CONSUMING MODERNITY CHANGING GENDERED BEHAVIOURS AND CONSUMERISM 1919-1945

Cheryl Krasnick Warsh Dan Malleck Editors

Consuming Modernity: Changing Gendered Behaviours and Consumerism, 1919-1945 Cheryl Krasnick Warsh and Dan Malleck, editors

Table of Contents
List of Illustrations Introduction: Consuming Modernity Dan Malleck and Cheryl Krasnick Warsh 5 4

Consumerism as Practice and Ideology

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Public Authority as Professional Authority: Consumer Culture and the Medicalization of Womens Roles in Canada, 1919-1939 Tracy Penny Light, St. Jeromes University 13

Making Household Managers and Modern Mothers: Selling Lysol as a Household Disinfectant in North America during the Interwar Period Kristin Hall, Laurentian University 44

The Housewife and the Miraculous Pill: Advertising for Medicine and the representation of womens work and body in Montral newspapers, between the wars. Denyse Baillargeon, Universit de Montral 80

Beauty is our Business: Annie Malone, Poro College and Consumption among African American Women in early 20th century Los Angeles. De Anna J. Reese, California State University, Fresno 109

Consumerism and Public Display

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Women and Sport a Change of Taste: Identity and Sports Participation in Interwar Britain. Fiona Skillen, University of Glasgow Aesthetic Athletics: Advertising and Eroticizing Women Swimmers. Marilyn Morgan, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University Shades of Change: Suntanning and the Interwar Years. Devon Atchison, Grossmont College, San Diego 207 164 124

Modern Girls

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The Promise of Beauty: Canadian Advice Columns, the Modern Body, and Consumption in the 1920s. Jane Nicholas, Lakehead University 235

Consuming Dreams of a Mexican Modernity and the (En)gendering of a Modern Self in PostRevolutionary Mexico City, 1920-1940. Susanne K. Eineigel, University of Maryland 268

Understanding Modernity and Nation: Representations of the Argentinean Modern Girl (Buenos Aires 1918-1939). Cecilia Tossounian, European Univ. Institute, Firenze, Italy 303

Texts and Ideologies of Modernity and Consumerism The Consumer Election (1935). Bettina Liverant, University of Alberta

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Protecting Gender Norms at the Local Movie Theater: The Heidelberg Committee for Monitoring Local Theaters, 1919-1933. Kara Ritzheimer, Oregon State University 372
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Guilty Pleasures: Consumerism in the Fiction of Mary Quayle Innis. Donica Belisle, University of British Columbia 402

Contributors

426

Bibliography

428

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

Introduction: Consuming Modernity Dan Malleck & Cheryl Krasnick Warsh

Between 1918 and 1945, residents of western countries faced tremendous cultural, social economic and political change. The economic expansion of the postwar period was combined with new techniques in advertising, and a concomitant growth of a new culture of consumption. The mobilization of citizenry during Great War had forced a reconsideration of gendered social roles, with the result that, in the interwar period, ideas of womanhood (and in some ways manhood) challenged the status quo. Women were entering public society with more confidence and assertion. The intersection of the changes in gender roles and the growth of mass consumption presented new challenges and opportunities. Images of the new woman infiltrated and at times drove advertising strategies. Ideas of the importance of the consumer, and nurturing both male and female buying habits, expanded the reach and altered the assumptions of advertisers. At the same time, the image of womans body became even more clearly, contested terrain. Progressive reformers and everyday people resisted what they saw as a damaging and socially corruptive sexualization of the female form. But to little avail. By the end of this interwar period, it is fair to say that their world had, in the words of WB Yates, all changed, utterly. To extend the quotation, in some ways, a terrible beauty was born.

The essays in this collection examine key themes in the intersection of gender, modernity and the rise of consumer culture in the interwar period (which we admit in this study is not cleanly bookmarked by the years 1918 and 1939, with discussions and analyses necessarily slipping backwards and tumbling forwards). The growth of the professional advertising industry, fuelled by the priorities of the expanding market capitalism, harnessed archetypes and stereotypes of idealized consumers to push the agendas of their clients. Some of the most common images were gendered, usually female. The modern woman, with her independence and non-traditional lifestyle, captured the imagination of both advertising executives and consumers alike. This process paralleled the rise of a new consumerist mindset, with the need for more, new and technologically advanced products leading to a changed relationship between the citizen and the capitalist market. Seduced by the images and the possibilities, citizenship was about consumption, and the important role of the consumer heror himself affected the way politicians defined key issues during Depression-era election campaigns. The expansion of mass-market capitalism altered the relationship between citizens and consumption. Advertising, for example, ceased to be a process of simply explaining that a new product or service was available, and transmogrified into assertions of the fundamental personal need for new, better products. Kristin Hall and Denyse Baillargeon each explore how advertising to women drew upon their anxieties as mothers. Lysol antiseptic would ensure a healthy family; medical advertising more broadly re-inscribed gendered discourses of womans dependence and simultaneously her responsibility for the health of her family. Tracy Penny

Light illustrates how medical authority was sought to reiterate this authoritative discourse, using science to convince women to buy products that would best protect the home. In many advertisements and even whole marketing campaigns, the female body became a central discursive trope. Women were selling products, but not only women as traditional mothers or housewives, who might have some influence in the purchasing of the product. Rather, womens bodies became metaphorically consumed by the gaze of the consumer. Jane Nicholas shows how the female body became itself a vehicle (pun intended) for sales of car parts, with the Fisher Body Girl presenting the sublime, idealized (wealthy, svelte and fashionable) woman, to make sexy the mundane (car parts; yes, car parts). Moreover, as Nicholas demonstrates, advertising allowed for a re-enchantment of consumer goods that was reflexive; so just as Fishers car parts became sexy, women looked at images of the idealized woman and scrutinized their non-ideal self. Some things dont change. The power of ads expanded far beyond the market for their products; Donica Belisle illustrates how consumerism fuelled fantasies for poor women during the 1920s and 1930s, who dreamt of living the fantastic lifestyles advertised as a way of escaping, however, temporarily, the reality of their own lives. This process of consumption was not simply a paternalistic imposition of male values upon women. As several authors demonstrate, women were asserting their new roles and visibility in society, opening themselves up, often willingly, to the new public role. The modern woman was considered an independent, intelligent, and socially active. Characterized in the stereotype of the flapper, with her bobbed hair, short skirts and androgynous physical form,

