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Twentieth-Century Americans: 1900-1930
"The world was never so young as it is today," noted Walter Lippmann early in the twentieth century, "so impatient with old and crusty things." The individuals in this room changed America, transforming an agrarian, continental power into an industrial, world power. Financiers and industrialists rationalized the market and provided consumers with mass-produced, affordable cars. Suffragettes won the vote; minorities began to voice their protests. Journalists and various reformers advocated for workers, immigrants, and the poor.
The avant-garde reinvented literature, poetry, and painting, and the Harlem Renaissance introduced new voices. American jazz and cinema established the century's rhythms and themes and became popular worldwide. World War I marked the emergence of American power on a world stage. Meanwhile, flappers introduced new sexual mores, gangster violence fascinated the public, athletes became heroes, and "Lucky Lindy's" solo flight across the Atlantic defined this era's exuberance. Although not without serious problems, the century opened with a sense of dynamic change. |