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The Modern Age

The Modern Age. 1910-1945. Historical background. World War I War breaks out 1914 German subs sank Lusitania in 1915 killing 120+ Americans 1916 the Sussex was sunk by German U-boats April 6, 1917, President Wilson appealed to Congress for permission to declare war…permission granted!

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The Modern Age

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  1. The Modern Age 1910-1945

  2. Historical background • World War I • War breaks out 1914 • German subs sank Lusitania in 1915 killing 120+ Americans • 1916 the Sussex was sunk by German U-boats • April 6, 1917, President Wilson appealed to Congress for permission to declare war…permission granted! • Entente Powers • British, Russians, French, Italians, Japanese, Americans • Central Powers • Germans, Ottoman Turks, Bulgarians, Austrian-Hungarians • Peace Treaty signed 28 June 1919 • Literary Participants • ee cummings, Ernest Hemingway, Joyce Kilmer

  3. Views of the war Clockwise from top: Trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes

  4. The great depression • In one decade, America went from the top to the bottom. • Prohibition of 1919 • Sale of alcohol outlawed • Bootlegging • Speakeasies • Gang warfare • Booming Economy: nation on fast-moving binge • Advent of radio, jazz, movies • Roaring 20’s • Literaries • F. Scott Fitzgerald: glamour & dirt of American Dream • Eugene O’Niell: playwright on same topic

  5. The great depression • Stock Market Crash • October 29, 1929--Black Tuesday • From the years 1929 to 1932, about 5,000 banks went out of business. • 13 million people became unemployed. • Over one million families lost their farms between 1930 and 1934. • 273,000 families had been evicted from their homes in 1932. • There were two million homeless people migrating around the country. • Over 60% of Americans were categorized as poor by the federal government in 1933.

  6. Migrant motherbyDorothea Lange Photo depicts destitute pea pickers in California, centering on Florence Owens Thompson, a mother of seven children, age 32, in Nipomo, California, March 1936.

  7. American Union Bank Crowd at New York's American Union Bank during a bank run early in the Great Depression.

  8. Wall street Crowd gathering on Wall Street after the 1929 crash.

  9. Power farming Power farming displaces tenants from the land in the western dry cotton area. Childress County, Texas, 1938.

  10. The Dust Bowl was an ecological and human disaster caused by misuse of land and years of sustained drought. Millions of acres of farmland became useless, and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes; many of these families (often known as "Okies,” since so many came from Oklahoma) traveled to California and other states, where they found economic conditions little better than those they had left. Owning no land, many traveled from farm to farm picking fruit and other crops at starvation wages. Author John Steinbeck later wrote Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath about such people. The latter won both Pulitzer and Nobel prizes. The dust bowl Buried machinery in a barn lot; South Dakota, May 1936. The Dust Bowl on the Great Plains coincided with the Great Depression. The Dust Bowl

  11. Bonnie & clyde Bonnie and Clyde were notorious bank robbers during what is sometimes referred to as the "public enemy era" between 1931 and 1935. During the Depression bankers became so unpopular that bank robbers, such as John Dillinger, became folk heroes.

  12. The mother road: route 66 John Steinbeck, in 1939, proclaimed Route 66 as the “Mother Road” in his classic novel The Grapes of Wrath. When the movie was made just a year later, it immortalized Route 66 in the American consciousness. Shortly thereafter, more than 200,000 people migrated to California to escape the Dust Bowl of the Midwest, symbolizing the highway as the “road to opportunity.”

  13. World war ii: 1939-1945 • The start of the war is generally held to be in September 1, 1939 with the German invasion of Poland. • Allies of World War II • The Big Three • British Empire • USSR • USA • China: FDR—the “Four Policemen” • France & Poland before their defeat in 1940 & after “Operation Torch” in 1942. • During December 1941, Roosevelt devised the name "United Nations" for the Allies, and the Declaration by United Nations, on 1 January 1942, was the basis of the modern UN.

  14. The big three Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meeting at the Tehran Conference to discuss the European Theatre in 1943.

  15. World war ii • The Axis Powers • Germany: Adolf Hitler • Italy: Benito Mussolini • Japan: EmpororHirohito and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo • Two Theaters • The European theater • The Pacific theater • Pearl Harbor • December 7, 1941, Japan attacks U.S. • U.S. formally declares war on Japan • Germany/Italy declare war on U.S. • U.S. enters both theaters • Dominant mood in U.S.: isolationism • VJ day: August 15, 1945 • VE day: May 7-8, 1945

  16. Views of the war Clockwise from top left: Commonwealth troops in the desert; Chinese civilians being buried alive by Japanese soldiers; Soviet forces during a winter offensive; Carrier-borne Japanese planes readying for take off; Soviet troops fighting in Berlin; A German submarine under attack.