this modern woman defied social expectations, asserting her independence against traditional roles that would push her back into the home and motherhood. This modern woman trope has been contested by historians, and several authors in this collection debate its usefulness and validity. The modern woman had its male counterpart: the damaged man, and both stereotypes were considered threats to traditional society. While the modern woman was newly independent, the damaged man, most often associated with the psychologically compromised returned soldier, represented an equally socially troublesome stereotype. She was strong, independent and resilient, challenged traditional values and norms and unwilling to be shoehorned into the role of wife and mother; he as weak, dependent and broken, unable to fulfill his role as husband and breadwinner. Yet it was the modern woman whose body graced the pages of print advertising across the western world. She was consumed and a consumer; living the good life, driving the best car, wearing the best clothes. As an idealized image, manipulated by the increasingly professionalized advertising industry, the modern woman became a type to which actual women had to conform. Female athletes, as both Fiona Skillen and Marilyn Morgan demonstrate, were consumed, constrained and eroticized under the gaze of the market. So the strong female athlete was adulated as long as she behaved herself; the strong female swimmers, some of whom bested men at their sport, fuelled an expanded swimsuit industry, and, sadly and ironically, led to the swimsuit phase of beauty pageants. Independence and self actualization became just another form of dependence and submission, as real women found

themselves craving that lifestyle. Devon Atchisons study of sun tanning, a new fashion statement in the 1920s, explores the expansion of the cosmetic industry, the swimsuit industry, and the consumption of the exposed female form. In the arena of mass-market capitalism, the modern womans lifestyle, usually unrealizable to most women, but it was not inaccessible. The power of the mass market was its ability to keep these dreams alive, just out of reach, to drive the market forward. The modern woman was not just an Anglo-American construct. As Susanne Eineigel and Cecilia Tossounian both demonstrate, Latin American women also sought to push against traditional values, and in doing so, pushed against a monolithic cultural resistance. This resistance, while partly resting in the power of the Catholic Church, was also nationalistic, seeing in American movies and culture something fundamentally corrosive and damaging to the nation. This resistance to the corrupt images of mass media in non-Anglo American societies is also shown by Kara Ritzheimer, who argues that censorship of movies in the German city of Heidelberg sought to restrict the types of images and themes that were considered violations of decency and potentially undermining the foundations of stable social life. The power of this consumerist drive is illustrated well in the Canadian federal election, when each political party (some newly formed) sought to assert their interpretation of how best to encourage consumption. As Bettina Liverant illustrates, politicians argued that the Depression was not a problem of production, but one of consumption. It was up to the political leadership to ignite the will to spend, and the ability to do so. Most economic solutions, then

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as now, involved convincing the citizen to do their patriotic duty, and spend money, to support national capitalistic enterprise. Within these articles run several common themes; the role of advertising driving the mass market, the images of women and, less prominently, men; the role of women as consumers and consumed. Moreover, the ironic relationship between the expansion of the market which sold dreams of independence, and the ongoing and in some ways expanded subjugation of the financially and socially marginal, who could consume the ads, but not realize the consumption of the products those ads promoted. This, bait and switch, of course, is fundamental to advertising. It presents an image that one can never really attain, a physical or emotional promise that goes unfulfilled.

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CONSUMERISM AS PRACTICE AND IDEOLOGY

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Figuring Modernity and National Identity: Representations of the Argentine Modern Girl (Buenos Aires 1920-1940)

Cecilia Tossounian (European University Institute, Florence, Italy)

In interwar Argentina, as in other countries, the mass media saw an explosion of new images of womanhood. Magazines and newspapers portrayed figures of trend-conscious upper-class young women walking down Florida street or driving speedily through the city, dressed in the latest imported fashions. They represented the modern young woman, symbol of the modern city of Buenos Aires. The novelty of these images confronted older depictions of young women consistently shown within the family realm or carrying out caring activities, if they appeared mentioned or portrayed at all. These novel images were part of a broader transformation in the relation between the sexes that Buenos Aires underwent during the interwar period. They were also related to new gender practices and ideologies disseminated by global circuits and specifically by the circulation of films, advertisements and commodities. During the 1920s and 1930s, there was an increasing sense of class and gender tumult and transformation. Rapid urbanisation, the emergence of a consumer society, processes of upward social mobility, the advent of mass politics and its consequent political polarisation questioned past securities. 1 Concomitantly, fears of masculinisation of women and feminisation of men, the expansion of consumerism for middle-class and upper-class women, the entrance of a considerable number of working-class women into industrial labour and the political challenges posed by feminists, as well as the arrival of foreign images and styles, reconfigured previous gender identities. These processes, combined with a decline in fertility rates and the

parallel drop of the immigration flow after the First World War, prompted concerns about the future of Argentina as a nation. 2 Through the mass media, different voices, from elite intellectuals, journalists to writers, wondered about what it meant to be Argentine and what it meant to be modern. Around 1910 there was a sense that a moral crisis was affecting Argentina. The diagnosis was that an excessive cosmopolitanism was blurring the authentic culture and traditions of the country, threatened by foreign influences. There was a nostalgic discourse that characterised cultural nationalists ideas, as progress was seen as irremediably destroying the past. In this context, moral regeneration and the restoration of the national spirit appeared as the two sides of the same movement. 3 The thread of a moral and national dissolution cast tradition as a necessary anchor to counteract this dissolution. One way of achieving this was by praising the countrysides values, embodied by the gaucho, the cowboy of the Pampas, a mestizo figure known for his strength, honesty and pride, who embodied virile and atavistic values rooted in the past. Moreover, Europeanised elites of the morally corrupted city of Buenos Aires emerged as the critical object of some nationalist discourses, which blamed them for the disappearance of the authentic Argentina. Concomitantly, the role of the masses as bearers of the authentic national soul gave rise to a national and popular interpretation of Argentineness. During the thirties Argentine identity acquired a populist, anti-elitist and anti-imperialist undercurrent. 4 These discourses expressed anxieties regarding the possibilities that Argentina had of becoming a civilised country, without loosing what was considered its unique and distinctive essence. These debates were expressed through gender images. As in the case of the modern girl of Mexico and Canada analysed in this book, the modern woman figured at the core of these debates. 5

