#jazz age

[yesterdaysprint]

The Decatur Herald, Illinois, May 15, 1928

[cyclesofmystery]

1926: “This girl has all of [the] trends and she’s not loath to wear them at once: bell earrings, a dog collar worn as a necklace, a large beauty spot on her cheek, an ivory cigarette holder, a design to cover the vaccination mark on her arm, heavy bracelets, an anklet, a photo of a boyfriend on her stocking, an anklet watch, fancy garters worn below the knee and a mirror fastened to her wrist.”

Waiting for wristwatch anklets to make a comeback

[newyorkthegoldenage]

C.V. Farrow drew this beautiful map of what he called "The Wondrous Isle of Manhattan" in 1926. You MUST enlarge it. It wasn't intended to be used for navigation, but rather as a pictorial representation of the island's highlights. Below are a few details that show you what the full-size map is really like. You should enlarge them, too!

Source: Gothamist

[glamorouspoets]

Burlesque dancers, circa 1920

[luxus-aeterna]

exploring the Degas House, but make it 1935…

[la-cocotte-de-paris]

Kae Carroll in the Ziegfeld Follies, c. 1925-1927

[mote-historie]

George Barbier, La Belle Personne, Worth evening dress, detail, fashion plate from Gazette du Bon Ton, 1925.

[kitsunetsuki]

Edward Steichen - Marion Morehouse (Vogue 1927)

[iridessence]

source

[mygirlhatesmyheroin]

Loretta Young, late 1920s.

[kinglucasmasalla]

[yesterdaysprint]

Daily Mirror, England, April 8, 1920

[boscofuller]

[queerasfact]

Happy birthday Josephine Baker!

Josephine was born on 3 June 1906. She’s known best for her career as a dancer, singer and actress.  In 1925, she emigrated from the USA and took Paris by storm with her comic, energetic and provocative dancing (watch it here!) - sometimes wearing nothing but a single ostrich feather on stage.

But there’s also another side to Josephine - during WWII, she was a spy for the French resistance, sneaking important information out of the country written on her sheet music in invisible ink, or pinned to her underwear. She was also a life-member of the NAACP, travelling around the USA to campaign for civil rights, and speaking at the 1963 March on Washington.

Josephine was bisexual, having four husbands (or five, depending on how you’re counting) and many female lovers. She continued to perform up until her death in 1975.

Learn more

[Image: Josephine, smiling and doing finger guns, wearing a skirt made of sequinned bananas, lots of jewellery, and very little else]

[lackadaisycats]

It was my birthday yesterday, and for my birthday, I decided I wanted to share a little bit of animation. (From the Lackadaisy film, of course!)

Also - New Dev Log Post

This one explains a bit more about where we are in production currently, among other news!

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Many thanks to the artists who worked on the scenes featured above! - Directing and editing by Fable Siegel - Animation/cleanup by Nico Smania, Nick, Marie-Ève Lacelle (Zebirdbrain),  Adolfo Rodríguez, Annabel P. - Compositing by Ashley Nichols - Voices by Lisa Riemold, Belsheber Rusape, and Michael Kovach - Sound design by M Gewehr - Backgrounds and layout by Newt and Frog - And blog written by Clint Pereira

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Ex-Wife, published anonymously in 1929, was a succès de scandale. The very title aggressively challenged American mores and morals; divorce was almost unheard of in the middle classes at the time. And Manhattan high life in the 1920s (the novel takes place between 1923 and 1927) gave the prurient everything they could wish: not just divorce, but promiscuity, abortion, smoking, and drinking.

And I had, for an instant, that feeling that New York was an altogether beautiful place to live, no matter what happened to me living in it—a comforting feeling that had come to me sometimes, of late, when I stopped looking to people for comfort.

Narrated by Patricia, it tells of her life after her husband walked out on her. She goes from grief and despair to acceptance to indifference while becoming increasingly successful as an advertising copywriter in fashion, and bedding numerous men. Her friend Lucia, a slightly older and more experienced divorcee, supports and mentors her.

Surprisingly, the book is vehemently anti-feminist. The 1920s were a time when women could vote and were free of Victorian behavioral constraints, but systemic sexism ran deep and went largely unnoticed—at least by Patricia and Lucia.

The book was filmed in 1930 as The Divorcée, starring Norma Shearer, who won her only Oscar for it.

Norma Shearer in The Divorcee

In the forward to the 2023 edition (whose cover is shown above), Alissa Bennett writes, "It's easy to get caught in the trap of Ex-Wife's nostalgic charm; there are phonographs and jazz clubs and dresses from Vionnet; there are verboten cocktails and towering new buildings that reach toward a New York skyline so young that it still reveals its stars."

The author's son, Marc Parrott, agreed. "The New York described here," he wrote in an afterward to the 1989 edition, reprinted in the current edition, "and this was true, I think, for 20 years or more—was much smaller, much more intimate, much safer and much cheaper than the city from the '50s on to the present. It was also cleaner. My mother called it 'shining.'"

This is how Patricia and Lucia react to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue:

"The tune matches New York," Lucia said. "The New York we know. It has gaiety and colour and irrelevancy and futility and glamour as beautifully blended as the ingredients in crêpes suzette." I said, "It makes me think of skyscrapers and Harlem and liners sailing and newsboys calling extras." "It makes me think I’m twenty years old and on the way to owning the city," Lucia said. "Start it over again, will you?"

Second & fourth photos: NYC Past Third photo: eBay