The Jazz Age in Literature

The Jazz Age, describes the period from 1918-1929, the years between the end of World War I and the start of the Great Depression, particularly in North America and (in the era's literature) specifically in Miami, 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 America 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 all 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.
Perhaps one of the most representative literary works of the age is American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1920), 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 France and Switzerland not New York, and consequently is not widely considered a Jazz Age novel per se.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises is considered the first significant novel by Ernest Hemingway. Published in 1926, the plot centers on a group of expatriate Americans in Europe during the 1920s. The book's title, selected by Hemingway's publisher, is taken from Ecclesiastes 1:5: "the sun also ariseth." Hemingway's own title for the novel was ¡Fiesta!, which was used in the UK and Spanish edition of the novel.

The novel is a powerful insight in to the lives and values of the so called 'lost generation', a generation supposedly scarred by the effects of World War I. The main characters are Jake Barnes and Brett Ashley. Barnes suffered an injury during World War I which makes him unable to consummate a sexual relationship with Brett. The action follows Jake and his various companions across France and Spain. Here Jake manages to find peace away from Brett and her followers, by taking a fishing trip deep in the Spanish hills. The Corrida in Pamplona is the setting for a meeting of all the characters, who play out their various desires and anxieties, alongside a great deal of drinking. This takes place amongst the rituals and action of the bull fight festival. The novel ends ambiguously, with people going their separate ways, and Jake going off to help out Brett.

Alcohol Prohibition in the United States

Prohibition in the United States (1920-1933) was the era during which the United States government outlawed the manufacture, transportation, import, export, and sale of alcoholic beverages. It also includes the prohibition of alcohol by state action at different times, and the social-political movement to secure prohibition. At any time possession of liquor, wine or beer was illegal. Drinking alcohol was never technically illegal, but one who was drinking was liable for prosecution on the grounds that they possessed the alcohol they were drinking.The Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed nationwide prohibition, explicitly gives states the right to restrict or ban the purchase or sale of alcohol; this has led to a patchwork of laws, in which alcohol may be legally sold in some but not all towns or counties within a particular state. After the repeal of the national constitutional amendment, some states continued to enforce prohibition laws. Mississippi, which had made alcohol illegal in 1907, was the last state to repeal prohibition, in 1966. There are numerous "dry" counties or towns where no liquor is sold; even though liquor can be brought in for private consumption. It was never illegal to drink liquor in the United States.Many social problems have been attributed to the Prohibition era. A profitable, often violent, black market for alcohol flourished. Racketeering happened when powerful gangs corrupted law enforcement agencies. Stronger liquor surged in popularity because its potency made it more profitable to smuggle. The cost of enforcing prohibition was high, and the lack of tax revenues on alcohol (some $500 million annually nationwide) affected government coffers. When repeal of prohibition occurred in 1933, following passage of the Twenty-first Amendment, organized crime lost nearly all of its black market alcohol profits in most states (states still had the right to enforce their own laws concerning alcohol consumption), due to competition with low-priced alcohol sales at legal liquor stores.

Isolationism, Immigration and Communism

Following World War I, the United States population turned to isolationism during the 1920s, opposing any action by the government that would drag the country into another European war. This isolationist tendency led to the imposition of tariffs. For the most part, American isolationism came to an end during World War II, particularly following the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor in December of 1941.

America's isolationist philosophy after World War I gave rise to a xenophobic feeling across the nation. This was concentrated in rural areas and especially in the south where the Ku Klux Klan gained widespread support and sought to persecute immigrants and minorities in the early 1920s. At the same time, Communism was still a new philosophy in government, and much of the general American public held a hostile view toward it. The beginning of the 1920s saw the height and fall of First Red Scare as exemplified in the trials of Sacco and Vanzetti. This opposition to Communism was caused mostly by its Anti-war associations and its connection with a series of bombings.Rural areas became increasingly reactionary in the 1920s, partly in reaction to the liberalism of urban areas.The 1920s saw the rise of a variety of social issues in lieu of a rapidly changing world. Conflicts arose in what was considered acceptable, illegal, and respectable. The conflict quickly became developed into one between the liberal urban areas against the conservative (and often reactionary) rural areas.

