Essential reading about the 1920s-40s?

[Miles Borocky]

Hi All:
I know this forum is nominally dedicated to the 1930s and 40s, but my consideration of a golden age looks back a little further to the 1920s, when America, it seemed to me, truly became modern after WWI.

That said, any reading you'd recommend to understand in detail the history of the USA from the 1920s-40s? As a lit professor-type, I'm usually interested in cultural details more than just the "broad strokes" of history.

Here are two I'd recommend:

Ann Douglas, TERRIBLE HONESTY: MONGREL MANHATTAN IN THE 1920s, which is loaded with coverage of all the major figures of the period: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Babe Ruth, Charles Lindbergh, Harry Houdini, Louis Brooks... I can't sing the praises of this book enough.

Phillip Furia, THE POETS OF TIN PAN ALLEY, which is focused only on the great lyricists in American popular song from the 1920s and 30s. If you want a thorough appreciation of the great gift that the Lorenz Harts and Ira Gershwins and Irving Berlins of Tin Pan Alley gave the rest of us, this one's for you.

What are your recommendations?

 

[Dagwood]

I would highly recommend "Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920's" and "Since Yesterday: The 1930's in America." Both books are by Frederick Allen.

 

[HadleyH]

I would highly recommend "Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920's" and "Since Yesterday: The 1930's in America." Both books are by Frederick Allen.

I second that.

There were other threads about this topic i think, and the literature about those years is abundant.... "The Lawless Decade" by Paul Sann is a very lively pictorial history of the 1920s from WW1 to the New Deal. "The Thirties" by Alan Jenkins, also full of pictures and social history. These are some of the books , full of photos that complement nicely the mere history books imo.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I love the Jenkins book -- it's written from a British perspective, and Jenkins comes off as a bit of a toff in some of his commentary, but it's a lot of fun to read and the illustrations are absolutely gorgeous. Very much worth looking for.

And I'll add here, as I have in other threads, William Manchester's "The Glory and the Dream -- a Narrative History of America, 1932-1972." It's a biography of an entire generation -- what Manchester calls the "Swing Generation," the kids who grew up in the Depression and came of age in the years just before WW2, went to war, came home to postwar prosperity, and were vexed by the social changes of the sixties and seventies. It starts with the Bonus Army and ends with the first rumblings of Watergate, and every social change, upheaval, fad and trend in between gets careful notice. Thoroughly documented and very well written -- I've worn out two copies of this book over the years, and will probably wear out a third.

 

[Mojito]

There have been a few interesting books focusing on women in these decades. Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity and the Women Who Made America Modern by Joshua Zeitz is an entertaining read, but (as you'd probably guess from the title) perhaps a bit lightweight. He weaves together a number of individual stories to illustrate the ideas he explores (such as the role of advertising in women's lives and the relation of fashion to social developments - both interesting chapters), but the examples he choses are mostly rather well known, and he does not introduce new material - the Fitzgeralds run through as a sort of narrative backbone, and there's plenty of Clara Bow, Louise Brooks and Colleen Moore.

More academic in tone and theme - and with more original source material - is Posing a Threat: Flappers, Chorus Girls and Other Brazen Performers by Angela Latham Some of the lexicon reminded me a bit too much of the 1990s post structuralism I suffered through in the course of my degree, but the author does have interesting - and sometimes provocative - ideas. She critically examines popular concepts of the 1920s as an era of emancipation for women and their struggle to achieve personal and political autonomy. I particularly enjoyed her ideas on women's performance and display in society.

Not American, but I did like Singled Out: How Two Million British Women Survived Without Men After the First World War by Virginia Nicholson - it begins with the heartbreaking losses of the War and then explores the remarkably diverse roles that women carved out for themselves in the decades that followed. I did grumble a bit at her passing comments on Dorothy Sayers' depiction of the classic "old maid" - I think she sells Sayers short, as the author's Miss Climpson is a complex character, and recurring idea in the Wimsey books is the untapped potential and misinterpretation of unmarried women in the interwar period.

"The Twenties in Vogue" is another good read - it's a selection of articles on a variety of topics from Vogue issues of the decade, with a light linking commentary and excellent illustrations from the magazines ranging from society photographs to Cecil Beaton cartoons. A British slant, but some lovely material on New York and France as well.

 

[Flivver]

Among my favorite sources of insight into the youth culture of the 1920s is the comic "Life" magazine, and its competitor, "Judge". These magazines were aimed at the "smart college set" and contain cartoons, jokes, movie reviews and even some interesting ads. The John Held Jr. covers and cartoons are worth the price alone...but there's so much more, as well.

