The ladies hiked their skirts, cut their long tresses and bobbed whatever remained, rouged their cheeks, and got down and dirty with the new Jazz music. In elegant ballrooms, gaudy dancehalls, and in their own living rooms, they danced the Charleston, the Black Bottom, the Shimmy, the Tango, and almost anything else with a 4/4 beat.

The changes in women's clothing and hair styles were drastic. The girls "parked" their corsets when they went dancing, because the new, energetic Jazz Age dances required women to move freely, -something the "old ironsides" didn't allow. Pantaloons and corsets were replaced with underwear called "step-ins." The waists of 'Flapper' dresses were dropped to the hipline. Starting in 1923, the ladies began wearing rayon stockings ("artificial silk") which the Flapper often wore rolled over a garter that was below the knee. Here's the musical advice they were receiving.
  "Roll 'em Girls, Roll'em":, (536 kb) with Billy Murray vocal, (536 kb)

This Coca Cola Advertisement shows the "modern" style. The girls used lip rouge to give their lips a "cupie-bow" look and they tucked their bobbed hair into Cloche Hats. They adopted the "garçonne" ("little boy") look that was instigated by French designer Coco Chanel.

In 1923, the Broadway musical 'Runnin' Wild' opened with a song by Black pianist composer James P. Johnson callled The "Charleston"; sung by Elizabeth Welch. Curiously, the tune didn't catch on with the public until the all-Black cast of "Running Wild" appeared in "Florenz Ziefeld's Follies of 1923". No other dance epitomizes the spirit and joyous exhuberance of the 1920's more than the   "Charleston". The dance became so widely popular that even to this day, it is still the main symbol of the 1920s Jazz Age. Come on, let's roll up the rug and we'll "shake a leg"..... What! You don't know how to dance the Charleston....gee, it's so easy. Look Here are the steps, (Courtesy: www.homesteadmuseum.org/jtt/1920s%20charleston.pdf)

All during the 1920s, the dance was the Flapper's delight. The ladies danced it by themselves, with a partner, or in a group. It became an international craze. Even Hollywood had Betty Boop, the cartoon Flapper. (Cartoonist: Max Fleischer. The character was named in honor of singer Helen Kane, the "Boop Boop a Doop" girl. Scroll down and listen to Helen "Booping" her heart out with "I Want To Be Loved By You")

"Tin Pan Alley" turned out hundreds of "Charleston" variations, and Charleston contests, were a regular part of Dance halls and hotels everywhere. Hospitals began receiving patients complaining of "Charleston knee." Interestingly, the Stodgier ballrooms tried to discourage the frenetic "Charleston" by posting signs that read simply, "PCQ" ("Please Charleston Quietly"). Today, in our mind's eye, we visualize Flappers with their knock knees, crossing hands, and flying beads dancing the Charleston. However, the editors of the May 1920 edition of the 'Atlantic Monthly' saw the dance in a different light. "....flappers "trot like foxes, limp like lame ducks, one-step like cripples, and all to the barbaric yawp of strange instruments which transform the whole scene into a moving-picture of a fancy ball in bedlam."

One of the more successful variants, a dance called the "Black Bottom", was first introduced in the 1926 Broadway edition of George White's "Scandals Listen now to a 1926 version of the   "Black Bottom", as played by Johnny Hamp's Kentucky Serenaders. (Victor Orthophonic 20102-B). Within that one year, the dance swept not only America, but the entire world. "The dance featured the slapping of the, uh, er, cough, hack, one's "backside" while hopping forward and backward, stamping the feet and gyrations of the pelvis. Quite suggestive for the time."

Artists John Held Jr. (the quintessential caracaturist of the Roaring 1920s Jazz Age) first used the "Flapper" expression, while creating the image and style of the flapper by drawing young girls wearing Galoshes. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald described the ideal flapper as "lovely, expensive, and about nineteen."

Eventually, all of the earlier dances lost popularity and the Foxtrot became the preferred dance. Here's an early Strut variation (Although not credited on the cover, the artwork is very obviously that of John Held Jr, and the 'girl' is the quintessential Flapper of the Roaring '20s Jazz Age.)

The Charleston dance had been performed in American Black communities since 1903, but didn't become internationally popular until the 1923 Broadway musical debut. ( Musicologists have traced the dance back to Blacks who lived on an island off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina (ergo: "Charleston").

The "Charleston" is a sprightly 4/4 time dance with syncopated rhythm. From the male point of view, the dance consists of stepping forward with the left foot, while also moving the left arm forward and the right arm backwards. then bring the right foot up to the left, just tapping the floor. The right foot then steps backward, and the left foot moves ever futher back behind the right foot and just taps the floor, while the arms also reverse their positions. Then repeat. You're dancing the Charleston.

In 1929 the stock market crashed and the world was plunged into the Great Depression. The frivolity and licentious behavior of the time ended. However, much of the flapper's changes remained. The Flappers had broken away from the Victorian image of womanhood. They dropped the corset, chopped their hair, dropped layers of clothing, wore make-up, created the concept of dating, and became a sexual person. These ladies had created a "new" more "modern" woman. --- Murray L. Pfeffer

  "Ballin' The Jack":, (452 kb) Played by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra (with the lyric)

  "Ballin' The Jack":, (537 kb) Louisiana Rhythm Kings playing this tune as a "Dixieland" instrumental.

