➸ WORLD INFO

[hall_monitors]

IC SETTING AND TIME FLOW
Clarion Prep takes place in 1921, which means the Roaring Twenties were just getting started! While it might be January in the OOC beginning of the game, ICly, the game starts in September, 1921. The game will stick to a 1:1 ic:ooc day ratio, so time will progress accordingly. This also means that there will be a yearly Summer Break, during which time we will open up the world of Clarion to any location your character desires--be it New York City or their parents' fancy countryside mansion--and have even more shenanigans with friends and schoolmates. This will encompass June, July, and August, after which the term will resume the following (IC) September.


ECONOMY AND POLITICS
This was the Roaring Twenties--a period of economic prosperity, lively culture, and technological advancement. Mass-production began to flourish, and alongside it, mass-consumption. This raised the living standard of the middle- and working-class, but for American farmers, this was merely a time of prolonged depression that would last right through until the 1930s.

President Warren G. Harding was elected in 1920, and famously promised Americans a "return to normalcy." Through this, government became pro-business, anti-tax, and anti-regulation. Income tax for the upper class was slashed, which meant that the rich achieved the ability to become even more ridiculously rich. This worsened the income divide and wealth distribution and led directly to the Great Depression--but hey, this is 1921. We don't have to worry about that quite yet.


FASHION
The 1920's was a transformative era for women's fashion in particular. As "flappers" began to arrive on the jazz scene, their new shorter hemlines became accepted and even common, rising up to the knees and even higher in some cases. Waistlines also dropped as the boyish figure was embraced; women bound their chests in order to create the illusion of a flat, slim, straight figure. Haircuts, too, became shorter, the bob becoming the look du jour with curls and finger waves to feminize it. Of course, this is only one side of the look of the day; more conservative society very much embraced more modern hemlines falling to mid-calf, but day dresses still took on a looser, less confining shape, and corsets were most definitely a thing of the past. Cloche hats became fashionable, as did costume jewelry and art deco accents and motifs. For men, big-name fashion houses became popular and men began to dress in tailored suits and sharp accents.

That being said, students at Clarion Prep are required to adhere to a strict dress code that includes a uniform, so during school hours they won't be quite as cutting-edge. The uniform is as pictured:



For boys, a long-sleeved white dress shirt, tie, blazer, and shorts (in summer) or pants (in winter) with brown dress shoes and knee-high red socks. For girls, a long-sleeved white dress shirt (or short sleeved, in summer), tie, pleated pinafore dress with belt, and knee-high red socks with black mary-jane shoes.

More fashion notes here, as well as
info on music, movies, and pop culture.


GENDER ROLES
Women's rights were riding a high during this time, following the success of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments--ushering in the right to vote for white women, and prohibition. Suffrage and Temperance were the two biggest women's movements, and ladies who followed them began to feel liberated in ways they never had. They began wearing knee-length skirts nearly en masse in 1921 thanks to mass-produced clothing lines, and bobbing their hair short to embrace the androgynous look which would earn the name "flapper." This was important because it allowed women to embrace their freedom and sexuality in a more socially-acceptable way.

In addition, Margaret Sanger, founder of what would later become Planned Parenthood (then the American Birth Control League) took advantage of this freedom by promoting education on sex and sexuality, allowing women to take greater control over their own bodies and lives. This, however, deeply offended those who still clung to traditional Victorian mores.


This post is a work in progress, keep an eye out for more to be added as we go!