1920 The year that made the decade roar

Eric Burns

Book - 2015

Acclaimed author Eric Burns investigates the year of 1920, which was not only a crucial twelve-month period of its own, but one that foretold the future, foreshadowing the rest of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st, whether it was Sacco and Vanzetti or the stock market crash that brought this era to a close.

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Subjects
Published
New York, NY : Pegasus Books 2015.
Language
English
Main Author
Eric Burns (author)
Edition
First Pegasus Books cloth edition
Physical Description
xviii, 348 pages ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 313-337) and index.
ISBN
9781605987729
  • Introduction
  • Part 1.
  • Chapter 1. "Two Sheets of Flame"
  • Chapter 2. Homeland Security
  • Part 2.
  • Chapter 3. The Long, Black Night of the Spirits
  • Chapter 4. Resolutions and Sentiments
  • Chapter 5. Civil Wrongs
  • Chapter 6. The Robber Barons and Their Serfs
  • Chapter 7. The Beginning of Ponzis Dream
  • Part 3.
  • Chapter 8. The Ignoble Experiment
  • Chapter 9. Planning Parenthood
  • Chapter 10. The End of Ponzi's Scheme
  • Chapter 11. The Closed Door in the White House
  • Chapter 12. On the Air
  • Chapter 13. The Ohio Gangsters
  • Part 4.
  • Chapter 14. The Investigation
  • Chapter 15. Uproar in the Arts
  • Chapter 16. The "Jew" Age
  • Chapter 17. The Flapper
  • Epilogue
  • Acknowledgments
  • Bibliography
  • Notes
  • Index
Review by Choice Review

Journalist Burns has crafted a volume that hits upon one of the most important, if often overlooked, truths of the 1920s in the US. That truth is that the first year of the decade was critical to the establishment of the themes and cultural influences shaping the next ten years. The development of radicalism, intolerance, and the newly emerging "Jass" culture can all be found in the first year after WW I. Burns does not significantly add to the existing scholarship but rather builds upon it to explain the significance of this one year in an accessible way for non-academic readers. Readers will be reminded of the classic Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s (1931), written by Frederick Lewis Allen, another journalist, at the close of the 1920s. Burns's work, coupled with the more recent The Day Wall Street Exploded (CH, Sep'09, 47-0469), by Beverly Gage, and Joshua Zeitz's Flapper (2006), creates a significantly broader understanding of the foundations of the 1920s. A welcome addition to popular press examinations of this decade. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. --Martin William Quirk, Rock Valley College

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review

In claiming one particular year as the watershed moment of a place or time, authors risk falling prey to hyperbole, neglecting significant events and figures, or offering up reiterations of familiar facts. In "1920: The Year That Made the Decade Roar," Burns, a former news commentator and self-declared "nonacademic historian," mostly avoids these pitfalls. Walking a lively anecdotal line between exaggeration and oversimplification in contending that 1920 is the pivotal year of the most mythologized decade in American history, Burns convincingly dispels a number of popular beliefs, including the idea that the "ignoble experiment" of Prohibition was solely responsible for the birth of organized crime in America. He also finds parallels with many issues and "civil wrongs" still running through our landscape: terrorism, immigration, women's rights, political corruption, tabloid culture. But his chapter "Uproar in the Arts" is decidedly idiosyncratic, devoting precious space to Agatha Christie while dismissing "The Sun Also Rises" as "among the most tedious of 20th-century classics."

