Most startling was the existence of male Shifters (“Standers,” according to a guide to Shifter slang) whose presence meant the initiation rites at several high schools degenerated into petting parties. There was a Shifter handshake (open palmed), dress (black and white), walk (shuffling), and motto (“Be a good fellow - get something for nothing”). Robinson-Smith deemed the group “an abominable thing,” but she provided further juicy details the following day. The initiator then demanded a pair of stockings, and told the new Shifter to “go out and sting five other girls and make each of them give you any present that you want.”

Once the mark said yes (Robinson-Smith blamed peer pressure), the Shifter swore her to secrecy and extracted anywhere from 25 cents to a dollar from her victim. The ruse worked like this: A Shifter approached a nonmember and asked if she wanted to join. Gertrude Robinson-Smith, president of the Working Girls’ Vacation Society (a savings fund for shopgirls it eventually became the American Woman’s Association), told the Times that she learned of the organization from members who were unable to make their regular deposits - because they’d been hit up by the flapper bandits. A secret girl gang called the “Society of Shifters” was shaking down friends and coworkers for pocket change and silk stockings Sensational tales of drinking, smoking, and otherwise misbehaving young women were all over the newspapers in 1922, but the story that appeared in The New York Times on March 23rd still had the power to shock.

College Girls by Lynn Peril