The decade started on a high note of science, discovery and optimism.
The Boy Scouts were established, Greenwich Mean Time was adopted, Ernest
Rutherford discovered the structure of the atom, and
in South America, Machu Picchu was discovered. But in 1912, the same
year that parachutes were developed, the Titanic sank, and in the USA
personal income taxes were introduced the following year (ouch). 1914
was the beginning of the end of innocence. Even as the Panama canal
opened, World War I was starting. The following year poison gas was
first used as a weapon and the Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine.
The following years of war held little good news, the Russian Revolution
started in 1917, the same year the USA entered World War I and the year
Mata Hari was executed as a spy. In 1918 Daylight Savings Time was
introduced, but the world was hit by a widespread flu epidemic, and
the Russian Czar and his family were killed. With the end the the
decade, the long bloody World War One came to an end, woman's suffrage
was in full swing, and prohibition began in the USA.
In the early years, the well-to-do woman still had the time or resources
to work on her hair and her image, striving for elegance and artistry.
The hair framed the face and the thin face was often improved by puffing
the hair at the sides, to which purpose the hair could be parted in the
center. Curls and ringlets were yet in style, promoted in the more
exaggerated fashion by the Cinderellas of the screen, as portrayed by
Mary Pickford and Lilian Gish. Those with round faces could fluff the
hair or dress it up. But as this was the age when the woman travelled
more for recreational purposes (whether touring in the automobile) or
bicycle, the cumbersome fashions and hair became less desirable to
create and maintain. The styles of Paris still had influence around the
world, but with the abrupt commencement of World War I, and the
thrusting of the woman into roles of danger and responsibility,
everything would change. Styles became shorter and simpler, the girlish
curls of innocence disappeared, Suffrage arose and Womankind was
recognized for her importance in the world and her unspoken influence on
the fate of mankind as the spirit Peace and Harmony. It was time for
her to speak up, to nurse the wounded, to put an end to war, and going
further to crush the origin of suffering caused by the evil
Alcohol. A woman would still have fun, but with a more streamlined mane
as she attacked the tennis courts set forth on the highways.
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