For a more mainstream look into the 1920s, I also like "The Saturday Evening Post", "Literary Digest" and the weekly rotogravure "Pictorial Review". The ads in "The Saturday Evening Post" are outstanding, although the price of 1920s copies is escalating, depending on the cover artist.

"Literary Digest" is still affordable and contains numerous ads as well...in addition to some pretty interesting commentary.

And if you're looking or photographs of the 1920s "scene", the "Pictorial Review" can't be beat.

 

[Dr Doran]

Not a history book, but a novel: Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine. This is French (Voyage au Bout de la Nuit if you read French), not American, but has a hallucinatory vision of trench warfare in WW1, then French colonial Africa, and also, perhaps most pertinent to your interests, the protagonist goes to America and works in a Ford auto plant, living in a planned community and shacking up with a prostitute.

It's a French vision of what America was about. I highly recomment it.

 

[Miles Borocky]

merci!

Thanks for all the excellent recommendations. I look forward to seeking a number of these out in the library.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

Piers Brendon's The Dark Valley: A Panarama of the 1930s is essential reading, with each chapter covering the goings-on in the USA; Great Britain; France; Germany; USSR; Germany; Italy; and Spain in the years after WWI and throughout the 1930s. Despite the horror of those years, the author manages to inject a sense of (black) humor into the proceedings. Highly recommended. It may not be the USA cultural history you're looking for, but do keep it in mind.

 

[Naphtali]

Two outstanding books on the era are:

1. Shirer, William L., Berlin Diary; This is a print equivalent of watching a tornado coming down the street toward you while you are immobile in a traffic jam.

2. Hecht, Ben, A Child of the Century. This is the autobiography of a journalist, playwright, screenwriter, political activist, Zionist, alcoholic -- an interesting human being living in interesting times.

 

[carter]

Thanks for the recommendations.

I have Shirer's Berlin Diary.

I located 1st Editions of both Piers Brendon's and Alan Jenkins' books on abebooks.com. They are on the way.

 

[Unlucky Berman]

Some novel of the time itself. How about Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby? Still one of my favorites and a good insight into the society of the Roaring Twenties and its flippancy.

 

[Chas]

Rex Stewart ~ "Jazz Masters of The 1930's" - anecdotal history of the life of musicians during the golden age.

"Tropic Of Cancer" ~ Henry Miller. Stream of consciousness ranting and sex. What can be better than that?

"Homage to Catalonia" ~ George Orwell - Of course, you should also read "Keep the Aspidistra Flying"....never mind. Read all of Orwell's stuff. He is/was the most important author in the English language of the modern era.

 

[Brian Sheridan]

Started this book and it offers a great snapshot of the period:

Dream Lucky: When FDR was in the White House, Count Basie was on the radio, and everyone wore a hat... (Hardcover)
by Roxane Orgill

From Publishers Weekly:
Orgill unleashes verve and rhythmic riffs to capture the mood of the pre-WWII years, when the radio was always on. An ASCAP–Deems Taylor Award winner, Orgill, who has written about music for young readers (Mahalia), recalls radio programs. big band music, comedians, art, sports, the struggle for racial equality and a nod to the Depression and Europe's gathering storm. To recreate radio, she listened to recordings rather than using transcripts because she needed to hear the voices and the music herself. The format is chronological, covering 48 eventful days framed by Joe Louis's loss to Max Schmeling on June 19, 1936, and the June 22, 1938, rematch, which Louis won. In between, we hear Rudy Vallee introducing Edgar Bergen to radio listeners and Count Basie at Roseland, and Amelia Earhart soaring. Langston Hughes opens his theater, Orson Welles is The Shadow and FDR watches Disney cartoons. Orgill concludes this rhapsodic time-travel tour guide with a Suggested Listening list, cueing readers to play Basie as a background for her lilting language.

 

[Dr Doran]

"Tropic Of Cancer" ~ Henry Miller. Stream of consciousness ranting and sex. What can be better than that?

I don't mean to start a fight, but IN MY OPINION Miller is at best a third-rate Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Highly derivative. The conscious use of non-literary language, the slang, the stream of consciousness, the breaking out into rants, the view of the world through urine-colored lenses, the general nihilism and the ubiquitous dotdotdot style. He saw himself that way, worshipped Céline, and Céline barely gave him the time of day. It's similar to the relationship between Stephen King and H. P. Lovecraft although King was born too late to meet Lovecraft.

