Customer Reviews

Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s

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This engaging account of the 1920's is an especially remarkable book given the year it was written: 1931. With remarkable detachment and prose which has stood up to the test of time, Frederick Lewis Allen wrote about the 1920's just after the decade had ended. Writing in a voice that is half that of a journalist and half that of a historian, Allen covers everything from presidents and presidential politics, to prohibition, the economy, sweeping social changes, the coming of mass media through radio, syndicated columnists, and increased attendance in movie houses; the red scare, the rise of business and science in popular esteem, religion, and a variety of other cultural and social events and trends. The modern era, it could be argued, began on Armistice Day, 11/11/1918.

The trends and issues of the post-World War I decade resound with amazing familiarity today, at the dawn of the 21st Century. Through reading Allen's account the reader is reminded that McCarthyism that oft referred to "ism," was hardly the invention of McCarthy, nor was it unique to the late 1940's and 1950's. A red scare based on hysteria and fear proceeded "McCarthyism" by a good thirty years. The red scare that was brought about by the Bolshevik Revolution was ferocious in its intensity. Fanned by the winds of a handful of true radicals, the red scare that came immediately after the war was characterized by labor unrest, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the trampling of any ideas or books that had a hint of "Bolshevism," mass deportations of Communists (or suspected Communists), and the waiving of due process under law with mass arrests.

Allen says the big red scare faded quickly, as it became all too evident that there really wasn't much Communist or Bolshevik subversion to begin with. Also, the country was ready for The Next Big Thing. "Only Yesterday" details a series of manias that swept the country in the twenties. One of these manias was a revolution in morals. Here too, the reader of the year 2000 is reminded that the sixties and early seventies were not the only time period of a sexual revolution in twentieth-century America. The post-war decade of the twenties was a dramatic precursor to what came later, and an important breaking off point, for many at least, from Victorian mores.

Tired of Wilsonian idealism and weary from the First World War, American's were starved for a return to "normalcy." From Marion, Ohio, Warren Harding seemed like just the man to succeed Wilson. Harding was swept into the White House in what would be the beginning of twelve years of Republican rule from Pennsylvania Avenue. No great intellectual, Harding was a genial man and the country took to him. Meanwhile, as it would be revealed after his timely death, Harding ran one of the most corrupt administrations in the nation's history. The scandals came to light after Harding died and the moralistic (although not necessarily idealistic) Calvin Coolidge was just the man for the times. The "Coolidge Prosperity" is aptly named in that most of the 1920's were good times economically for all but a few sectors of the economy. Coolidge ran the country with a maxim of what was good for business was good for the country. If he had any ideology that was probably it.

The most capable of the three Republicans, or at least certainly the brightest, was Herbert Hoover, elected at the height of the Coolidge prosperity. Hoover was in office just over six months when the bubble burst The stock market-fueled by speculation-crashed, followed soon by a general economic collapse.

With the Scopes Trial, sports mania, and the introduction and popularity of radio, the nation went from one craze to the next. Whether it was anti-Bolshevism, or stock market mania, these were all national manias with the help of new forms of communication as well as new ways of mass manipulation by editors and announcers. Allen's "Only Yesterday" gives the reader a good feel for the events and trends of the 1920's, as seen by a man who had just lived through that decade.

