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Explore the transformative era of 1914-1946 in American history, encompassing world wars, cultural revolutions, economic booms, and literary innovations.
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A New Century • The America that entered the 20th century was a nation achieving world dominance while losing some of its youthful innocence and confidence. • The new century was full of wars, a new age in literature, and many upheavals.
War In Europe • World War I • Allies- Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, Serbia, Montenegro, Japan, and Russia • Central Powers- Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey • Involved trench warfare; invention of the machine gun proved deadly.
American Involvement in WWI • President Wilson wished to remain neutral. • 1915-German submarine sank the British ship the Lusitania (killing 1,200; 128 of them Americans) • Two years later, Germans resumed unrestricted submarine warfare, so the United States joined the Allies against them.
False Sense of Security • Americans were confident and carefree as troops went overseas, the reality of war had not set in. But that mood soon passed. • Famous American writers E.E. Cummings, Ernest Hemingway, and John Dos Passos saw the war firsthand and learned of its horrors.
Post WWI • Attempt to join the League of Nations failed. • In the big cities of America, from 1920-1933 Prohibition had made the sale of liquor illegal which led to bootlegging, speakeasies, gang wars, and widespread law-breaking. • 1920- Women get right to vote, doubling the number of eligible voters.
Post WWI Economy • 1920’s economy boomed. • New buildings rose everywhere, creating downtown sections in many cities. • Radio and jazz arrived. • Movies became big and movie palaces sprang up across the country. • Fads- raccoon coats, flagpole sitting, Charleston dance
Great Depression • October 1929-stock market crashed; beginning of the Depression • By mid-1932, 12 million people, about ¼ of the work force, were out of work. • Unemployment grew, bread lines formed • 1932- FDR elected • The New Deal - package of major economic reforms; helped bring an end to the Depression.
WWII • 1939- German invasion of Poland • America once again wished to remain neutral but became involved after the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7th 1941. • War ended in 1945 with the U.S. dropping two atomic bombs on Japanese cities.
Literature • Birth of Modernism • Experimented with wide variety of new approaches and techniques, producing a diverse body of literature • Common purpose- to capture the essence of modernlife in both the form and content of their work. • Writers omitted the expositions, transitions, resolutions, and explanations used in traditional literature. Free verse was popular to poets. • Themes were often implied, forcing readers to draw own conclusions, demanding more of readers.
Imagism • Poetic movement from 1909-1917. • Used hard, clear expression, concrete images, and language of everyday speech instead of sentimental works of 19th cent. • Modeled after Greek and Roman classics, Chinese and Japanese poetry, and the free verse of French poets. • Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell
Expatriates (Exiles) • “Lost generation,” those disillusioned by WWI • Most settled in Paris • F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot. • Writings often expressed the chaos and hopelessness of those years.
New Approaches • Influences came from modern psychology, with the stream-of-consciousness technique (series of thoughts, memories, and insights, connected only by a character’s natural associations). • James Joyce, William Faulkner, Katherine Anne Porter, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, and Marianne Moore
Internationally Renowned Writers • Nobel Prize for Literature: • Sinclair Lewis 1930 (first winner) • Main Street • Eugene O’Neill 1936 • playwright • Pearl S. Buck 1938 • The Good Earth • T. S. Eliot 1948 (won as British subject) • William Faulkner 1949 • The Sound and the Fury • Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck also won • A Farewell to Arms Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath
Harlem Renaissance • African American writers, mostly newcomers from the South. • Began in 1921 with Countee Cullen’s “I Have a Rendezvous With Life (with apologies to Alan Seeger).” • Most writers moved to Harlem during the Renaissance. • Publicly recognized in 1924. • Continued throughout the 20’s and into the 30’s.
Harlem Renaissance cont. • Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Arna Bontemps • One editor noted that black writers, long “oppressed and handicapped…have gathered stores of emotion and are ready to burst forth with a new eloquence.” • Writers belonged to no single school of literature but did form a group • Opened the door for African American writers who followed them.
