•  1920s: Though more women are joining the workforce (21 percent of women aged sixteen and over—though most of them hold clerical, domestic, or factory jobs), women are still generally discouraged from working, especially if they are mothers. Therefore, most women’s standard of living depends solely on the income of their husbands, and fathers (such as Braddock Washington) are reluctant to allow their daughters to marry men with unimpressive incomes. The average age for a woman to marry is twenty. (Zelda Sayre first refuses Fitzgerald and agrees to marry him only after he achieves some success with his writing.)

•  Today: Over 60 percent of women aged sixteen and over are part of the U.S. workforce, and in over half of the country’s married couples with children, both parents work outside the home. The average...