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1914 - 1946. Disillusion, Defiance, and Discontent. There are three central ideas in the American dream First there is admiration for America as a new Eden; a land of beauty, bounty, and unlimited promise
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1914 - 1946 Disillusion, Defiance, and Discontent
There are three central ideas in the American dream First there is admiration for America as a new Eden; a land of beauty, bounty, and unlimited promise The second element is optimism, justified by the ever-expanding opportunity and abundance that many people have come to expect of our great nation The American Dream: pursuit of a Promise
Americans have always believed in progress – that life keeps getting better and that we are moving toward an era of prosperity, justice, and joy that always seems just around the corner The third element in the American dream has been the importance and ultimate triumph of the individual – the independent, self-reliant person Everything is possible for the person who places trust in his or her own powers and potential Modernism …
Years preceding World War I were characterized by an overwhelming sense of optimism. Societal attitudes were optimistically influenced by the following: Numerous technological advances Promise for the future And then World War I broke out in 1914 … Historical Background
Allies - Britain, Belgium, France, Italy, Serbia, Montenegro, Japan, and Russia; later Russia would drop out of the conflict and the United States would join Central Powers – Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey The machine gun was introduced, making it impossible for one side to launch a successful attack on its opponents’ trenches War in Europe
President Woodrow Wilson wanted the US to remain neutral, but that proved impossible 1915 - A German submarine sank the Lusitania More than 1,200 people lost their lives on board, including 128 Americans Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare two years later; the US joined the Allied cause Modernism: Historical Background …
A number of famous American writers saw the war firsthand and learned of its horror E. E. Cummings, Ernest Hemingway, and John Dos Passos served as ambulance drivers for the Red Cross Hemingway later served in the Italian infantry and was seriously wounded This experience served as the basis for his short story “In Another Country” Psychological Effects of the War
Two new intellectual trends or movements became popular after World War I Marxism and psychoanalysis combine to increase the pressure on traditional beliefs and values In Russia during World War I, a Marxist-inspired Bolshevik Revolution had toppled and even murdered anointed ruler Czar Nicholas II The socialistic beliefs of Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) that had powered the Russian Revolution in 1917 were in direct opposition to the American system of capitalism and free enterprise Postwar
In Vienna, there was another unsettling movement • Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939), the founder of psychoanalysis, had opened the workings of the unconscious mind to scrutiny and called for a new understanding of human sexuality, and the role it plays in unconscious thoughts • Throughout America, there was a growing interest in this new field The Musings of Sigmund Freud
This created a resultant anxiety about the amount of freedom an individual really had If we as people truly believed our actions were influenced by our subconscious, and we coupled this belief with the theory that there was no control over our subconscious, then there seemed to be little room left for “free will” The Subconscious Controls Our Actions
One literary result of this interest in the psyche was the narrative technique called stream of consciousness This style abandoned chronology and attempted to imitate the moment-by-moment flow of a character’s perceptions and memories Stream of Consciousness
Norman Rockwell Captures the Spirit of America(born Feb. 3, 1894, New York, N.Y., U.S. — died Nov. 8, 1978, Stockbridge, Mass.)
The Great War ended in November 1918 The Constitution was amended to prohibit the manufacture and sale of alcohol Prohibition led to bootlegging, speakeasies, widespread law breaking, the creation of the original gangster, and sporadic warfare among competing gangs Recording the Roaring Twenties, F. Scott Fitzgerald gave it its name the Jazz Age Prosperity and Depression
Gangsterism How did prohibition lead to the rise in gangsterism? People soon found ways of getting round the new law. Speakeasies were soon set up in all of the big cities. these were illegal bars, which sold alcohol behind closed doors. It was almost impossible to close these down because they were opened in basements or the back rooms of restaurants and cafes. If bar owners could not get their hands on genuine alcoholic drinks, they could always buy moonshine or hooch, which was illegally made alcohol. Unfortunately this could be very dangerous. Several hundred people a year died from alcohol poisoning during the 1920s, mostly from the effects of moonshine which could be lethal.
More on Gansterism … The most common way of getting hold of illicit drink was by bootlegging, which was smuggling alcohol into the USA from Canada, Mexico or the West Indies. An enormous amount of alcohol was smuggled into the USA from Canada. Some of it by people who simply rowed across to fetch it. none of these countries had prohibition so it was a relatively easy matter to bring alcohol across the long borders that the USA had with Canada and Mexico and the thousands of miles of coastline. William McCoy is said to have made $70,000,000 in four years smuggling whisky from Canada and the West Indies. But the most important result of prohibition was that it made ordinary people into criminals. Most people liked a drink from time to time and this made the police very reluctant to enforce the law. They also became more open to bribes from otherwise law-abiding citizens. So began the system of bribery and corruption that spread all over the USA and reached the highest levels of society. Worse still, the supply of illegal alcohol fell into the hands of gangsters, who then bribed the police and justice system to allow them to carry on their business.
Gansgerism Cont’d … In Chicago the mayor, Big Bill Thompson, was known to be an associate of the gangsters, who stepped in to supply the demand. The gangsters were able to make a fortune. "It is estimated that by 1929, Capone's income from the various aspects of his business was $60,000,000 (illegal alcohol), $25,000,000 (gambling establishments), $10,000,000 (vice) and $10,000,000 from various other rackets. It is claimed that Capone was employing over 600 gangsters to protect this business from rival gangs."