As recent historiography has shown, the modern girl emerged around the world in the first half of the twentieth century. 6 Indeed, the modern girl emerged as a result of a set of global transformations occurred after First World War. As Carolyn Kitch has argued, among several changes, two were particularly important in terms of explaining this development. On the one hand, a new morality became linked with an emergent youth culture; on the other, there was a boom in leisure activities and products. 7 By the 1920s these two processes acquired a transnational dimension with the expansion of multinational corporations and the mass media. Nevertheless, national contexts reshaped this transnational archetype, adjusting the modern girl figure to the local circumstances in which she appeared. It is therefore important to ask how the modern girl was defined in Buenos Aires in the 1920s and 1930s and to explore what she signified in terms of gender and national identities. In this paper, I study the image of the modern girl through her representations in mass media and specifically in general magazines, womens magazines, folletines (penny novels) and films. In the first section, I analyse debates over the redefinition of gender roles that permeated the mass media of the period. The second and third sections reconstruct the figure of the modern girl as an upper class young woman and examine the diverse values that this image embodied, as well as their transformation between the 1920s and the 1930s. These different approaches allow us to understand the paradoxes involved in being in the position of modern young porteo women. (residents of Buenos Aires city)

Gender troubles: the masculinisation of women and the feminisation of men From the mid-1910s through to the 1930s, there was a wide-ranging debate over the transformations of gender roles. Articles in magazines and cartoons discussed the

behaviour of the modern woman or girl and the much-feared process of a blurring of gender distinctions. It was a period of gender transformation. Cartoons, for example, depicted a reversal in gender roles, with women playing with mens sentiments, while men remained frozen in the face of these changes. By 1919, the newspaper Crtica published a set of jokes under the title Mujer Moderna (Modern Woman). They read He (overjoyed) So, are you going to be mine? She (aggressive) No, that is not going to happen. He (surprised) But you have just said that you are going to marry me. Her (dogmatic) That is different. 8 She Am I the first woman you ever loved? He Yes! And am I the first man who ever loved you? She (irritated) Sir, you are insulting me. 9

Other cartoons showed the modern girl as a confident subject, who merely flirted with men without taking them seriously. From 1925 until 1931, the womens magazine Para Ti published a cartoon titled Mecha y su sombra (Mecha and her shadow). Mecha was portrayed as a young upper-class woman who spent her time hanging out with friends and going to parties. Rino Pegotti, her friend and unconditionally-devoted suitor, chases Mecha constantly, in spite of which Mecha routinely uses Rino and then, once tired of his adoration, prefers to go out with men richer and more handsome than he. Rino, depicted as a short and unattractive man in comparison to the elongated figures of Mecha and her friends, is humiliated by Mecha in every issue of the cartoon. 10 Cartoons like Exceso instead depicted a modern woman and a man chatting in a bar. In this cartoon a woman is pictured stating: I would be the happiest woman in the world if I had a boyfriend. The man exclaims: How is it possible that you dont have one? And the woman answers: The problem is that I have nine. 11 And in 1929 Atlntida published a cartoon with the caption: Dora, your behaviour is

inappropriate. You are going out with a different man everyday! You are right, mother. But find me one man who can afford to play tennis, golf, go for a drive and go out dancing during the week. 12 In these cartoons men appeared as victims of a change in the relations between sexes. The modern girl was portrayed as a confident, sometimes selfish person, while men were shown as weak characters. In general, cartoons of the period presented men as womens toys. While cartoons depicted this change in the relations between sexes with irony and humour, others analysed the social consequences of these changes in gender roles with a far greater degree of alarmism. Alberto Casal Castel argued in an article published in El Hogar in 1937 that the decline of fertility rates in Argentina was due to the appearance of a modern and new conception of life which had lost its moral fibre. Women of the upper classes, particularly, were the primary responsible of this process, because they preferred to go out and have fun instead of having children. 13 The fear of a masculinisation of women and a feminisation of men was a was a related topic in vogue during this period. A set of cartoons depicted this process. One cartoon, titled Ante la duda (In front of a doubt), presented a child that looked curiously to a woman dressed in a masculine way. The dialogue was as follows: Why dont you answer me?, the boys reply: because I dont know whether I should address you as Mister or Miss. 14 A second cartoon titled Cuestin peliaguda (A tricky question) showed a woman in a pharmacy, looking at an advertisement for a waxing product. A waxing product? I am not interested. Would you have something that makes my moustache grow? 15 A third one, titled Evas modernas (Modern Eves) stated: Why should we lose our time arguing with my husband? You know that men do not understand a word about politics. Lets chat and he, in the meantime, will serve us some tea. 16

In 1930 Horacio Quiroga, a famous writer, published an article titled La Amazonas (The Amazons) in the magazine El Hogar. The article described the flpper as a conqueror woman, who was usurping mens spaces and losing her femininity as a result of this process. He argued that current women were fond of practicing masculine sports and driving a car, while men were becoming feminised. He exemplified this transformation through the analysis of two advertisements: in the first one, a woman appeared next to a car, embodying values such as bravery and in the other, a man was shown smelling a perfume, representing the delights of toiletries. For Quiroga, these images indicated a subversion of sexual roles which was contrary to the rules of nature, adding that while women were becoming masculinised subjects, men, letting them do so, were emasculating themselves. 17 The figure of a morally emancipated modern young woman who was becoming masculinised also captured the attention of the feminist movement. Alicia Moreau de Justo, a socialist and one of the most important feminists in Argentina during this period, protested against the widespread conception in the interwar period of female emancipation as an equivalent to the loss of morals. She argued that the modern woman was only copying mens vices and this would never liberate her. To work was the only way, in her view, that a woman could gain her independence, and not by a liberalisation of her morals. And she added, the fact that a woman smokes, drinks or has her own garonnire [womans apartment] will never be considered as a proof of independence. Vice reduces the freedom of both women and men; and for many women who in their purse have a packet of cigarettes next to a lipstick, this is their only modern trait. 18 For feminists and left-wing women, the modern girl was mistaken if she thought that emancipation meant the acquisition of new habits, such as smoking, drinking and having a more open sexual life. These were not only reproved masculine

manners, which masculinised women, but also habits which belonged to what they considered the decadent morality of the upper classes, and especially of their women. In contrast, the new woman they envisioned based her emancipation through work, putting herself in an equal condition regarding men, without loosing her femininity in the process. There was a considerable debate about the transformation of gender patterns that Argentina, and particularly Buenos Aires, was going through. There was a sense that the world was turned upside down and this provoked much anxiety. On the one hand, women were adopting what was considered to be mens attitudes and habits, such as smoking, drinking and flirting with several men. These activities were condemned because they were masculinising women. On the other hand, men, in allowing women to behave in such ways, were becoming feminised. These transformations seemed to be a consequence of a new fashion, a modern conception of life, as one of the author put it, which had the modern woman figure at its core. But who was this modern woman and why did she arouse so much concern?

