In ‘The Art of Living as a Feminine Institution,’ published in the November 1920 issue of Vanity Fair, American poet John Peale Bishop outlines what he describes as ‘phases of civilization’ (47). Included alongside ‘man's conquest over nature’ and ‘man's conquest over himself ‘ (47) is the art of living, seen to be contained within daily routine and domestic social encounters. Bishop defines this art of living as primarily feminine, and his concise list of what he deems ‘the social arts’ could serve as a draft contents page for the women's magazines of the period. For the intended readership of mass-market magazines in the 1920s, the improvement of the domestic environment and the projection of a successful image of the self as wife, hostess and fashionable woman remained highest on their list of priorities. Yet, when the 1920s are mentioned, especially in the context of North America, the housewife (or future housewife) is not the dominant popular image.

Rather, it is the flapper who springs most readily to mind. Perhaps this is because, as far as images of femininity go, she has come to be symbolic of so many things: social change, controversy, shifts in gender paradigms and the decline of traditional models of morality, among others. Or perhaps it is because, visually, she is so easily recognisable: with her short, bobbed hair; her slender, androgynous figure; her more revealing, loose-fitting clothes. The flapper was ever-present in smart magazines such as Vogue, Harper's Bazar (later Harper's Bazaar, 1898– present), and Vanity Fair throughout the 1920s and into the 1930s.