Cologne/Weimar/Vienna: Böhlau 2011. 227 pages, numerous black-and-white images, soft cover Series: Literatur – Kultur – Geschlecht, Studien zur Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte [Literature – Culture – Gender, Studies on Literature and Cultural History], short series, Volume 29 ISBN: 978-3-412-20603-1
Information about the book
In 1920s, the City Girls conquer the media and metropolises. They show up with a new look: bobs, short skirts and cigarettes. Their stage is the big city. The bobs, blue stockings, working girls and typists are an expression of a shift in the understanding of the role of women in the beginning of the 20th century. Restlessness, dancing mania and excess create an insane cosmos for a brief period of time. Femininity, the big city and modernity congeal into the myth of the »modern woman«. Their lives are no longer defined by the three »C’s« (children, cooking, church) but by the three »M’s« (modern fashion, metropolis, media).
However, female autonomy and financial independence through employment also result in the »frosts of freedom«. Film and photography, literature and fine arts pick up on these changes in the relationship between the sexes and reflect the representation of this new female archetype. The image of the »modern woman« as an international and intermedial phenomenon of the modern era is the focus of this book.
Reviews
- Ulrike Weymann: City Girls. Über Bubiköpfe, Flapper und It-Girls in Literatur, Film und Medien der 1920er Jahre [City Girls: On Bobs, Flappers and It-girls in Literature, Film and Media in the 1920s]. In: Lesart, No. 4, 2011, p. 38-39.
- One-hour radio feature on City Girls with Jacqueline Rousetty from Radio Multikulti (Berlin), Broadcast on: 20 January 2012.
- Ingrid Leonie Severin: Review of: J. Freytag; A. Tacke (Publisher): City Girls. Bubiköpfe und Blaustrümpfe in den 1920er Jahren. [City Girls. Bobs and Blue Stockings in the 1920s] Cologne 2011 In: H-Soz-u-Kult, 02.03.2012. Also at: http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/re-zensionen/2012-1-149.
- Maggie Stanley Majors (College of Charleston): City Girls. In: Monatshefte [Monthly Magazines], Vol. 106, No. 4, 2014, p. 719-721.
- Walter Delabar: Lebensweltliche Avantgardistinnen. [Female Avant Garde Artists]. In: Magazin für Literatur und Politik [Magazine for Literature and Politics], Issue 51/52, June 2016.