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Title: Only Yesterday : An Informal History of the 1920's by Frederick L. Allen ISBN: 0-06-095665-8 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 25 July, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.64 (14 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Federal or Confederate?
Comment: The author details the ephemera of the roaring twenties and in doing so seems to capture the geist of the times. The country is already divided between the forces of "decency" and the predators, who, at the most articulate levels, profess "laissez faire capitalism."
The object of this French term is the United States government. By 1918 it was a fast ship, roaring to the aid of the beleaguered peoples of Europe, tipping the balance in the "war to end wars" in favor of the right side. In this spirit also, prohibition was passed. The moment the war came to an end, the American people fled from the banners of decency just as fast as their legs could carry them. The government became a derelict hulk captained by token presidents.
Wilson drove himself to death trying in vain to bring about a "just and lasting peace." Harding, the great American "good guy", enmeshed himself in the "Teapot Dome Scandals" perpetrated by his friends, the Texas oil millionaires. The author speculates that his rather unexpected death was a concealed suicide. The oil intended for U.S. naval reserves went elsewhere at a large profit, much to Japan.
The south rose again in the form of the resurrected Klu Klux Klan (the book does not mention its previous disbanding by the actual confederate veterans). They ruled at the state and local levels (hence "states rights"). Justice was an open joke, but who cared about it? The American people were busy pursuing a sexual revolution and illicit booze. The satirist, H. L. Mencken, had a field day. Al Capone ruled Chicago. Hundreds of rackets sprang up everywhere and small businessmen paid taxes to the mob.
Why did the government not act? Mammon was God and was being preached not only by the clergy from the pulpit but by its new apostles, the salesmen. "Hands off", they said, and that will be the best. The little people attempted to defend themselves and their jobs through unions and were assaulted by reactionary forces acting at state and local levels. Anarchy and disorder were on the increase. The IWW reached maximum extent, especially in the west. Reactionaries countered with "the red scare." Sacco and Vanzetti were executed for a crime the judge and prosecutor knew they did not commit, because they were "anarchists" (they were not).
Reaching the end of the decade, the author gives us the handwriting on the wall: the crash of late 1929. Laissez faire, he hints, was not going to work in the 20th century. He could not then know of the rise of FDR, the suppression of the Klan, the legalization of unions, and the strengthening of the government into a social regulatory force and quasi-empire. Nor could he know that the divisiveness would continue, and the protagonists would be roughly the same. What a pity.
Rating: 4
Summary: Engaging Storyteller
Comment: Allen takes us back to the 1920s through the craft possessed only by skilled storytellers. He puts culture into its proper context by pointing out how rapidly things were changed by technological innovations of the time. For example, on page137 he notes "there was no such thing as radio broadcasting to the public until the autumn of 1920, but that by the spring of 1922 radio had become a craze."
The nation was in some ways, still in the remnants of an agrarian society, poised to enter the industrial, urban era, but not making the full plunge yet. Perhaps a transitional time would be a better label to put on the snapshot of this period. The reason I say that is due to the description he gives of the swearing in of Calvin Coolidge. "Business was booming when Warren Harding died, and in a primitive Vermont farmhouse, by the light of an old-fashioned kerosene lamp, Colonel John Coolidge administered to his son Calvin the oath of office as President of the United States" (p. 132).
The book is full of glimpses which fit together to provide a hoistic portrayal of the decade.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great book!
Comment: Im a 15 year old student and just finsished reading this book (and am writing a 10 page paper for in in A.P history :( )This was an excellant book. Allen is very insightfull for his time. The changes that occur, and the analysis he gives are parallel to those of present day. The only dull point was the Harding Scandal, but otherwise the rest was a good read. I like his sense of humor.
Flip Side
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Title: Since Yesterday : The 1930's in America, September 3, 1929 to September 3, 1939 by Frederick L. Allen ISBN: 0060913223 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 16 July, 1986 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Perils of Prosperity 1914-1932 (Chicago History of American Civilization) by William E. Leuchtenburg, Daniel J. Boorstin ISBN: 0226473716 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: September, 1993 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Big Change: America Transforms Itself: 1900-1950 by Frederick Lewis Allen, William L. O'Neill ISBN: 1560006390 Publisher: Transaction Pub Pub. Date: January, 1993 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920's by Paula S. Fass ISBN: 0195024923 Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr on Demand Pub. Date: February, 1979 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: The Modern Temper : American Culture and Society in the 1920s by Lynn Dumenil ISBN: 0809015668 Publisher: Hill & Wang Pub Pub. Date: 30 June, 1995 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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