Defining Icons for Every Decade of the 20th Century, as Tagged on Tumblr
1900s: Women in giant hats. Here’s what you get when you search for the first decade of the 20th century on Tumblr: ladies wearing enormous hats. Wide brims, stuff on top, worn slightly askew. Enormous. Hats. Runner-up: Child labor.
1910s: World War I. All was not quiet on the Western Front, and Tumblr remembers that. It’s more than can be said for my iPad, which autocorrected “WWI” to “WWII” when I was taking notes. Runner-up: Mary Pickford.
1920s: Flappers. According to Wikipedia, “flappers were a ‘new breed’ of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior. Flappers were seen as brash for wearing excessive makeup, drinking, treating sex in a casual manner, smoking, driving automobiles, and otherwise flouting social and sexual norms.” Of course, Tumblr loves ’em. Runner-up: The Great Gatsby.
1930s: The Dust Bowl. Thanks to photographers like Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans, the plight of Okies and other plains families was documented in one of the most famous—and now, most-shared on Tumblr—set of images in American history. Runner-up: Jean Harlow.
1940s: Veronica Lake. Perhaps cinema’s most famous femme fatale, the glamorous Lake was at the height of her fame in the 40s. There are surprisingly few WWII-related images on Tumblr (who wants Nazis on their dash?), but Veronica Lake is everywhere. Runner-up: women in factories.
1950s: Marilyn Monroe. Elvis who? Tumblr’s favorite 50s celeb is the blonde bombshell born Norma Jeane Mortenson. Runner-up: Audrey Hepburn.
1960s: The Beatles. Half of them are now dead, but everyone’s still picking favorites—and George is still the coolest one to crush on. Runner-up: Edie Sedgwick.
1970s: Longboarding. Here’s what Tumblr loves most about the 70s: they really knew how to ride a longboard in an empty swimming pool. Runner-up: Led Zeppelin.
1980s: The Breakfast Club. Search “80s” or “1980s,” and it seems like about half the results are stills, GIFs, or macros from John Hughes’s 1985 movie. Sorry, Ducky. Runner-up: Heathers.
1990s: Nirvana. Kurt Cobain wasn’t even alive for most of the 90s, but his grunge band is still the first thing that pops into Tumblr’s mind when it thinks “90s.” Runner-up: Full House.
