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Summary: Decade of parties, corruption, success and shock.
Review: Stein writes an excellent yet simple book to explain the tumultuous years between 1920 and 1930. Described succinctly as the decade when "the parties were bigger...the pace was faster...the morals were looser and the liquor was cheaper" (F. Scott Fitzgerald)..it started when the nation was recently scarred by a war and ended when humbled by depression.
The United States was looking for some fun and relief. Prohibition caused major division and illegal actives to flourish. Folks went wild, "speakeasies" became as popular as backyard stills. Listening to a radio became the most popular home pastime in this decade. The automobile was perhaps the most widespread invention. Just for the rich a few years previous, this decade brought mass production, lowered the prices and by 1929, 23 million cars were on the road. The youth of this decade were especially interested in crazy fads and feats. Flappers showed off more body than the world had seen to that point. Dances like the Charleston were fast, crazy and infectious. Financially, the stock market became lucrative and many at the top were instant millionaires. However, at the other end were the ethic minorities and dirt farmers who got poorer and poorer. The KKK flourished, affecting politics and the morality of the nation. Literature began to reach the masses. Babe Ruth was a national hero. 1927 saw the first talkie movie. Stars became giants to the general public. Lindbergh became the first man to fly across the Atlantic alone. However, his success was quickly followed by the kidnapping of his infant son. Crime flourished and a major leader was Al Capone. The White House was not immune to schemes, the most famous was The Teapot Dome affair. Women voted for the first time in the election of 1920. The flash and success of this decade ended quite suddenly, when in the fall of 1929, stock prices began to drop and panic ensued. October 24, 1929, was called Black Thursday, with an incredible flurry of selling, causing more price drop. The following Terrifying Tuesday, so many shares were unloaded that the market collapsed entirely. Not only stock holders, but those with money in the bank lost, because the banks had invested most of their customer's money in stocks as well. In just one week, the fortunes of the rich and the savings of the poor were all wiped out, causing the worst financial disaster in history. The decade of wealth, easy living, fun, hilarity and parties was suddenly over. The following decade would come to be known as the Great Depression. I highly recommend this book and this series for teaching history of the United States to children, or refreshing memories of adults. I find it helpful in teaching adult literacy.
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Summary: Why everything was bigger and better in the Roaring Twenties
Review: We know that "The Roaring Twenties" came to a crashing halt on Black Thursday, October 24, 1929 when panic seized investors on the stock market, but in his review of the decade for the Cornerstones of Freedom series, R. Conrad Stein makes a case for it beginning in the summer of 1919 when American troops came back from fighting the First World War in Europe. Stein is interested in not only detailing what Americans did during the decades of the 1920s, but also in explaining the reasons. He begins by talking about how the number of Americans with electricity in their homes double from one-third to two-thirds during the decade, while radio and automobiles heralded both an explosion in both mass media and mass transportation. Everything was bigger and better in the Roaring Twenties. Prohibition was the most openly violated law in American History. Sports were dominated by mythical figures like Babe Ruth, Red Grange and Jack Dempsey; Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo and Rudolph Valentino because the biggest movie stars in the world; and the Republicans Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover sat in the White House. Stein does a nice job of capturing the contradictions of the decades, where prohibition could be enacted to preserve the family but the Ku Klux Klan reached the heights of its popularity, where thrill seekers sat on flagpoles and the Lost Generation of writers attacked social injustice, and where Chicago gangster Al Capone was almost as popular as American hero Charles Lindbergh. "The Roaring Twenties" is illustrated with black & white photographs as well as color magazine and music sheet covers from the period. Other volumes in the Cornerstones of Freedom series focus on a couple of specific topics from this decade: "The Nineteenth Amendment," which made woman suffrage the law of the land, and "The Teapot Dome Scandal." Another volume covers the next period in American History, "The Great Depression."
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