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 5, 2015]
Review by Booklist Review

Burns (Infamous Scribblers, 2006) proves that a year can hold a reader's attention and then some in his anno-biography of 1920 and all it brought to bear on the U.S. and the world. He has to slip to either side every so often to foreshadow or show outcomes, but he holds well to the task here, with the year bringing on the fiasco that was Prohibition (wreaking havoc on health and wealth), jazz, the beginning and end of Ponzi's great scheme, the flapper, and so much more. Peopled with such characters as Marcus Garvey, William James, Dorothy Parker, Louis Armstrong, and Warren G. Harding and with such events as the first-ever broadcast of presidential elections (signaling the birth of radio), Agatha Christie publishing (under a pseudonym) her first book, and the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution (allowing women the vote) being passed, 1920 makes history vibrant, exciting, and palpably important. Entertaining and highly readable.--Kinney, Eloise Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Burns (Invasion of the Mind Snatchers) takes readers on a thorough tour of the upheavals and events of the year when "the Roaring Twenties first began to roar." More than a "preview of a decade," 1920 was "a preview of the entire century and even the century to follow." In particular, Burns focuses on the beginning of Prohibition, the passing of the 19th Amendment, the popular explosion of jazz, and the rise and fall of Charles Ponzi. He also touches upon corruption in the White House, the Teapot Dome Scandal, and the radical inequality of wealth distribution. The railroads, radio, and Planned Parenthood all saw development in 1920; the urban population overtook the rural for the first time. Burns leaps from one captivating topic to the next, displaying his expertise and sometimes drawing from his previous books to bring these trends and events to life. It's an entertaining and informative look at a pivotal period, kicking off "a time of excitement, excess and enthusiasm" and "a century's worth of turmoil and jubilation, irrationality and intrigue, optimism and injustice." Burns makes it possible to recognize the century to come in this intimate study of a single year, and the result is downright fascinating. Agent: Linda Kenner, Linda Kenner Literary Agency. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Burns's (Infamous Scribblers; The Spirits of America) slim volume strikes the reader with a wealth of information on the events that made 1920 such a significant year in the history of modern America. Each chapter highlights a notable event during that year, reviewing the moments leading up to the cultural and political changes that rocked the country and laid the foundation for years to come. From the Wall Street bombing to Prohibition, the birth of Jazz to the availability of birth control, Burns shifts from one moment to another without pause. At times the narrative feels rushed, as though there is too much information to be entirely satisfying, but the impending sense of change may very well be the author's intent in leading the reader from one event to the next. This well-researched work reveals an oft-forgotten past and sheds light on the misconceptions that mar modern perceptions of 1920. VERDICT Casual readers and beginning researchers interested in early 20th-century American history and culture will find this title worthwhile. Those interested in the 1920s might also want to consider Bill Bryson's One Summer: America, 1927.-Gricel Dominguez, Florida International Univ. Lib. © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

In a fascinating work about a remarkable year, former NBC News correspondent Burns (Invasion of the Mind Snatchers: Television's Conquest of America in the Fifties, 2010, etc.) shows us what put the roar in the Roaring '20s.The end of World War I brought reactions in the form of anarchy, the birth of jazz, the first Ponzi scheme, Prohibition, women's suffrage and the birth of "mass media." Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and his assistant, J. Edgar Hoover, fought the Red Scare against the likes of Sacco and Vanzetti and the most notorious anarchist, Luigi Galleani, who swore by the "propaganda of the deed." Their work would lose effectiveness as their agents were diverted to enforce Prohibition, which caused its own problems. The Anti-Saloon League was the first of the special interest groups, and Prohibition cost organized crime its organization, as it became a growth industry to provide unregulated, and often lethal, liquor to the masses. The election of Warren Harding in 1920 was the first in which women voted and the first time returns were broadcast on radio. It also brought the "Ohio Gang" into Washington, a group who imported Canadian liquor by the trainload, sold Teapot Dome and ran cons that Ponzi, who made millions in a few short months, would have loved. There was also extensive birth and growth. The migration of blacks to the North looking for work brought the Ku Klux Klan in their wake, but they also brought jazz and other cultural elements. Jazz brought men like Louis Armstrong to Chicago and then New York and Harlem. The Harlem Renaissance was spurred not only by jazz, but also by literatureby Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes and countless others. Burns follows it all with verve. In this delightfully readable book, the author expertly shows how those affected by the Great War linked together, nourished each other and really did change the world. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.