After a brief recession in 1920 and 1921, the economy boomed • New buildings rose, creating new downtowns sections in many cities • Radio and jazz arrived • Movies became big business, and spectacular movie places sprang up across the country • Fads such as raccoon coats, flagpole sitting, and the dance the Charleston began Economic and Societal Factors …
Writers flocked to Greenwich Village, in New York City. Older buildings, barns, stables, and houses were converted to studios, nightclubs, theaters, and shops Eugene O’Neill founded the Greenwich Village theatre where experimental dramas were performed Thomas Wolfe taught English at New York University in the Village while writing his novel Look Homeward Angel New York gets its Cool on with Greenwich Village
The poet Edna St. Vincent Millay became a symbol of the liberated woman of the era • Her bold, carefree public identity as a romantic, extravagant female Casanova made her a national celebrity while she was still in her twenties • Millay’s poems, as well as her public persona, assigned women social, intellectual, and romantic roles that society had previously reserved for men
The auto industry was the engine of the American economy in the 1920s • Car sales grew rapidly during the decade • The auto boom spurred growth in related fields, such as steel and rubber • One reason for the auto boom was a drop in prices • By 1924, the cost of a Model T had decreased from $850 to $290 Vroom Vroom Vroom …
An average American, not just the wealthy, could afford to buy a car • Car prices fell because factories became more efficient • Henry Ford had introduced the assembly line in his factory in 1913 • Before the assemble line, it took 14 hours to put together a Model T • In Ford’s new factory, workers could assemble a Model T in 93 minutes
The assembly line was a key idea in the expansion of manufacturing • It could apply to many industries, ensuring rapid manufacture of less expensive goods • Other companies copied Ford’s methods • In 1927, General Motors passed Ford as the top auto maker • General Motors sold cars in a variety of models and colors
In late October 1929, the stock market crashed, marking the beginning of the Great Depression. By mid-1932, about 12 million people – one quarter of the work force – were out of work In 1932 New York’s governor Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated incumbent president Herbert Hoover
Roosevelt initiated the New Deal, a package of major economic reforms, to strengthen the economy Roosevelt’s New Deal Program helped some Americans find work, but it was World War II that really pushed the United States economically out of the Great Depression This, with his leadership in World War II, earned him reelection in 1936, 1940, and again in 1944
Germans invaded Poland to touch off WWII America wanted to stay neutral; yet, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, it was no longer possible The U.S. declared war on the Axis powers – Japan, Germany, and Italy After years of fighting on two fronts, the Allies – the U.S., Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France – defeated Nazi Germany Japan surrendered three months later, after the U.S. had dropped the atomic bomb World War ii
Carrie Chapman Catt, a former school principal and reporter, spoke out forcefully for women’s suffrage. She was a brilliant organizer, and her campaign succeeded as year by year more states in the West and Midwest gave women the vote Gradually, more women called for an amendment to the Constitution Women Get the Vote
The suffragist leader Alice Paul and others met with President Wilson after he took office in 1913 He did not oppose women’s suffrage, but he did not support a constitutional amendment Suffragists became disillusioned after numerous meetings with Wilson and began to picket the White House in January of 1917
By early 1918, President Wilson agreed to support the suffrage amendment In 1919, Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution giving women the right to vote By August 1920, three fourths of the states had ratified it The amendment doubled the number of eligible voters in the U.S.
The devastation of World War I brought about an end to the sense of optimism that had characterized the years immediately preceding the war • No longer trusting the ideas and values of the world out of which the war had developed, people sought to find new ideas that better suited twentieth-century life • The quest for new ideas occurred in the world of literature as well, and a major literary movement known as Modernism was born Literature of the period
Disillusionment was a major theme in the fiction of the time Sinclair Lewis lashed out satirically at the narrow-mindedness of small town life in his immensely popular novel Main Street In 1925, Theodore Dreiser produced a literary landmark with his prototype of the realistic novel An American Tragedy, the story of an ambitious but luckless man who takes a path that lead him not to the success he seeks, but to the execution chamber
The most influential of all the post-WWI writers was Ernest Hemingway • Hemingway reduced the flamboyance of literary language to a minimum – to express the bare bones of the truth • Hemingway introduced a new kind of hero to American fiction, a character type that many readers embraced as a protagonist and a role model Ernest Hemingway
Modernist experimented with a wide variety of new approaches and techniques, producing a remarkably diverse body of literature To reflect the fragmentation of the modern world, the Modernist constructed their works out of fragments, omitting the expositions, transitions, resolutions, and explanation used in traditional literature Modernism
In poetry, Modernist writers abandoned traditional forms and meters in favor of free verse whose rhythms they improvised to suit individual poems The themes of their works were usually implied rather than directly stated; this created a sense of uncertainty Modernist writers and poets helped to earn American literature a place in the world’s esteem Modernism and Imagism …
Modernism emphasized bold experimentation in style and form, reflecting the fragmentation of society It rejected traditional themes and subjects It also rejected the ideal of a hero as infallible in favor of a hero who is flawed and disillusioned but shows “grace under pressure”
Poets began to explore the artistic life of Europe • With other writers, artists, and composers from all over the world, they absorbed the lessons of modernist painters like Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, who were exploring new ways to see and represent reality • Poets sought to create poems that invited new ways of seeing and thinking