Economic Depression: The 1929 Wall Street Crash

The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Crash of ’29, was one of the most devastating stock-market crashes in American history. It consists of Black Thursday, the initial crash and Black Tuesday, the crash that caused general panic five days later. The crash marked the beginning of widespread and long-lasting consequences for the United States. Though economists and historians disagree on exactly what role the crash played in the ensuing economic fallout, some regard it as the start of the Great Depression. Most historians, however, agree that it was actually a symptom of the Great Depression, rather than a cause. The crash was also the starting point of important financial reforms and trading regulations.At the time of the crash, New York City had grown to be a major financial capital and metropolis. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was the largest stock market in the world. The roaring twenties were a time of prosperity and excess in the city, and, despite warnings of speculation, many believed that the market could sustain high price levels. In the words of Irving Fisher, "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." The euphoria and financial gains of that great bull market were shattered on 24 October 1929, Black Thursday, when share prices on the NYSE collapsed. Stock prices fell on that day and they continued to fall, at an unprecedented rate, for a full month.In days leading up to Black Thursday the market was unstable. Periods of panic selling and high volumes of trading were interspersed with brief periods of rising prices and recovery. After the crash the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) recovered early in 1930, only to reverse again, reaching a low point of the great bear market in 1932. The market did not return to pre-1929 levels until late 1954, and was lower at its July 8, 1932 nadir than it had been since the 1800s.
“Anyone who bought stocks in mid-1929 and held on to them saw most of his adult life pass by before getting back to even.”

Ernest Hemingway - Summarized Biography

Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. Nicknamed "Papa," he was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris known as "the Lost Generation," as described in his memoir A Moveable Feast. He led a turbulent social life, was married four times, and allegedly had various romantic relationships during his lifetime. For a serious writer, he achieved a rare cult-like popularity during his lifetime. Hemingway received the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for The Old Man and the Sea. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.
Hemingway's distinctive writing style is characterized by economy and understatement and had a significant influence on the development of twentieth-century fiction writing. His protagonists are typically stoic males who must show "grace under pressure." Many of his works are now considered canonical in American literature.

Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American writer and is considered to have acted as a catalyst in the development of modern art and literature. She spent most of her life in France.

Gertrude Stein was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania; she belonged to a family of well educated German-Jewish immigrants.
When she was three, the Steins moved for business reasons first to Vienna and then to Paris.
She returned to America in 1878, they would continue to visit Europe on vacation. Stein and two of her siblings lived with her mother’s family after death of their parents.
She studied at Radcliff Collage under the psychologist William James, during the summer she studied embryology at the Marine Biological laboratory and after Stein attended to Johns Hopkins Medical School but she never obtain a degree.
From 1903 to 1912 she lived in Paris with her brother Leo, who became an admired art critic.
During that time she started to write in earnest: novels, plays, stories and poems, she developed his own way to make her writings for example she used to be repetitive and humorous one typical quote are
“Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose “
She inevitably wrote patterns rather than linear sequences
Stein used many Anglo-Saxon words and few Latin-based words although she was Jewish maybe that helped that her work had a special essence.
She also used the present tense “ing “creating a continuous present in her work because of her work has often been misunderstood.
She wrote in “longhand “(typical writing not shorthand)
In 1907 she met her lifelong partner Alice B. Toklas who lived with her and Leo…
Alice would collect the pages and type them up and she founded the Publisher “Plain Editions “to distribute Stein’s works.
Stein and Leo compiled one of the first collections and modern art (Pablo Picasso, who became a friend for her).
Henri Matisse, Andrè Derain etc.
When Britain declared war on Germany in World War I, Stein and Toklas went to England.
In 1920 her salon at 27 Rue de Fleurus with walls covered by paintings attracted many of the great artist and writers including Ernest Hemingway.
Prior to World War II she made public her sardonic opinion that Adolf Hitler should be awarded the Novel peace prize because he is removing all the elements of struggle from Germany.
Gertrude was an openly homosexual feminist; she and Alice had to escape of persecutions probably because of their friendship.
1932 Stein wrote “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas”, that book World become her first best-seller, despite the title it was really her own autobiography.
She died at the age of 72 form stomach cancer on July 27 1946 and was interred in Paris.
A monument to Stein stands on the Upper Terrace of Bryant Park, New York.