What was life like for teenagers in the 1920's?

I asked a similar question earlier. Easy ten. Was every girl really married off by 16, or could a wealthy girl still be living with her family? %26lt;3What was life like for teenagers in the 1920's?
Depends which country you lived in and whether your family was rich or poor (no change there!).





In UK and USA people usually married earlier than today (around 18 to 20 years old). It was quite possible for a girl to remain unmarried, especially in France or UK as we had lost so many men in the First World War that there simply weren't enough to go around. Often unmarried women would get jobs as servants or schoolteachers.





A wealthy girl could certainly still be living with her family in her 20s as rich families liked to arrange the best possible 'match' ie marry her off to someone wealthy and well-connected, which sometimes took some doing! I'd recommend any of P.G Woodehouse's novels for an examination of the situation amongst the English upper classes.What was life like for teenagers in the 1920's?
Most girls were not married off by sixteen. True, more people left school at an earlier age than they do now, and far fewer went to college, but that applied to boys as well as girls.





Single girls would be expected to work for a living, just like single boys were. Many girls did secretarial work, or worked as nurses or teachers or social workers or librarians, or they worked in shops or factories or as telephone operators. A great many girls were still working in domestic service. some women went into medicine, though the proportion was lower than in the pre-WW1 era. There was a decline of interest among women in following professions during this era.





True, most girls expected to give up work when they married, but in the meantime they were earning a living, or going to college (the proportion of girls going to college dropped during the 1920s from what it had been in the pre-WW1 era, but there were still plenty of them going).





And while they were young they were enjoying themselves. The 1920s was the era of the 'flapper' when women to cutting their hair and shortening their skirts, danced, smoked, drank and drove autmobiles. They took to wearing makeup and to sunbathing. They played golf and tennis and went swimming, and some even took to flying aeroplanes.





it became acceptable for girls to go out with boys without a chaperone, to kiss them, and even to indulge in 'heavy petting' (anything short of sexual intercourse). More girls were sexually active before marriage, though the majority still prefered to wait. Most people at that time were not 'married off', they chose their own marriage partners.





The cinema was massively popular during this era, and most people went at least once a week. Film stars like Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Tallulah Bankhead, Theda Bara, Dorothy and Lillian Gish and Rudolph Valentino, were major celebrities. At home, the radio was becoming very popular.





Most girls probably would still live with their families, but some might move out to share apartments with friends. Some women did go on working after marriage, but in general it was only very poor women who had no choice who did that. Having to work and raise a family at the same time was not considered a particularly desirable option in those days.
My aunt was born in 1912, so she was a teenager during the 1920,s. She rode as an Indian Maiden in a Wild West Show held weekends on the 101 Ranch in Oklahoma. She attended college in Tonkawa, Oklahoma and earned a business degree.


She did all the things the other girls did. Drank, smoked, etc and was a ';flapper';. There were no jobs in the 30's because of the depression, so everyone stayed on the farms if they could and worked together there. Of course WWII ended the depression and work was available for everyone. Women dominated the work force since the men were off fighting.





During the 1920's very few people had automobiles. Fewer yet flew. There were no computers, TV, etc. People made their clothes, grew and canned their food, raised and butchered their own meat for the most part. They read, listened to radio, did needle point or sewing. They worked leather, washed clothes on a scrub board by hand, cut wood for the stoves. Many drew water from wells. Few had flush toilets.





Hope this helped
women were not allowed to work. So imagine the fear and pressure to get married.
They only had the Atari 2600 back then so things really sucked.