Dr Doran
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Gathering dust on my shelves for several years are a few books on the 1920s. I have leafed through them and may read them this summer when I have time. Have any of you read these? This seems like the place to ask ...
1.) America in the Twenties by Geoffrey Perrett (Touchstone 1982). Lots of social history mixed in with a little political history for structure. A marvelous section on the sexual revolution of the 1920s in Chapter 8, "Modern is as Modern Does," situating this revolution in the post WW1 malaise, the ascendance of theories of "repression" like Freud and the (now regarded as woefully naive and inaccurate) publication of Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead in 1928, which thinly disguised a critique of Western sexual "repression" by pretending that Samoan islanders lived a sex-positive carefree life. Discusses the reaction to this sexual revolution in sources like Babbitt, in the "sheik and sheba" craze among college youth, and in the massive decline in prostitution when young men found that they could seduce their sweethearts rather than going to a prostitute. Plenty of other things in the book including striking episodes, Herbert Hoover, the Yankees, Henry Ford, Sacco and Vanzetti, and more. An easy to read, pleasant style.
2.) Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920's by Frederick Lewis Allen. Originally published in 1931 but reprinted many times; my copy is 1999, Perennial. Allen wrote for Atlantic Monthly, Century, and Harpers. I've barely touched this; my wife bought it years ago for a class. It has chapters on "The Big Red Scare," "The Revolution in Manners and Morals," "Harding and the Scandals," Coolidge Prosperity,"
The Revolt of the Highbrows," "Alcohol and Al Capone," "The Big Bull Market," "Crash!" and more. It looks well-done and it would be interesting to compare Allen's treatment of the period with that in the Perrett book.
3.) The 20's: American Writing in the Postwar Decade by Frederick J. Hoffman. 1949 originally; the copy I have is a Free Press reprint, 1965. I bought this originally for a terrible, terrible lit class at San Francisco City College before I transferred to Berkeley. The teacher happened to know 20s lit pretty well, but he gave no background on the history of the decade, repeated himself and gave the same anecdotes for different authors, alienated all the males in the classroom, and acted like a generally annoying old man so I dropped the class. Has eight sections on the temper of the 20s, the war and the postwar temper, forms of traditionalism, and more; discusses in depth Pound's Hugh Selwyn Mauberly (which I have neither read nor heard of -- I only know Pound's Cantos), Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, the magazine Vanity Fair, Willa Cather, Hart Crane, Gertrude Stein, Eliot's Waste Land, a personal favorite of mine, Mencken and the "booboisie," philistinism and critiques of the middle class, Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt, a chapter entitled "Sacco and Vanzetti as Leftist Heroes" (yikes!) and appendices called "Another Look at the Twenties," a lovely 34 page section called "Biographies" which gives a paragraph on nearly every human being mentioned in the book, a chronology from 1915 - 1932, and a selected (and, by this point, totally out of date, but still useful, I'm sure) bibliography.
4.) The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920’s by Paula Fass. Oxford University Press, 1970. Fass is a professor at Berkeley and a fine person. She helped pioneer the study of the history of the family and children; this book discusses youth culture of the 20s in America. It has two parts: “1: The Plastic Age,” and “2: Flappers and Philosophers” and these are further subdivided into chapters: Part 1 has, “The Children of our Discontent,” “The Family Redivivus: 1880 – 1930,” “The World of Youth: The Peer Society,” “Work and Play in the Peer Society.” Part 2 has, “Competition and Conformity in the Peer Culture,” “Sexual Mores in the World of Youth,” “Symbols of Liberation,” and “The Politics of Cultural Liberalism.” The book concludes with an essay entitled “Change and Stability.” I like the fact that Fass begins with concrete demographic facts and proceeds to show how these facts affected and shaped CULTURE.
Finally, The Lawless Decade: A Pictorial History of a Great American Transition: From the World War I Armistice and Prohibition to Repeal and the New Deal by Paul Sann. Crown Publishers, 1957. This is a big hardcover, full of pictures, “an informal excursion back into the Nineteen Twenties.” “The great postwar shocks of the twenties left very little sacred and very little overturned; most of the old playing rules were rewritten.” Everything is divided into years. Sections on prohibition, gangsters, William Desmond Taylor, Coolidge, the Clarence Darrow trial, Red Grange, the Florida bubble, blackface, Fitzgerald, William Jennings Bryan, Kip Rhinelander, Clara Bow, Sacco and Vanzetti, Al Smith, the Crash. Tons and tons of stunning luscious photos including Anita Loos who first came up with the expression “gentlemen prefer blondes.”
