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1900-1929

The Twentieth Century began with man's first powered flight, and the third decade ended with sound on motion pictures. There was America's late entry into the War to End all Wars, and the Senate's refusal to permit America to join the League of Nations. It was a time when women won the right to vote, and men were not allowed to purchase legal alcohol. It was a time of the flapper, jazz moving up the river from New Orleans. It was an America fascinated by the little tramp and the grandiose panorama of D.W. Griffith. Ziegfeld provided lavish revues on Broadway, and there were a dozen Stage Door Johnnies made wealthy by the stock market, waiting for every chorine with long glamorous legs. There was some literary pretension during these decades- a young Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, and Thomas Wolfe; and the West, for the most part, was still wild. It was the time of Robert Peary and Richard Byrd, Black Jack Pershing and Lucky Lindy, Al Capone and Frank Nitti. This was the era of Red Grange and Babe Ruth, and the medals stripped from Olympian Jim Thorpe. It was a time for sweat shops in New York and miners' strikes in West Virginia. Most of all, it was now time for America to grow up in the nations of the world.

Thus were clearly foreshadowed theà themes which were to run through the history of the United States during the next half century. A people largely indifferent to international politics were to be pushed by events into a position of dominating poweràAnd the American system of capitalism was to be subjected to acid testing" (Barck, 1951, p. 1).

Capitalism was, in part, based not on "old wealth", but on ingenuity, whether legal or extra-legal.

The early decades were times of grandeur -- Vanderbilts, Astors, Harrimans built lavish estates thanks to their massive earnings. Rockefeller was the name always associated with wealth, even though the government's anti-Trust provisions stripped him of his c

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1900-1929. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 08:13, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1707004.html