But having said that, I enjoyed both Tropic books by Miller as well as the first half or so of his Rosy Crucifixion trilogy for what they were, the "cosmodemonic telegraph company" and all that. The sexual matter in the first book was fun, but then the armchair "exotic East" philosophizing that occurs later got really trite and boring in a very California way. We can see in it the roots of the California New Age movement. He did move to Big Sur, after all.

There is a fine biography of Céline that is translated into English and contains much historical matter, and is also beautifully written, by Frederic Vitoux. When that is read and contrasted with the biography of Miller, which I have also read (it is called The Happiest Man Alive and I cannot recall offhand the name of the writer, but she is a woman -- perhaps it is Deidre Bair) the vast gulf between the two writers in depth, in experience, in grief, in erudition, and (hate to say it) in intelligence is highlighted. Although Céline lost many points for his later, highly disagreeable political turn, this did not affect the quality of his writing which quite frankly was new and exciting, and with very few precursors, none I can think of at the moment. Miller would not have written anything like he did, and probably not at all, if not for Céline.

Céline almost won the Prix Goncourt, the most cherished literary prize in France, after his first novel, Voyage au Bout de la Nuit, or Journey to the End of the Night, after which the Doors named a song on their first album. I do not know of any award that Miller won, or almost won, and I do not think he was taken seriously as a serious writer by any serious critic outside of people in the Beat Generation and perhaps the hippies.

Miller is fun, though, and a good stream-of-consciousness ranting-n-sex read if you are in the mood for that -- no doubt about that. He can do it better than his third-rate followers, such as Henry Rollins of Black Flag whose horrid sub-sub-literary expulsions are specifically and explicitly inspired by/modelled on Henry Miller's. And I enjoyed the film Henry and June when it came out, almost 20 years ago, but I have not revisited it since then.

Please don't think I am disrespecting your taste, Charles. It's just my opinion (and obviously a strong one). I do enjoy Miller for what he did. And I agree with your excellent assessment of Orwell, the greatness of his books, and the importance of his work in the 20th century canon, although I liked 1984 the best. As for the Aspidistra book, I saw a film version of it on TV once that was quite good, if I recall, although I did not read the original. It had a different title. It may have been a BBC made-for-TV movie.

 

[Mike1939]

*The Long Weekend: A Social History of Great Britain, Robert Graves and Alan Hodge

*Later Than We Thought: A Portrait of the Thirties, Rene Cutforth

* Daily Life in the United States 1920-1940, David E. Kyvig

* The Desperate Years, James D. Horan

 

[Fletch]

History is what people write about later on - or "bunk," if you follow Henry Ford - and altho I read it with gusto, I know there is no substitute for contemporary writings. History can talk about the Zeitgeist; period works immerse you in it.

Read any of the WPA Guides. Many if not most are in print today. I can personally recommend those to New York City, Iowa, and Minnesota, all researched and compiled by local writers and historians.

One Man's Meat, by E.B. White, is a selection of his New Yorker columns on current events from 1938-'43. He ranges far and wide, from war and politics to movies and word-pictures of the places around him. He isn't shy about mixing light with heavy, or solemnity with humor, and some of his metaphors and imagery are hauntingly powerful.

Also check out John Gunther's Inside U.S.A., first published in 1948, with addenda in subsequent editions. Newsman Gunther is broadly summative, at times just this side of stereotypical, but he still gives a vivid mosaic of just-postwar America and how it got that way, organized by region, power, politics, and personalities.

I ordinarily don't think oral history ought to be elevated to canon status, but Studs Terkel's Hard Times and The "Good War" ought to be required reading for any student of Depression and WW2, especially one interested in social and political out-groups and their place in a society that didn't have much use for them.

 

[Fletch]

Orgill, who has written about music for young readers (Mahalia), recalls radio programs. big band music, comedians, art, sports, the struggle for racial equality and a nod to the Depression and Europe's gathering storm.

Only "a nod"? Have they any idea how subversive that is to canonical histories of the period?

I think I would love that book, for that reason alone. That and the fact that the author actually listened to radio - Zeitgeist in pure form. Not the tinny little marketing instrument it's become today, but a rich, glowing, mahogany presence that invested even a cheap soap opera or a station break with live immediacy and the kind of common everyday elegance that is now not even a memory.

One p.m. Yellow Cab Time. Day or night - call Yellow Cab - HObart 1212. WJSV, Washington.