The Twenties in America

by Paul A. Carter

A principal theme of the 1920s was "paradox," and Professor Carter explains the tensions that existed between city and country, progress and nostalgia for the past, progressive attitudes and the persistence of bigotry. Carter also provides incisive reevaluations of some archetypal figures of the era, such as Coolidge, Lindbergh, and Hemingway, and suggests new ways of considering events and developments such as jazz, popular sports, the Scopes trial, and isolationism.

Genres: History

142 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Both a specialist in American social history and an author of science fiction stories, Paul Allen Carter was professor emeritus in history at the University of Arizona.

Reviews

[Liam · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Hemingway code, for example ... , sometimes proliferates into such minutiae that it borders on the ludicrous; not only must the kill be well and cleanly done, but on the fishing trip in Big Two-Hearted River, the coffee in the can must be well and truly boiled, and the reader begins to feel like an intruder at a Boy Scout jamboree." (66)

"We have already observed that the high school science textbook out of which John Thomas Scopes taught the theory of evolution was not remarkably scientific; what is even more ironical, considering that the American Civil Liberties Union was in Scopes's corner at the trial, is that some of the doctrines it contained were positively illiberal. Two pages after the paragraph on evolution appeared a paragraph on the races of man, and the author, describing the 'five races or varieties of man, each very different from the others,' capped the list with 'the highest type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America.' Thus, if a high school student had been emancipated from religious superstition by reading this textbook's account of evolution, he ran the risk of becoming bound in the far more lethal superstition of race." (95)

[Miroslaw Aleksander · Rating 1 out of 5]

This short book made a very poor impression on me. Definetly mis-titled, it mostly focuses on the conflict of urban and rural areas in the 1920s, so don't expect a lot of information. Some bits and pieces are interesting, but, on the whole, I would not deem this book worthwhile unless someone is conducting major research in the era, and then better books would be easily available. I originally approached it hoping for a book that would elegantly summarize the period for my students. I ended up relying on David Kyvig book on the 1920s and 1930s, among other things.

Carter strongly opposes the notion that the 1920s were an revolutionary period. Whereas some ideas are understandable, such as that the period was characterized rather by bohemianism than radicalism, some made me cringe, including his justification of the Ku Klux Klan, which are unacceptable and of historically perplexing, to the point that Hiram Evans's (the Imperial Wizard of the second generation of the KKK) articles seem a better source for information on the Klan's ideology and social background.

The major problem with Carter's book is his apparent will to revolutionize what we know about the era. Although this is often interpretative in nature his views seem ill-supported and seem to rely more on justifying people of a conservative outlook rather than on historical fact.