  "Crazy Rhythm":, (516 kb kb) The great George Gershwin tune played here by George Olsen and His Orch.

  "Do the Raccoon":, (543 kb) George Olsen & his Music

  "Crazy Words, Crazy Tune":, (456 kb) Irving Aaronson & His Commanders

  "The Bees Knees", (623 kb): Played by the California Ramblers. When Jazzage Babies wanted to say that something was good, they would say "It's the Bee's Knees", or "It's the Cat's Meow", or "It's Cellophane".

  "Black Bottom Stomp": (532 kb) Annette Hanshaw warbling.

  "Vo Do De Oh Blues", 800kb. The Goofus Five (Little California Ramblers) Okeh Records. June 15, 1927

  "The Girl Friend", (600 kb): The California Ramblers playing this lovely Rodgers and Hart tune.

  "College Girls", (369kb). The Ramblers. Rec'd for Columbia in NYC January 19, 1927.

  "My Cutey's Due At Two-To-Two Today", (333kb). The Little Ramblers. Rec'd: August 17, 1926 New York, New York for Columbia. (There is one place in this file where the tone arm pickup jumps the groove wall to the adjacent groove and we are unable to repair it as yet.)

  "Bye Bye Blackbird":, (531 kb) George Olsen & his Music, with vocal chorus

  "Ain't We Got Fun?", (587kb). Mitchell's Jazz Kings. Rec'd: Paris, France Jan. 1922. Pathe.

  "Sunday", (512 kb) More George Olsen orchestra with a typical "Vo-Do-De-Oh" roaring 1920s tune, with the William's Sisters doing the vocalizing.

  "Come On, Baby!":, (488 kb) Lou Gold and His Orchestra, with Jim Andrews on the vocals. (very typical 1920s dance music.)

  "My Blue Heaven":, (615 kb) with Gene Austin crooning in 1927. (615 kb)

  "Hot Cha Cha":, (533 kb) with Rudy Vallee singing

  "Roses of Yesterday": (385 kb) Harry Trimble and His Oklahomans, with vocals by Robert Wood

Here's a photo of Helen Kane, (née: Helen Schroeder, b. August 4, 1903, New York (The Bronx), NY, USA. d. Sept. 26, 1966, New York (Queens), NY, USA) some sources say b. 1904. With her large eyes, bobbed hairdo, and "painted Cupie Bow" lips, she was one of the quintessential Flappers of the late 1920s. It was while playing the Palace Theatre in New York, that she interpolated a scat phrase -- " he likes to Boop Boop A Doop" -- into the song "That's My Weakness Now", and became an overnight star. Later, Grim Natwick, an illustrator for Hollywood's 'Fleischer Studios', used Kane as the model for his studio's most famous Cartoon creation, "Betty Boop". When she was just 15 years old, Kane was already working professionally, touring the Orpheum Circuit with the Marx Brothers. She would go on to become a world-wide star. Interestingly, during the height of her fame -1928-1930- Kane made 22 song recordings. Between 1930 and 1951, she made only five more, including a re-release of "I Wanna Be Loved by You". Sadly, Kane developed breast cancer and underwent surgery in 1956. She would eventually receive two hundred radiation treatments as an outpatient at New York's famed 'Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital'. Helen was age 62 (or 63) when she died in her apartment. Her (3rd) husband Dan Healy was at her bedside.

  "I Want To Be Loved By You":, (436 kb) Helen Kane with her "Signature Song", from the musical "Good Boy". (record released Sept. 20, 1928) Composed by Kalmar and Ruby , (Kane was one of the stars closely associated with them)

  "Button Up Your Overcoat":, (493 kb) Helen Kane - The "Boop Boop A Doop" Girl" (née: Helen Schroeder) singing this DeSylva, Brown, and Henderson song, recorded Jan. 30, 1929, from the musical "Follow Through"

  "That's My Weakness Now":, (685 kb) Kane singing on this record released July 16, 1929 " He likes to Boop Boop A Doop"... and that's my weakness now" -- and everyone in the audience that day knew just what " Boop Boop A Doop" meant. (words and music by: Bud Green & Sam H. Stept)

  "I Want To Be Bad":, (487 kb) Helen Kane singing this tune from the musical "Follow Through" (record released Jan. 30, 1929) Composed by: BG Desylva, Lew Brown, Ray Henderson.

  "I'd Do Anything For You":, (495 kb) Helen singing on this record that was released June 14, 1929. (composed: Cliff Friend, Lew Pollack)

  "Dont Be Like That":, (492 kb) Kane singing this hit that was released Dec. 20, 1928. Words and music - Archie Gottler, Charles Tobias and Maceo Pinkard

  "For My Baby", (574 kb): Leo Reisman and His Orchestra, with trio vocal in 1927