1927: High Tide of the 1920s [Hardcover]

Gerald Leinwand (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 29, 2001

A tumultuous stock market, a media obsessed with celebrity and scandal, a time new technologies were rocking society: the 1920s bear more than a little semblance to today, and 1927 is a snapshot of the period. Photographs and illustrations bring to life a year with astonishing parallels to the present. "[An] encyclopedic study with all the verve and excitement of a finely tuned novel.... An outstanding book." — Library Journal

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The traditionally nostalgic view of 1920s America recalls a boisterous, almost quaintly amoral nation peopled by revelers, flappers, gangsters and G-men, living alongside avaricious and immoral Babbitts and Arrowsmiths, governed by incompetent, narrow-minded politicians named Calvin and Herbert, all gleefully riding a roller coaster about to descend into the Great Depression. Much of Leinwand's material reflects this view. Al Capone and Elliot Ness, flamboyant evangelist Sister Aimee Semple McPherson, a virulently anti-Semitic Henry Ford, Sacco and Vanzetti, Charles Lindbergh, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryant, Jack Dempsey and Babe Ruth all make appearances, but Leinwand also looks beyond the familiar to excavate America's psyche during that decade. He doesn't shy from what he finds there, offering a picture of America marred by racism, political arrogance reflected by the country's first jungle war (a foray into Nicaragua), pervasive corruption and religious intolerance. He also describes a country in the throes of change. Inequalities of income and opportunity between rural and urban America were driving poor farmers to the cities and changing traditional demographics. Women were entering the workforce in substantial numbers and feminism was emerging as a force in politics and daily life. African-Americans were involved in a mass migration from the South to the industrial North, driven by a new militancy within the African-American community and the aftereffects of the epochal 1927 Mississippi River flood. Focusing on these weightier subjects, Leinwand, founding dean of the School of Education at Bernard M. Baruch College, provides invaluable insights into fundamental historical concerns, many of them relevant today. His well-documented research and confident, unobtrusive prose will appeal to anyone interested in U.S. history or cultural studies.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Leinwand (The Pageant of World History, o.p.) unfurls this encyclopedic study of the year 1927 with all the verve and excitement of a finely tuned novel. There is a lot about 1927 that many readers may wish to forget. In the South, there was an epidemic of lynchings that would eventually help propel the Civil Rights crusade of the troubled Sixties. The lawlessness of the Prohibition era, personified by "Scarface" Al Capone, was also rampant. But there were heroes as well. For instance, in 1927 Charles A. Lindbergh captured the adulation of the nation with his solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Paris. Meanwhile, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover led a flood relief program along the Mississippi that would eventually lead him to the presidency. In addition, 1927 saw rapid growth of the movie industry, the advent of national radio, and even the early experiments with television. This is an outstanding book, recommended for all libraries.DChet Hagan, Historical Society of Berks Cty., PA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (January 29, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156858153X
• ISBN-13: 978-1568581538
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,461,426 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Literary Pageant with Profound Historical Significance, August 22, 2001

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: 1927: High Tide of the 1920s (Hardcover)

Throughout U.S. history, there are certain defining years and 1927 was certainly one of them. It was situated between two World Wars, during the so-called "Golden Age of Sports" and "Golden Years of Hollywood", on the eve of the Wall Street "Crash" and subsequent "Great Depression." Arguably no other single year (before or since) embraced the scope and depth of human diversity that 1927 did. So many authentic celebrities: Capone, Chaplin, Coolidge, Darrow, Dempsey, Ederle, Edison, Ellington, Fitzgerald, Ford, Gershwin, Grange, Jolson, Jones, Mencken, Rockne, Ruth, Sacco and Vanzetti, Tilden, and Tunney. In 1927, Leinwand asserts that "Americans were bombarded with the staccato of rapidly developing events at home and abroad from the ever-bolder tabloids and from the newscasts of the still-infant radio....If 1927 was the `high tide' of the twenties, then during that year could be found signs that the `good times' were nearing an end. But who would dare call attention to the chilling evidence if doing so might unleash a self-fulfilling prophecy and perhaps an economic collapse? Ostrich-like, Americans kept their eyes glued to the movies, their ears to the radio, their hands on the steering wheel, and their heads in the sand."

