F. Scott Fitzgerald and the 1920’s

F. Scott Fitzgerald and the 1920’s Edited by Nina Lee Braden

Changing Ways of Life • Urbanization accelerated • More Americans in cities than in rural areas • New York City home to over 5 million • Chicago nearly 3 million

Urban versus Rural • Urban life = a world of anonymous crowds, strangers, moneymakers, and pleasure seekers • Rural life = safe, with close personal ties, hard work and morals

Prohibition • Example of clash between city & farm • 18th Amendment in 1920 • Illegal to make, sell or transport liquor • Repealed in 1933 by 21st Amendment

Speakeasies and Bootleggers • Many Americans, especially immigrants, did not believe drinking a sin • Drinkers went to hidden saloons known as speakeasies • People also bought liquor from bootleggers who smuggled it in from Canada, Cuba and the West Indies

Speakeasies • A speakeasy was an establishment used for selling and drinking alcoholic beverages. • A bartender would tell a patron to be quiet and “speak easy” • Connected to organized crime

Boyish silhouettes became the fashion Hemlines went above the calves (scandalous!) Youth becomes the epitome of beauty Coco Chanel “Eton bob” Cloche hats Lots of lipstick Pin-striped suits came into fashion (Al Capone) Trousers are more tapered Fedoras Tight fitting clothing 1920’s Fashion Trends

1920’s Fashion

The Flapper • New ideal emerged for some women • An emancipated young woman who embraced the new fashions and urban attitudes

Modern Family Emerges • Marriage became based on romantic love • Women managed the household and finances • Children no longer considered laborers/ wage earners but rather developing children who needed nurturing and education

F. Scott Fitzgerald • Born in St. Paul, MN on Sept. 24, 1896 • "That was always my experience--a poor boy in a rich town; a poor boy in a rich boy's school; a poor boy in a rich man's club at Princeton ... . However, I have never been able to forgive the rich for being rich, and it has colored my entire life and works." –Fitzgerald

Early Life • Fitzgerald always conscious of class differences. • Mother’s family: Irish, fairly well-to-do • Descendant of Francis Scott Key • Father: failed businessman and salesman

Schooling • Catholic boarding school in NJ (1911-13) • Entered Princeton (1915); involved in campus literary magazine and wrote scripts for campus musical productions • Not a great student

Military and Courtship • 1917: received commission as 2nd Lt. in the U.S. Army • At bases in KS and KY, worked on a novel, The Romantic Egoist—rejected twice by Scribner’s • 1918: moved to Camp Sheridan in Montgomery; met and fell in love with Zelda Sayre

Zelda • Daughter of an AL Supreme Court judge: a debutante and great beauty • Zelda initially rebuffed Fitzgerald’s advances • War ended before Fitzgerald could go overseas • He goes to NYC to work in advertising to make money to marry Zelda • She calls off the engagement

After Zelda’s Rejection • Moved back to Minnesota • spent the next several months revising This Side of Paradise • The novel published in March 1920: • Instant best-seller and fame for Fitzgerald; • Zelda marries him 8 days later. • Began his life-long association with The Saturday Evening Post • Becomes perhaps the best-paid writer of his generation

F. Scott Fitzgerald • When critics objected to Fitzgerald’s concern with love and success, his response was: “But, my God! it was my material, and it was all I had to deal with.” The chief theme of Fitzgerald’s work is the aspirational idealism he regarded as defining American character.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous • Coins the term “Jazz Age” and he and Zelda become the embodiment of the excesses of the 1920s • Floods the Biltmore Hotel, lights cigars with money, displays $500 bills in his shirt pocket • 1921: working on his second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned; they go to St. Paul where daughter Scottie is born (“I hope it’s beautiful and a fool—a beautiful little fool.”) • Two collections of short stories published: Flappers and Philosophers (1921) and Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)

Fitzgerald’s Drinking • Part of the Fitzgerald myth; helped along by Hemingway in A Moveable Feast • Was always a careful craftsman and reviser, even of popular stories • Because of his image, Fitzgerald wasn’t taken seriously as a writer in his own lifetime

Paris Again • 1924: Fitzgeralds move to France: • Becomes friends with Hemingway, Stein, other expatriates • Writes Gatsby • Zelda begins having an affair • 1925: Gatsby published; receives limited critical praise but is not commercially successful

The Zelda Factor • 1927: Zelda’s behavior becoming more erratic (decided to pursue ballet dancing, practicing up to 10 hrs. a day) • Has a nervous breakdown and is in and out of hospitals in the 1930s • To pay the bills, Fitzgerald continues to write stories, though he wanted to work on his novels

The Zelda Mystique • By 1929, Fitzgerald earning $4000 for a story in the Post; never out of debt. • 1932: Zelda suffers a relapse; rest of her life in and out of sanitariums • Zelda published a novel, further broadening the gulf • Zelda died in a fire in a NC hospital in 1948

Death and Fitzgerald’s Reputation • 1940: dies of a heart attack at age 44, all but forgotten • Reputation begins to revive in 1945 with the publication of The Crack-Up and The Portable F. Scott Fitzgerald and continued to grow throughout the 1950s and 1960s

F. Scott Fitzgerald and the 1920’s