The rise of the upper-class modern girl: denationalising the nation The most comprehensive descriptions of the modern young woman figure represented her as an upper-class modern porteo girl. The class status of the Argentine joven moderna, as she used to be call, differentiated her from other modern girls, specifically from those of the US, where, as Kathy Peiss has suggested, it was urban and young working-class women who pioneered many of the elements that constitute the modern girl, through their embrace of new fashions and their challenging excursions to dancehalls and amusements parks. In contrast, in places like South Africa, China, India,

Mexico and Argentina, the modern girl was identified with women from the upper or middle classes. 19 Several journalists, social critics and writers commented on the figure of the modern girl. The moral and satirical tale titled La Beba: Historia de una vida intil (La Beba: The Story of a useless life), published by Caras y Caretas from June 1927 until March 1928signed with the pseudonym of Roxana and published once a week described the life of Beba, a seventeen-year-old modern girl from the upper classes. In the first episode of the story, Beba was presented as a frivolous, fanciful and conceited upper-class girl, symbol of an entire generation of young porteo women and men who enjoyed a frenetic and agitated modern way of life without caring about its consequences. 20 Beba was described as having a thin and flexible body, short skirts, bobbed hair and a made up face. Her counterpart was her sister Martha, described as her opposite: an intelligent, quiet and somewhat old-fashioned young woman, who was always worried about Bebas improper and impulsive behaviour. As the author stated, these were two very different generations. While Martha was reflexive and calm, Beba was flighty and frivolous, and embodies all the manifestations of modern lightness. They represented the past and the present of Argentine society. 21 In the next 35 episodes, Beba was portrayed in several locations, carrying out different activities. She attended theatres, cinemas, cafs and dance-halls. She danced Charleston and tango assiduously. She also smoked, drank alcohol, sang tangos, drove her own car and disguised herself as a theatre actress for carnival. Indeed, she appeared to be defined by her constant body movement. In every chapter Beba was going to different places and doing something different.

Bebas story begins with the main character depicted as an almost innocent person, who wants to experience life and who progressively comes into contact with the manners of the modern city, which corrupt her spirit. Right from the beginning, the author lets the reader understand that challenges to morality arise outside of the traditions of the country in the form of a materialistic fashion arriving from the US. The author offers several examples of this process of contamination. On the one hand, Bebas determination to visit the cinema to see what was considered an immoral Hollywood film provokes licentious desires in her. 22 On the other, the aspiration of porteo modern girls like Beba to be trendy induces them to adopt US and domestic actresses fashions and habitssuch as tiny bathing suits and dressesand dancing Charleston and tango, which makes them look like cheap and lower-class actresses and singers of dubious morality, who populate the porteo cabarets (known as bataclanas). 23 Bebas interest in foreign novels, with their morbid contents, shrivel her innocent soul. 24 Finally, the fact that Beba likes to dance modern dances, such as Charleston or tango, is considered scandalous because of the sexual connotations of these activities, which require close bodily contact and intimate postures. 25 These influences serve to pervert an old type of native morality, embodied in Marthas character, and conceived in a very nostalgic way. By satirising Beba and promoting Martha, the author was denouncing the penetration of foreign values and practices. From these statements, it appears that being modern signified not only embracing US manners and fashion, but also certain national and popular traditions, like the tango and the lower class styles and habits of actresses. The contamination of upper class modern girls came not only from the US culture, but also from the national

popular culture. These cultures were presented as alien in two senses: they lay outside the tradition of the nation and outside the tradition of the upper classes. On the one hand, Beba was fond of tango. In this story, the tango was portrayed as still having popular connotations and dancing it was presented as a downward movement in the social scale. In addition, modern girls like Beba not only danced tango but also sang tango lyrics, which were based on a popular jargon called lunfardo and characterised by their strong and at the same time oblique sexual references. 26 The author considered it indecent for upper-class girls to use this popular argot. 27 Indeed, the character of Beba was presented embracing tango and lunfardo slang as a way of differentiating herself from her parents and sister, as an ultra-chic new fashion that transformed her into a rebellious modern girl. 28 On the other hand, Beba liked other modern dances, such as the Charleston, shimmy and black-bottom, which were imported dances from the US and, what was worse, were exotic, savage and uncivilised dances inspired by the dances of African black people. 29 The author argued that modern/African dances were copied by the Hollywood film stars and then adopted by Argentine modern girls, who expressed their desire to be different and modern through these savage and exotic dances. The interesting aspect about this situation was that young modern women in Europe and in the US, in a sort of mirror gaze game, often used tango fashion and dances to also appear different, exotic and modern. In addition, the critics of these girls usually accused this dance of being lascivious and decadent and of encouraging encounters between young ladies and men who might be of American and South American negroid origin. 30 Beba was also presented as incapable of being emotionally committed. She was surrounded by several boyfriends presented as modern boys, who endorsed the same values as her own. They flirted with her but, just like Beba, did not want to commit to a

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serious relationship. 31 Martha, on the contrary, embodied old morals with her desire for sentimental and romantic love. 32 In the last chapter of this story, the author let the reader glimpse that Beba, although married, will simply later revert to the habits of her single life. In fact, in the last chapter, Beba ends up marrying an older man whom she hardly knows and with whom she is not in love. The advantage, the author states, is that as a married woman, she will have more freedom but at the same time this will lead to the crumbling of her future home, a dismal forecast of the consequences for national life. 33 To sum up, the modern girls modernity was constructed through a series of acts. Being modern meant, first of all, a physical transformation: wearing short skirts and bobbed hair, putting on make up, and being slender. It also meant carrying out different kinds of activities, moving through multiple cultural sites and consuming certain commodities: dancing tango, watching Hollywood films, reading immoral novels, speaking argot, flirting, smoking, drinking and driving a car. The joven modernas mobility through multiple cultural sites and her consumption habitsespecially smoking, drinking and driving a carcould be understood, first, as the main activities that a woman should partake in order to became modern and, second, as an expression of the rapid changes of modern life, where these bodies in motion signified social change. 34 Bebas character also contained different notions: being modern was equivalent to being rich and embracing foreign fashions and manners. In the case of Beba a contrast was drawn with Martha, her sister, whose wealthy status did not imply that she had the same values as Beba. Martha was cast as an upper class girl who embodied traditional and national (but not popular) values. Martha thus represent the aspirations of a conservative sector of society, which disdained the cosmopolitan and