Anyone who has read these, or wants to read them and discuss them?
1.) America in the Twenties by Geoffrey Perrett (Touchstone 1982). Lots of social history mixed in with a little political history for structure. A marvelous section on the sexual revolution of the 1920s in Chapter 8, "Modern is as Modern Does," situating this revolution in the post WW1 malaise, the ascendance of theories of "repression" like Freud and the (now regarded as woefully naive and inaccurate) publication of Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead in 1928, which thinly disguised a critique of Western sexual "repression" by pretending that Samoan islanders lived a sex-positive carefree life. Discusses the reaction to this sexual revolution in sources like Babbitt, in the "sheik and sheba" craze among college youth, and in the massive decline in prostitution when young men found that they could seduce their sweethearts rather than going to a prostitute. Plenty of other things in the book including striking episodes, Herbert Hoover, the Yankees, Henry Ford, Sacco and Vanzetti, and more. An easy to read, pleasant style.
2.) Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920's by Frederick Lewis Allen. Originally published in 1931 but reprinted many times; my copy is 1999, Perennial. Allen wrote for Atlantic Monthly, Century, and Harpers. I've barely touched this; my wife bought it years ago for a class. It has chapters on "The Big Red Scare," "The Revolution in Manners and Morals," "Harding and the Scandals," Coolidge Prosperity,"
The Revolt of the Highbrows," "Alcohol and Al Capone," "The Big Bull Market," "Crash!" and more. It looks well-done and it would be interesting to compare Allen's treatment of the period with that in the Perrett book.
3.) The 20's: American Writing in the Postwar Decade by Frederick J. Hoffman. 1949 originally; the copy I have is a Free Press reprint, 1965. I bought this originally for a terrible, terrible lit class at San Francisco City College before I transferred to Berkeley. The teacher happened to know 20s lit pretty well, but he gave no background on the history of the decade, repeated himself and gave the same anecdotes for different authors, alienated all the males in the classroom, and acted like a generally annoying old man so I dropped the class. Has eight sections on the temper of the 20s, the war and the postwar temper, forms of traditionalism, and more; discusses in depth Pound's Hugh Selwyn Mauberly (which I have neither read nor heard of -- I only know Pound's Cantos), Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, the magazine Vanity Fair, Willa Cather, Hart Crane, Gertrude Stein, Eliot's Waste Land, a personal favorite of mine, Mencken and the "booboisie," philistinism and critiques of the middle class, Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt, a chapter entitled "Sacco and Vanzetti as Leftist Heroes" (yikes!) and appendices called "Another Look at the Twenties," a lovely 34 page section called "Biographies" which gives a paragraph on nearly every human being mentioned in the book, a chronology from 1915 - 1932, and a selected (and, by this point, totally out of date, but still useful, I'm sure) bibliography.
4.) The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920’s by Paula Fass. Oxford University Press, 1970. Fass is a professor at Berkeley and a fine person. She helped pioneer the study of the history of the family and children; this book discusses youth culture of the 20s in America. It has two parts: “1: The Plastic Age,” and “2: Flappers and Philosophers” and these are further subdivided into chapters: Part 1 has, “The Children of our Discontent,” “The Family Redivivus: 1880 – 1930,” “The World of Youth: The Peer Society,” “Work and Play in the Peer Society.” Part 2 has, “Competition and Conformity in the Peer Culture,” “Sexual Mores in the World of Youth,” “Symbols of Liberation,” and “The Politics of Cultural Liberalism.” The book concludes with an essay entitled “Change and Stability.” I like the fact that Fass begins with concrete demographic facts and proceeds to show how these facts affected and shaped CULTURE.
Finally, The Lawless Decade: A Pictorial History of a Great American Transition: From the World War I Armistice and Prohibition to Repeal and the New Deal by Paul Sann. Crown Publishers, 1957. This is a big hardcover, full of pictures, “an informal excursion back into the Nineteen Twenties.” “The great postwar shocks of the twenties left very little sacred and very little overturned; most of the old playing rules were rewritten.” Everything is divided into years. Sections on prohibition, gangsters, William Desmond Taylor, Coolidge, the Clarence Darrow trial, Red Grange, the Florida bubble, blackface, Fitzgerald, William Jennings Bryan, Kip Rhinelander, Clara Bow, Sacco and Vanzetti, Al Smith, the Crash. Tons and tons of stunning luscious photos including Anita Loos who first came up with the expression “gentlemen prefer blondes.”
Anyone who has read these, or wants to read them and discuss them?
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