  17. The birth of modernism • Devastation of WWI ended the optimism of the country • Uncertainty, disappointment, disillusionment • People sought to find new ideas. • No longer trusted ideas & values of a world that developed a global war! • Quest for new ideas extended into the literature.

  18. The birth of modernism • Modernism experimented with new approaches & techniques. • Shared common purpose • Sought to capture the essence of modern life in form & content. • To reflect fragmentation of the modern world, writers constructed work out of fragments. • No expositions, transitions, or resolutions • Poetry: free verse • Themes implied rather than stated forcing reader to draw own conclusions

  19. The birth of modernism • Expatriates: many writers disenchanted with postwar America became exiles. • They settled in Paris & were coined “The Lost Generation.” • Earnest Hemingway • Sherwood Anderson • Gertrude Stein • F. Scott Fitzgerald • T.S. Eliot • They wrote expressing the chaos & hopelessness of the WWI years.

  20. The birth of modernism • New Approaches • Imagism: • Hard, clear expression • Concrete images • Language of everyday speech • Stream of Consciousness: • Attempt to recreate the natural flow of a character’s thoughts • William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury • Katherine Anne Porter: “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” • Wordplay: • Punctuation & typography—eecummings

  21. The harlem renaissance: 1920’s • African-American writers affirmed the role of black talent in American culture and focused on different aspects of black life in Harlem, the South, the Caribbean, & Europe. • Literature addressed issues of: • Race • Class • Religion • Gender

  22. The harlem renaissance: 1920’s • Writers • African-American experience • Zora Neale Hurston • Jean Toomer • Artists • Aaron Douglas • William Johnson • Photography • James VanDerZee • Musicians • Louis Armstrong • Fletcher Henderson • Vocalists • Bessie Smith • Ma Rainey • Newspapers/Journals • Crisis • Opportunity

  23. The harlem renaissance: 1920’s • The upsurge in African-American cultural expression that took place in Harlem, NY in the 20’s occurred with such compelling force and had so much influence that it became known as the “Harlem Renaissance.” • Poets of the H.R. revolutionized the AA contribution to American Lit by introducing: • Ghetto speech • Rhythms of jazz & blues • Rhythms: spirituals/jazz • Lyrics: songs—blues • Diction: street talk

  24. Zora Neale Hurston Zora Neale Hurston, born in Eatonville, Florida, was a writer, anthropologist, and folklorist who received her training at Morgan Academy in Baltimore, Howard University in Washington, and Barnard College and Columbia University in New York. Included among Hurstons many writings are three novels, Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934), Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), and Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), and an autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road (1942). Some of the materials Hurston collected as a folklorist are included in the Library's motion picture, photographic, manuscript, and sound recording archives.

  25. William H. Johnson Swing Low Sweet ChariotWilliam H. Johnson, 1939.Oil on board, 38.5x26.5''

  26. James VanDerZee A superlative studio photographer, James VanDerZee captured the spirit and energy of life in Harlem for more than 50 years. VanDerZee often sat in with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. Marcus Garvey hired him to shoot pictures for the UNIA. He photographed Countee Cullen.

  27. Fletcher Henderson Fletcher Henderson led the most commercially successful of the African American Jazz bands of the 1920s. The smooth sound of his orchestra gave birth to the Swing style of the next decade. Henderson was from a middle class family and held a degree in chemistry from Atlanta University. He moved to New York in 1920 intending to do post-graduate work there while working as a chemist, but he found that jobs were closed to him because of his race.

  28. Ma Rainey Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett Rainey, better known as Ma Rainey (April 26, 1886 or September, 1882– December 22, 1939), was one of the earliest known American professional blues singers and one of the first generation of such singers to record.She was billed as The Mother of the Blues. She did much to develop and popularize the form and was an important influence on younger blues women, such as Bessie Smith, and their careers.

  29. Langston Hughes James Mercer Langston Hughes, (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and columnist. Hughes is best-known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance.

  30. Arna Bontemps Arna Wendell Bontemps (October 13, 1902 - June 4, 1973) was a well-known American poet and a noted member of the Harlem Renaissance. As the librarian at Fisk University, he established important collections of African-American literature and culture, establishing it as an important goal of scholarly study. In 2002, scholar MolefiKete Asante listed Arna Bontemps on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans. Bontemps was born in the city of Alexandria in the U.S. state of Louisiana. the son of Paul Bontemps and Marie Pembrooke Bontemps. His birthplace at 1327 Third Street has been recently restored and converted for use as the Bontemps African American Museum. It is included on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.

  31. W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois(February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, historian, author, and editor. At the age of 95, in 1963, he became a naturalized citizen of Ghana.

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