Pittsburgh PA
1929
Privuznak Family Photos


our Great Uncle Michael Privuznak with wedding date

Jazz Age Courtship
By the 1920s, two social shifts that were huge by their own right had occurred in Western society:

1. Thanks to the more readily available and widely accepted methods of contraception, the family had become a place of affection and companionship more than need. This had especially impacted the lives and expectations of the children, who had been further encouraged to find a partner who would be a good match for the person’s life aspirations.

2. More and more young people attended college, both young men and women. This placed them in a freer environment, away from the traditional places of supervision. In this new environment, young people developed their own social rituals and values, depending on their own desires and aspirations more than those of their elders.

In fact, it was in colleges that the youth culture found its more important expression. Here it is where the new courtship rituals became more prominent and accepted.

Dating
In the 1920s, dating become commonplace. Young people now had an unlimited possibility to meet at social events at dance halls, speakeasies and bars, skating rings, movie theatres, sports courts. These were all places where man and women could freely mix in a socially acceptable environment. In these conditions, dating ceased to be specifically a search for a mate and became a means for casual social entertainment.

In colleges and high schools, where the practice spread, dating came to be regarded as a means to demonstrate popularity. The more numerous and varied the dates, the higher one’s status. For many young people, dating was a form of recreation and self-affirmation, not necessarily a real courtship of a potential life companion. Dating permitted a paired relationship without implying a commitment to marriage, and so it encouraged experimental relations.




Pittsburgh is a city in western Pennsylvania at the junction of 3 rivers. Its Gilded Age sites, including the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, speak to its history as an early-20th-century industrial capital.