The flapper seemed the most notable new character upon the scene. The flapper fascinated because she flouted respectability. The twenties created the flapper and the gangster, who were exceptional and notable. Mary Pickford was not a flapper, and the Mary Pickford type of sweet, confiding, shy, and yet gay innocent female dominated after-the-war covers and illustrations in the Saturday Evening Post, which may be taken as a place to watch for the flapper's arrival. A change appears in the familiarity of the boy and girl on the innocuous covers.