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Europeanised elite and looked upon the upper classes as the ultimate bearers of a conservative notion of femininity and therefore, of nationhood. While Bebas modernity was described as something shallow, during the 1920s another approach to the modern girl began to appear frequently in print, describing her as a sexually dangerous subject. Several short stories portrayed a new kind of upperclass young woman described as sexually independent and liberated from tradition. Josu Quesada, a writer and journalist, was one of the most prolific ones on the issue. He usually portrayed the protagonists of his stories as young women with an independent temperament that went against moral and social conventions. In 1922, he published a short story signed with the pseudonym of Elsa Norton in La Novela Semanal and titled La casa de soltera (The single womans apartment). Its main character, Elsa, is described as a young and fearless upper-class woman who has her own car, participates in horse races and has a pilots license. We learn that she moved to Europe after a failed affair with an older man and upon her return to Buenos Aires, she moves to her own apartment where she lives with her Russian lesbian lover. Yet despite this Elsa is unable to forget her old affair. In fact this bisexual love story has an open end, as Elsa fires a shot from her gun as her ex-lover proposes a mnage trois. 35 Thus the author used Elsas lesbianismacquired during her journey to Europe and under the influence of a foreign female characterto denounce the extreme consequences that modernity could entail for women who embraced it. The main protagonist of Luis Canes short story titled La patotera and published in La Mejor Novela in 1928, Clara, is in turn described as a young married woman who hates her husband and has several lovers. Coming from a city in the provinces, and despite being a wealthy person, she feels excluded by the circle of porteo upper-class women and begins to seek refuge in the company of several men.

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Over time, Clara starts to organise immoral parties and to sniff cocaine. By the end of the story she is dead from an overdose. Clara is presented as the consequence of the social disequilibrium that Argentina suffers from. In the authors words, our deficient education, our neglected culture, our exaggerated tolerance of some sorts of things and our national patience towards some social ills explained the emergence of modern girls like Clara. They were the rubbish of a noble and healthy community, where [] a sterile race of foolish women and effeminate men are being forged. 36 Penny novels, which enjoyed substantial success until the end of the 1920s, regularly published stories with the purpose of portraying the vices of the wealthy people of Buenos Aires, and especially of women of this class. These stories featured the modern girl or woman as a dangerous subject, closely related to the figure of the vamp or the femme fatale, who threatened men with her daring sexuality. 37 Some of them were written under the pseudonym of Elsa Norton, and talked about adultery, abuse of drugs, lesbianism, infidelity of women, the defence of divorce and arranged marriages. 38 The plots of these novels were exemplary stories aimed at middle-andworking-class readers which demonstrated that the morally deviant conduct of the elite young women of Buenos Aires could bring only unhappiness, and in this way appealed to these audiences to contain the deviations from propriety and decorum. 39 The protagonists assertive sexuality was constantly punished. She could either find spiritual redemption by suicide or encounter death due to disease or drug addiction. In either case, moral transgressions, which implied crossing the limits of an accepted female behaviour, were unavoidably sanctioned by tragedy. These young upper-class modern women were always targeted as a source of urban malaise with their modern and lax manners and morality, causing the degeneration of Argentine society.

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To sum up, a graspable image of the modern girls figure appeared widely in the most important magazines and penny novels by the beginning of the twenties, reaching its peak of circulation between 1925 and 1930. While mass media provided a similar image of the modern girl regarding age, class, appearance and activities, some of these representations featured the modern girl as a dangerous and decadent woman, while others described her in terms of her shallowness and insensitivity. The modern girl was basically presented as a confident, sometimes selfish, other times masculinised subject, who imitated foreign fashions and played with mens sentiments. Male writers and journalists used depictions of the modern girl in order to address the effects of modern life on Argentine women.

The feminisation of the upper-class modern girl: domesticating the nation While some perspectives portrayed the modern girl as a shallow, sometimes morally dangerous subject, who imitated foreign fashions, there were other visions that emphasised the feminine and maternal attributes of the modern girl, especially during the 1930s. Among several films shot during this period, two portrayed the upper-class modern girl in a distinctive way. Both were directed by Manuel Romero (1891-1954), one of the most prolific and popular Argentine filmmakers of the 1930s, who worked for the Lumiton studios. Also a journalist, a director of musical variety shows and author of several tango lyrics, Romero knew how to symbolise the popular imagery of Buenos Aires through the construction of recognisable characters portrayed in his films. 40 One of these characters was the upper-class modern young woman. Following the model of Hollywood cinema of the 1930s, especially the sophisticated comedy genre, he directed La rubia del camino (The blond of the road) (1938), whose narrative structure was moulded on Frank Capras film It happened one night (1934). 41 This film,

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and the subsequent Isabelita (1940), used the same formula: a rich modern girl independent, liberated, fanciful and snobbishwas domesticated by the love of a man of humble origins, who redeemed her of her frivolous existence through a discovery of the world of the working classes. Both films had a happy ending, which saw class prejudices overcome by love and marriage. Framed by the melodramatic genre, these comedies portrayed the upper classes as snobbish, egocentric and sometimes evil and considered people of humble origins as generous and noble. 42 I focus on La rubia del camino, since it was not only a popular success with several re-showings, but also because it provided the basic model that other films followed. The first scenes of La rubia del camino show the main character, Betty (Paulina Singermann) in an expensive hotel situated in the south of Argentina (Llao Llao, in Bariloche), where she is spending her holidays with her family, her womanising boyfriend and a gold-digging Italian count. The film opens with Betty being rude to her servants and talking snobbishly about the chusma and gentusa (rabble) that were invading the hotel. She is portrayed as a glamorous young woman, dressed in fashionable attire, who smokes and had blond hair, as the title of the film implies. Feeling trapped by the hounding of these men and by her fathers attempt to control her choice of spouse, she runs away in the middle of her social engagement party and persuades a truck driver, Julin (Fernando Borel), to take her to Buenos Aires in his truck. Before running away, she asks her grandfather what life was. He answered that life is struggle, grief, work and suffer and Betty protested: But I am rich! I do not have any reason to work, or to struggle, or to suffer. The grandfather said: Some day you will understand me. In a previous scene, faced with Bettys childish whims, he complains: she is what we all have made of her, a chica moderna [a modern girl] [] spoilt, arrogant.

