The '20s were a thrilling and possibly a scary time to be young. It was the period of a Youth Rebellion. Once boys had attempted to be prototypes of chivalry, initiative, and idealism, girls had desired to seem humble and maidenly. Now all that had transformed. The fates of 1919 were over, and America was going on the most remarkable, elaborate spree in history. In a theme that would be heard again and again in later ages, you could listen to the mantra that the former epoch had pretty well destroyed before passing it on to us. They give us this world, crashed to fragments, leaky, threatening to blow up, and then they are surprised that we don't tolerate it with the same spirit with which they received it.

Does it sound familiar?

The new questioning of their elders' rule, merged with the relative prosperity of the decade, spawned a breed of youths who claimed to be hard, heavy-drinking, and daring. Women, in particular, appeared to have changed. Skirts were shorter than ever before. Cloche headdresses, silk tights, imitation jewelry, shortened hair replaced hobble petticoats and streaming braids of yesteryear.

The start of banning drinking was an appealing game; women took it up alongside men. They also took up smoking; sales of cigarettes doubled. Morals were experiencing a revolution. More and more owned cars and parked them on shady roads to "neck" with their dates. Suddenly Freud's name was known everywhere.

The willing interpreters listen, scrutinize it wise, and at the end exclaim, 'Aha! That's sex! You have a sex complex!' " Inevitably, the daring dresses, the shameful dances, seductive jazz, the late-night parties, and wicked thoughts of the youth drew the anger of many members of the older generation.

America's young people didn't care. They went right on in their unmindful, content way, assuming the excessive fashions shown on the following Images, and sang, "In the meantime, in-between time, ain't we got fun?"