Disillusion, Defiance, & Discontent

1. Disillusion, Defiance, & Discontent Modernism 1914-1946

2. Story of the times • America was hailed a world power, albeit we were losing our youthful innocence & brash innocence. • Within a world of wars, America was becoming disenchanted with that which came before.

3. Time of Invention & conflict • Continued industrialization • Continued inventions & technology • Social problems • Union difficulties • World War I broke out, and President Woodrow Wilson put home troubles on the back burner.

4. War in Europe • Bloodiest & most tragic conflicts ever • The machine gun changed the way war was fought • Almost an entire generation of European men fought & died in this war

5. War in Europe • President Wilson wanted to remain neutral, but that proved impossible • In 1915, a German submarine sank the Lusitanian, a British merchant fleet • 128 Americans were on board • America sided with the Allies, and two years later joined the Allied cause

6. Authors in war • American entered the war carefree, but they would soon realize it was not so • American authors, E.E. Cummings, Ernest Hemingway, & John Dos Passos all served in some capacity

7. Prosperity & Depression • The end of WWI in 1918 brought little peace to America since prohibition began a year later • The sale of liquor became illegal • This led to increased bootlegging, widespread law breaking, underground bars, & war fare between mob families

8. 1920s (we will get more into this era later) • Through the 20s the nation was on a binge • The economy boomed • Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, which detailed the decadence of the time • In 1929 the Stock Market crashed marking the beginning of the Great Depression

9. The New Deal • By 1932 12 million Americans were out of work • Unemployment increased, & the food lines became longer • Franklin D. Roosevelt beat Herbert Hoover for the presidency • Roosevelt created the New Deal, a package of economic reform to turn around the economic state of America

10. World War II • Twenty years after the Treaty of Versailles, German invaded Poland • As with WWI, America wanted to stay out of the war • When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, we could no longer ignore the war going on around us

11. An atomic end • The allies –including the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, & France- defeated Germany, Japan, & Italy • A major event leading to the end of WWII was the invention of the Atomic Bomb, which American dropped on Hiroshima & Nagasaki in 1948

12. Birth of Modernism • Devastation of WWI left many Authors disenchanted • They no longer trusted the ideals & values of America • This new group of writers were called Modernists • They attempted to capture the new modern way of life of America in their writing

13. Expatriates • Postwar disenchantment led a number of American writers to move to Europe • Many of these writers created a community in Paris • Most notably, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound & F. Scott Fitzgerald