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During their one-week journey to Buenos Aires, Betty and the truck driver experience a series of adventures and ultimately fall in love. The most interesting part of the film regards the transformation of Betty from a frivolous upper-class modern girl to an Argentine woman, worthy of becoming Julians wife. The question of the relation between modernity and national identity appeared in the film in different ways, showing how by the end of the story Betty, the modern girl the protagonists foreign nickname, becomes Isabel, an Argentine woman. Julin and Betty were pictured as two opposite characters, the noble and generous poor versus the arrogant and fanciful rich. At the beginning of their journey they feel uncomfortable together. Julin does not accept Bettys whims and she is in turn disgusted by his working class habits, scorning the cheap cigarettes he smokes, his dull taste in music and the food he eats. Yet Bettys stubbornness and arrogance make her determined to continue her trip with him. Soon she begins to feel attracted to him, especially after a fight in which Julin saves both of them from being robbed by a gang. Admiring his courage, cast as an attribute entirely lacking amongst her urban suitors, Betty begins to fall in love with a man who can defend her. After this scene, Betty agrees to sleep on the ground and even to have mate, the tea drunk generally by the working classes for breakfast. She does not know how to prepare a mate because, as she explains to Julin , she has been educated in Europe. She furthermore confesses that she has in fact once tried the drink but she did not like it very much. Julin looks at her with a mix of surprise, disdain and paternalism and teaches her how to prepare a good mate, which Betty enjoys drinking. Mate has a significant symbolic role in this scene, as it was considered the national beverage, associated with the gaucho and the countryside lifestyle, all values that Julin embodies. Julin also insists on calling her by her real name, Isabel, instead of Betty, her nickname, which has foreign connotations. Betty also

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changes her expensive and glamorous attire for a simple outfit given to her by a female friend of Julin. These scenes depict how Betty comes increasingly into contact with the world of the working classes, embodied mainly by Julin and his friends, how she begins to review her own lifestyle and her attitude towards people of poor origins, pictured in the film as supportive and noble, who offer her shelter, food, clothes and a trip without asking anything in compensation. But Bettys most profound transformation occurs when she helps the wife of an Italian friend of Julins, who lives on a poor ranch and has no access to medical attention, to give birth. In this scene Betty, who has until this point proven hopelessly impractical and inept, assumes an important role. In contrast, Julin, who has up until this point patronised her, does not know what to do. Now the roles are reversed and it is Betty who teaches Julin a lesson of life. After this scene, Betty loses her condescending attitudes and unreservedly embraces the values of a national and popular version of Argentineness. She proposed to eat salamines y pan (sausage and bread), typical working class fare, which she has earlier disdained, to listen to popular music and even sing popular songs with Julin while travelling in his truck. Moreover, Julin starts to look at Betty with different eyes and emphasises her transformation by saying, what a change! You do not seem the same woman I found on the road yesterday [...] a modern, useless and frivolous girl like you has turned out to be a fairy godmother to these poor people. Matthew Karush has accurately pointed to the importance of the birth scene. 43 Betty discovers her femininity by letting her maternal instinct emerge and this fact stands in opposition to her shallow girlish past. Betty emerges from this scene transformed not only into a woman but also into an authentic Argentine woman who is capable of loving Julin for what he was. Betty, the modern, rich and Europeanised girl, gives birth to Isabel.

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Nevertheless, when they arrive in Buenos Aires, the couples union is threatened, as class differences emerge as an obstacle to their happiness. Isabel takes Julin to her house and in front of the reproving gaze of her parents, exclaims: Do not think I am the same person. This trip has transformed me. I have become a woman. However, being in Buenos Aires blurs her recently acquired Argentine womanhood. She begins to give orders to her servants again, she goes shopping taking Julin with her and, worst of all, she tries to change Julins appearance to make him look like a millionaire, by buying him expensive new clothes and even taking him for a manicure. In other words, Betty recovers the habits of an upper-class modern girl. Her modern friends call Julin Tarzan and even suggest changing his name for another one that would sound more French. Now it would seem that it is Julin who will be forced to adapt to a new environment, as Betty has done earlier, but the director does not continue on this track. Instead he depicts the citys upper-class society as being so snobbish, frivolous and decadent that it becomes impossible for Julin to be accepted for what he is, a truck driver. Concomitantly, Julin will never abandon his true Argentine identity to became part of this fake and Europeanised society. When Bettys old boyfriend appears at their engagement party and tries to convince her that she was making a mistake by marrying a truck driver, Julin, feeling humiliated and betrayed, leaves the city, abandoning Betty, and returning to his job on the road. However, Betty soon realises that she has been confused and that she has made a mistake by forcing Julin to transform into something he was not. Understanding now that being in love with him meant that she was the one who should have changed, she travels again to the countryside and in the final scene she appears in front of the poor Italian ranch, holding a baby in her arms (the one whose birth she helped), and exclaims in front of the

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surprised gaze of Julin: I am not Betty, I am Isabel. Interclass love as a symbol of national reconciliation triumphs through the transformation of Betty into Isabel. This story attaches numerous values to its protagonists, some of them contradictory. Betty is not only rich and fond of foreign fashions and habits, she is also modern and lives in Buenos Aires. Julin, in contrast, is poor, he is an authentic Argentine, with a traditional understanding of life and his home is the countryside. Bettys modernity turns out to be the key element underneath this story. Her independent and capricious personality is what induces her to defy her father in the first place and encourages her run away from the hotel, embarking on the adventure that leads her to Julin. Nevertheless, in order to become a noble Argentine woman, she must sacrifice her modernity. The modern girl, while growing to be a woman, ends up being domesticated as Julins wife and is forced to abandon the Europeanised and wealthy society of Buenos Aires and move to the countryside, where the authentic values of Argentineness reside. What emerges from the analysis of this film is that the modern girl figure played a key role in processes of national formation, since the transformation of the modern girl into a traditional woman was the precondition for national reconciliation and therefore, for the existence of a coherent reformulation of national identity. This national identity was based on pre-existing authentic Argentine treasures, embodied by the character of Julin, and expressed a conservative vision of Argentinennes, defined by the praise of tradition and male chauvinism.