Leinwand carefully organizes his material within a chronological framework which extends from New York's celebration of the arrival of 1927 (in Chapter 1) to December 17th when an entire submarine crew perished (in Chapter 12). The easiest way to understand Leinwand's strategy is to imagine that, on the reader's behalf, he has poured over all of the editions in 1927 of the nation's major newspapers, collecting information which best reveals those people, forces, events, and themes which most accurately define that year. With circumspection as well as precision, he also suggests correlations between and among the people and circumstances selected. His book is, in that sense, a literary pageant with a rock-solid foundation of historical fact. Leinwand answers three questions of greatest interest to me: First, what was it like to live in the United States in 1927? Next, what sets this year apart from any other in that nation's history? Finally, what were the nature and extent of 1927's impact (both positive and negative) on generations to come? For me at least, he successfully answers all three questions and does so with style and grace as well as with precision and conviction.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars That Wonderful Year . . ., July 13, 2001

By 

Edward Garea "Edward Garea" (Branchville, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: 1927: High Tide of the 1920s (Hardcover)

Amid the nostalgia and mystery that passes for rememberance of the Twenties, Gerald Leinwand makes a solid contribution by focusing on what he sees as the key year of the decade: 1927. And after reading his excellent book, it's hard to disagree.

The popular view of the decade is a melange of flappers, gangsters, federal agents, flaming youth and athletic heroes, all set to a jazz beat. The Jazz era peaked in 1927: the stock market was hotter than ever, minting new millionaires almost daily; the wealth of America was as large as Europe combined; furniture and electric appliances sold more than ever thanks to the enormous popularity of the installment plan. Most households had a radio and over half owned an automobile. Movies began to talk and drew record crowds. The Yankees dominated baseball, with Babe Ruth smacking an unheard of 60 home runs. Tennis, golf, and even polo enjoyed a boom in popularity. 270 shows opened that year of Broadway, a record that still stands. English language daily newspapers enjoyed a circulation of 38 million, thanks in large part to the development of the tabloid. The tabloid publicized the more lurid aspects of the day's news, providing a fitting companion to the two most popular magazines of the day, "True Stories" and "Confessions." Thanks to the force of the media, celebrity was celebrated like never before. The world thrilled to the exploits of "Lucky Lindy" and his spirit of St. Louis. Jack Dempsey dominated boxing, until Gene Tunney took the heavyweight championship away from him that year. John Gilbert and Greta Garbo ruled the silver screen. And gangster Al Capone was practically a household word.

Women had the right to vote; they wore their skirts short, bobbed their hair like movie idol Clara Bow, and smoked and drank bootleg whiskey in public. More American than ever were getting high school degrees and moving on to college. African Americans, after enduring decades of Jim Crow, seemed finally to be making progress, as witnessed by the Harlem Renaissance.

But on closer inspection, a dark side emerged that would culminate in the Great Depression a little under two years later. (Hindsight is always 20/20.) Calvin Coolidge shook public confidence when he announced he would not seek another term. The income gap between rich and poor grew; many rural residents abandoned their farms to head to the cities and the promise of jobs. More and more money was being spent on education, yet teachers were drastically underpaid. In rural areas, some teachers barely had an elementary school degree. Lynching was still widespread, especially in the South, and the neo-apartheid policy of "separate but equal" still held the country in a tight grip when it came to race relations. Religious intolerance was the rule with an undeclared war against science, competing for the minds in America's schools. And America was caught up in a rather nasty jungle war against Sandino rebels in Nicaragua.

If this all sounds somewhat familiar, it is probably no accident. Leinwand's insights keep the reader interested and his judicious use of them help the book to flow like a well-tuned novel. Add a lively writing style and we have a perfect book for the days of Summer.

One added bonus is a chapter listing preductions of the future made in 1927 by such notables as H.G.Wells, Aldous Huxley, Hermann Keyserling, and even H.L. Mencken. Of course, they were all wrong, and it's a lot of fun to see Leinwand point out their errors. Highly recommended.

5.0 out of 5 stars 1927: High Tide of the 1920s, November 30, 2009

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Anon Reviewer (New York City) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: 1927: High Tide of the 1920's (Paperback)

A splendid book: comprehensive, thoroughly documented, and engagingly written. It must certainly be the definitive review of 1927 from an American perspective.