Jazz Age
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| Western Generations |
|
|---|---|
| Term | Period |
| Awakening Generation | 1701–1723 |
| First Great Awakening | 1727–1746 |
| Liberty Generation Republican Generation Compromise Generation |
1724–1741 1742–1766 1767–1791 |
| Second Great Awakening | 1790–1844 |
| Transcendentalist Generation Transcendental Generation Abolitionist Generation Gilded Generation Progressive Generation |
1789–1819 1792–1821 1819–1842 1822–1842 1843–1859 |
| Third Great Awakening | 1886–1908 |
| Missionary Generation Lost Generation Interbellum Generation G.I. Generation Greatest Generation |
1860–1882 1883–1900 1900–1910 1900–1924 1911–1924 |
| Jazz Age | 1929–1956 |
| Silent Generation Baby Boomers Beat Generation Generation Jones |
1925–1945 1946–1964 1948–1962 1954–1962 |
| Consciousness Revolution | 1964–1984 |
| Baby Busters Generation X MTV Generation |
1958–1968 1963–1978 1975–1985 |
| Culture Wars | 1980s–present |
| Boomerang Generation Generation Y Internet Generation New Silent Generation |
1977–1986 1979–1999 1988–1999 2000–2020 |
The Jazz Age, also known as the American High, describes the period of the 1920s, the years between the end of World War I and the onset of The Great Depression, particularly in North America and (in the era's literature) specifically in New York City, largely coinciding with the Roaring Twenties; ending with the rise of the Great Depression, the traditional values of this age saw great decline while the American stock market soared. The focus of the elements of this age, in some contrast with the Roaring Twenties, in historical and cultural studies, are somewhat different, with a greater emphasis on Modernism.
The age takes its name from F. Scott Fitzgerald and jazz music, which saw a tremendous surge in popularity among many segments of society. Among the prominent concerns and trends of the period are the public embrace of technological developments (typically seen as progress)—cars, air travel and the telephone—as well as new modernist trends in social behavior, the arts, and culture. Central developments included Art Deco design and architecture. A great theme of the age was individualism and a greater emphasis on the pursuit of pleasure and enjoyment in the wake of the misery, destruction and perceived hypocrisy and waste of WWI and pre-war values.
[edit] The Jazz Age in Literature
Perhaps the most representative literary work of the age is American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" (1925), which highlighted what some describe as the decadence and hedonism of the post-WW1 age, as well as new social and sexual attitudes, and the growth of individualism. Fitzgerald is largely credited with coining the term, which he used in such books as "Tales of the Jazz Age." The second novel that he wrote, "The Beautiful and Damned" (1922), also deals with the era and its effect on a young married couple. Fitzgerald's last completed novel, "Tender is the Night," takes place in the same decade but is set in Europe, not New York, and consequently is not widely considered a Jazz Age novel per se.
Additional works on the era might include Thomas Wolfe's titanic 1935 book "Of Time and the River," which takes its protagonist from the depths of the Carolinas, to Harvard, and finally to New York in the 1920's, but for a truly harrowing view of the end of the Jazz Age, Wolfe's "You Can't Go Home Again" is recommended for its party scene on the night of the 1929 stock market crash. Additionally, The Rosy Crucifixion of Henry Miller, "Sexus (The Rosy Crucifixion)," "Plexus (The Rosy Crucifixion)," and "Nexus (The Rosy Crucifixion)," is set in New York during this period.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the Nineteen-Twenties 1931.
- Gary Dean Best. The Dollar Decade: Mammon and the Machine in 1920s America Praeger Publishers, 2003.
- Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s Hill and Wang, 1995
- Fass; Paula. The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920’s. Oxford University Press, 1977.
- David E. Kyvig; Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1939: Decades of Promise and Pain Greenwood Press, 2002
- Leuchtenburg, William. The Perils of Prosperity, 1914–1932 University of Chicago Press, 1955.
- Lynd, Robert S., and Helen Merrill Lynd. Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture Harcourt, Brace and World, 1929. famous sociological study of Muncie, Indiana, in 1920s
- Mowry; George E. ed. The Twenties: Fords, Flappers, & Fanatics Prentice-Hall, 1963 readings
- Parrish, Michael E. Anxious Decades: America in Prosperity and Depression, 1920–1941 W. W. Norton, 1992
- West, James [Carl Withers]. Plainville, U.S.A. Columbia University Press, 1945. sociology of life in a small town