Final remarks Buenos Aires of the interwar period experienced a change in gender relations. The decline of fertility rates and the process of a blurring of gender distinctions prompted

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concerns about the behaviour of porteo women and men and about the future of Argentina as a nation. Debates over the nature of these changes flourished in the mass media of this period. However, at the core of these discussions was the figure of the modern girl, who aroused substantial debate over who she was and what she represented. The reason for the centrality of this figure was that this image conveyed the idea of modernity and its tensions more effectively than the figure of the modern boy.

There were several approaches to the depiction of the modern girl. Portrayed variously as a masculinised young woman, as frivolous, fanciful, conceited and egocentric, and elsewhere as a sexually adventurous subject, who imitated foreign fashions and manners, she always went beyond the conventional female roles of devoted daughter or wife and she was mostly seen as a critical figure in need of control. The modern girl represented, above all, the values of modern life and was, overall, a male construction. Modernity had been perceived by male intellectuals, writers and essayists as an invasive and foreign-inspired process that threatened to destroy Argentinas authentic and unique character. In a context where the menace of a moral and national dissolution was cast as an interlinked process that required a moral regeneration and the restoration of a national spirit to neutralise this dissolution, the modern girl was seen as the embodiment of both threats. Her challenge to gender norms and her integration into a transnational commodity culture were seen as threatening to national identity. The modern girl was attacked as an agent of denationalisation and emasculation of Argentine identity and criticism of her generally assumed the form of a categorical return to traditional life style values and notions of femininity. In most of the sources analysed, there was a clear critique of a Europeanised and cosmopolitan porteo elite, which was blamed for Argentinas loss of its authentic soul. This

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judgment was canalised through the figure of the upper-class modern girl. Nevertheless, there were different ways of expressing this assessment. The much-feared process of a blurring of gender distinctions was seen, above all, as a consequence of the masculinisation of women, generally those of the upper classes. While a modern lifestyle was also perceived as the cause of this change, men mostly appeared as the weak victims of a reversal of gender roles, according to which men were becoming feminised because they could not impede the masculinisation of women. Such change was attributed to the influence of the modern girl, who was blamed for emasculating the nation and a national identity which, concomitantly, was being constructed as virile through the figure of the gaucho. In other stories there was a defence of a traditional conception of womanhood, which was contrasted with a modern and foreign one that adopted foreign values, especially from the US. Particularly in the case of Bebas story, the traditional upper class women is presented as necessarily providing an example of good manners and proper behaviour for the rest of society, values embodied by the figure of Martha, Bebas sister, a modest and calm subject, who refuses the rapid changes of modern life and their consequences in morals. It is equally implied that upper class women should set a boundary between popular and elite traditions, as the merging of the two was seen by some intellectuals and journalists as one of the challenging consequences of modernisation. By adopting popular cultural products as tango, Beba infringes this boundary and blends elite and popular values. In this context, the conservative upper class woman becomes the ultimate bearer of a traditional notion of Argentinness, which resides in a glorified past and an idealised period during which uncontaminated female elites behave properly.

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The decadent modern girl portrayed in short stories published in penny novels was a variation of the same critique. These stories of upper-class women of lax morals served to warn a working and middle class audience about the consequences of embracing modernity, which brought pain and death to their female protagonists. They also stated that wealthy women were so corrupt that they could not provide moral models for the Argentine nation. In this case, nevertheless, there was no tradition to revert to. A confident sexual femininity was transgressive and had to be punished. There were no other solutions. Finally, during the 1930s, another element appeared in addition to the critique of a corrupted porteo elite. The melodramatic genre in which Manuel Romeros film was conceived portrayed the upper classes endorsing cosmopolitan and decadent values, which were enemies of the essential ideals of Argentina, represented by poor, hardworking, honest and unselfish women and men. In this last form, the modern girl was confronted to the values of the pueblo (people), conceived in this context as bearers of the authentic national soul. The modern girls critique assumed a populist form under the influence of this discourse. In this case, instead of making an opposition between the modern girl figure and an uncorrupted sector of the porteo upper classesas was the case of Bebas story, the contrast emerged in comparison with the traditions of the working classes, where the uncorrupted values were embodied by poor people. The critique of the upper class modern girl that emerged in folletines and magazines of the twenties reached its full peak in the 1930s with films proclaiming not only that the wealthy porteo women could not represent the nation, but furthermore, that the true values of Argentineness resided in the world of the working classes.

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Buenos Aires had become a big and cosmopolitan metropolis, with 2.300.000 million inhabitants by the 1930s. Jos Luis Romero, La ciudad Burguesa, in Jos Luis Romero and Luis Alberto Romero (eds.), Buenos Aires: Historia de Cuatro Siglos (Buenos Aires: Abril, 1983), II, 9-17, 9. For the emergence of a consumer society, see among others, Fernando Rocchi, La Americanizacin del Consumo: Las Batallas por el Mercado Argentino, (1920-1945), in Mara Barbero and Andrs Regalsky (eds.), Americanizacin: Estados Unidos y Amrica Latina en el siglo XX (Buenos Aires: EDUNTREF, 2003), 131-89. 2 By 1947, female labour represented 28 % of the economically active population. Zulma Recchini de Lattes and Catalina Wainerman. Empleo femenino y desarrollo econmico: algunas evidencias, Desarrollo Econmico 17, 66 (1977): 301-17. By the beginning of the thirties, birth rates fall under 30 (per thousand) and continued this tendency for the entire period (1914, 36 per thousand, 1947, 21 per thousand). The average number of children per woman in Buenos Aires fall from 3.38 in 1914 to 1.34 in 1936. Susana Torrado, Historia de la familia en la Argentina moderna 1870-2000 (Buenos Aires: De la Flor, 2003), 84-87, 240-54, 323-41; Victoria Mazzeo (ed.), Situacin Demogrfica de la Capital Federal, Serie Anlisis Demogrfico, (Buenos Aires: INDEC, 1997), 12. 3 Carlos Altamirano, La fundacin de la literatura argentina, in Carlos Altamirano and Beatriz Sarlo (eds.), Ensayos Argentinos: De Sarmiento a la Vanguardia (1983) (Buenos Aires: Ariel, 1997), 201-209. 4 Jean Delaney, Imagining El Ser Argentino : Cultural Nationalism and Romantic Concepts of Nationhood In Early Twentieth-Century Argentina, Journal of Latin American Studies 34, 3 (2002): 625-58. 5 See Susanne Eineigels article in this volume Consuming Dreams of a Mexican Modernity and the (En)gendering a Modern Self in Post-Revolutionary Mexico City, 1920-1940, 268-302, 279-84 and Jane Nicholas article The Promise of Beauty: Canadian Advice Columns, the Modern Body, and Consumption in the 1920s, 235-67, 255-58. 6 See, among others, The Modern Girl Around the World Research Group: Alys Eve Weinbaum, Lynn Thomas, Priti Ramamurthy, Uta Poiger, Madeleine Yue Dong, and Tani Barlow (eds.), The Modern Girl Around the World: Consumption, Modernity and Globalization (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008); Ann Heilmann and Margaret Beetham (eds.), New Woman Hybridities: Femininity, Feminism and International Consumer Culture, 1880-1930 (London and New York: Routledge, 2004). 7 Carolyn Kitch, The Girl on the Magazine Cover: The Origins of Visual Stereotypes in American Mass Media (Chapel Hill, NC: University of Chapel Hill Press, 2001), 121. 8 Mujer Moderna, Crtica, 13 December, 1919, 2. 9 Mujer Moderna, Crtica, 15 December, 1919, 5. 10 Para Ti, several issues. 11 Exceso, Caras y Caretas, 8 January, 1927, unpaginated. 12 Atlntida, 12 September, 1929, 19. 13 Alberto Casal Castel, Neomalthusianismo, El Hogar, 5 November, 1937, 3. 14 Ante la duda, Caras y Caretas, 1 January, 1927, unpaginated. 15 Cuestin peliaguda, Caras y Caretas, 8 January, 1927, unpaginated. 16 Evas Modernas, Crtica, 3 July, 1919, 3. 17 Horacio Quiroga, La Amazonas, El Hogar, 17 January, 1930, 8. 18 Alicia Moreau de Justo, La mujer en la democracia (Buenos Aires: El Ateneo, 1945), 110. 19 Kathy Peiss, Girls Lean Back Everywhere, in The Modern Girl Around the World Research Group, The Modern Girl Around the World, 347-53, 347, 352; Joanne Hershfield, Imagining la Chica Moderna: Women, Nation, and Visual Culture in Mexico, 1917-1936 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), 5; Eineigel, Consuming Dreams of a Mexican Modernity, 271. 20 Caras y Caretas, 11 June, 1927, unpaginated. 21 Caras y Caretas, 2 July, 1927, unpaginated. 22 Caras y Caretas, 30 July, 1927, unpaginated. 23 Caras y Caretas, 26 January, 1928, unpaginated; Caras y Caretas, 10 September, 1927, unpaginated. 24 Caras y Caretas, 5 November, 1927, unpaginated. 25 Caras y Caretas, 25 June, 1927, unpaginated. 26 Lunfardo is understood as a collection of words brought by the immigration process of the turn of the century and used by the working classes of Buenos Aires. Jos Gobello, Nuevo Diccionario Lunfardo (Buenos Aires: Corregidor, 2008), 9. 27 Caras y Caretas, 3 December, 1927, unpaginated. 28 Ibid.

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Caras y Caretas, 29 October, 1927, unpaginated; Caras y Caretas, 10 September, 1927, unpaginated. Mica Nava, The Cosmopolitanism of Commerce and the Allure of Difference: Selfridges, the Russian Ballet and the Tango, 1911-1914, International Journal of Cultural Studies 1, 2 (1998): 163-96, 179. 31 Caras y Caretas, 22 October, 1927, unpaginated. 32 Caras y Caretas, 10 December, 1927, unpaginated. 33 Caras y Caretas, 24 March, 1928, unpaginated. 34 Vicky Unruh, Performing Women and Modern Literary Culture in Latin America: Intervening Acts (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006), 15. 35 Elsa Norton, La casa de soltera, La Novela Semanal 222, (1922): unpaginated. For an analysis of this short story, see Francine Masiello, Between Civilization and Barbarism: Women, Nation and Literary Culture in Modern Argentina (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1992), 170-71. 36 Luis Can, La patotera, La Mejor Novela 7 (1928): unpaginated. Patotera is a lunfardo word that denotes membership of a gang composed of wealthy young men, which generally meet in the streets and attacked or mugged peaceful people in order to have fun or out of sheer boredom. Gobello, Nuevo Diccionario Lunfardo, 195. 37 The vamp was characterized as a dark and sexual subject, who sought revenge by destroying men and lived outside the sphere of the home and family. She was usually identified with the prostitute. Kitch, The Girl on the Magazine Cover, 60-61. 38 Under the seudonym of Elsa Norton, Enrique Garca Velloso published Una casamiento en el gran mundo, La Novela Semanal 15 (1918): unpaginated. Josu Quesada also published under the seudonym of Elsa Norton El escndalo de la avenida Alvear, La Novela Semanal 178 (1921): unpaginated. See also Margarita Pierini (ed.), La Novela Semanal. Buenos Aires 1917-1927: Un proyecto editorial para una ciudad moderna (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientficas, 2004), 104-105. 39 Masiello, Between Civilization and Barbarism, 168. 40 Ricardo Manetti, Manuel Romero, in Claudio Espaa (ed.), Cine Argentino: Industria y Clasisismo, 1933-1956 (Buenos Aires: Fondo Nacional de las Artes, 2000), I, 80-1. 41 Domingo De Nbila, La poca de Oro: Historia del Cine Argentino (1960) (Buenos Aires: El Jilguero, 1998), I, 81. 42 In Isabelita, the modern girl (again played by Singerman) falls in love with a working-class tango singer. 43 Matthew B. Karush, The Melodramatic Nation: Integration and Polarization in the Argentine Cinema of the 1930s, Hispanic American Historical Review 87, 2 (2007): 293-326, 323.
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