This is a wonderful little book (301 pages) about life in America in the decade between World War I (Armistice Day) and the Panic of October 29, 1929. Frederick Lewis Allen - a career writer-editor for various national publications (Atlantic Monthly, Century, Harper's, etc.) wrote this book in 1931. Thus, he provides a quick, fresh glance back upon this exciting period - the "Roaring 20's" - that he'd personally just experienced.
Allen touches briefly, but poignantly, on all the important political, economical and social aspects of American life in these years. He includes capsule biographies of the
presidents: of Woodrow Wilson and his failure to successfully promote his `14 Point-based peace treaty and a League of Nations; of Warren G. Harding - handsome, personable, decent, but unaware, apparently, of the scandals taking place around him; of `silent' Calvin Coolidge and his era of prosperity; and of Herbert Hoover - well-meaning, but unable to find answers to the deteriorating economy and the approaching depression.
Allen also describes the people, events and activities that impacted the lives of Americans in those years, including the fear of communism and socialism (`The Red Scare'), women's emancipation, the growing proliferation and influence of radio, the impact of new magazines dealing with the movies, adventure, romance and true confessions, the importance of newly created newspaper empires and chains, beauty contests, changing fashions, cosmetics, advertising, and new automobiles (Ford's Model A). He describes the country's heroes and its new obsessions and fads: Babe Ruth and baseball, Charles Lindbergh and aviation, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan doing verbal battle over religion at the Scopes' Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney and boxing, Bobby Jones and golf, Bill Tilden and tennis, flag-pole sitters, flappers, marathon dancing, scandals and crimes.
Allen provides a wonderful chapter on prohibition - one of the really great issues of the era. The oft repeated message that man is destined to repeat past mistakes if he refuses to
heed the lessons of history is demonstrated, I think, in this very chapter. Having succeeded in legislating this specific moral behavior (i.e., abstinence)the federal and state governments quickly learned that the people were not going to obey this law voluntarily, and that no one was going to be able to enforce it (sound like somebody's 'drug war'?!). Prohibition introduced - indeed, precipitated - a fascinating, new period in U.S. history: the country was soon awash with bootleggers, bathtub gin, speakeasies, gangwars, lawbreaking, hipflasks, sex, and exuberant hell-raising. Al Capone arrived in Chicago from New York, hired some 700 goons, armed them with shotguns and machine guns and tasked them with monopolizing Chicago's beer and liquor trade. When enormous profits started rolling in, the gangsters then moved into other lucrative business activities - gambling, horse racing, boxing, dance halls, prostitution, unions, restaurants, distilleries, breweries, etc. Life was good.
Allen's chapter on the `Big Bull Market' and the subsequent `crash' of 1929 reminds one very much of America's more recent adventures involving Wall Street - of a
time when investors were mesmerized by the seemingly perpetual rise of stock prices, while being at the same time oblivious to any possibility that stock prices could fall and thereby wipe out almost overnight their newly acquired fortunes. Of course, that's what happened then, and that's what happened to current investors quite recently. So much for respecting the
lessons of history.
On a happier note - history also shows that readers have been buying, reading, and enjoying this little book for some 7 decades. So, please do heed just this one lesson: read this book yourself! It's history reading at its best!

The summer of 2002 is a very interesting time to be thinking about the 1920s, and this book is the perfect way to do that. One of Allen's major themes is the Big Bull Market of that decade -- how it gradually, little by little, seduced many economic thinkers into believing that the business cycle had been permanently changed for the better, and how stocks turned into a nationwide spectator sport. Sound familiar? As with our more recent bull market, the end wasn't pretty. But one of the things the book suggests is that we haven't seen anywhere near the calamity that followed the crash of 1929. (Allen finished the book in 1931.) I don't know that the book offers much guidance about what will happen next for us in 2002, but it does teach a powerful lesson about the ways that history repeats. Allen covers other ground, too, like the Teapot Dome scandal and the rise of Al Capone, as well as some of the more frivolous "hot" stories of the time. Among the other déjà vu themes he hits is how easily distracted we are by trivial stories when the economy is good. Nicely written, still holds up remarkably well.

Allen does not limit himself to the "great man" school of history, but gives a wide-ranging and colorful view of a decade disquietingly like the 90s/00s - a careening stock market, a failing war on drugs, and oil company execs in to clean up the White House. This book would get five stars for the Prohibition poem alone: "...it doesn't prohibit worth a dime/Nevertheless, we're for it!" One of the most interesting parts was what Allen doesn't - and couldn't - write about. Only Yesterday was written in 1931, before the full effects of Versailles had been felt. Viewed in that light, Allen's portrait of Wilson, while romanticized, astutely outlines why Wilson's ideas for the peace treaty were wise, and why they were so unlikely to ever be realized. From hemlines to geopolitics, Allen pulls it all together in a fascinating book.

Anyone of the dwindling band of stock market contrarians will find fresh ammunition here. A bull market ushered in by a President beset with sex scandals and allegation of peculation, the rise of the stock market as the greatest ballyhoo of them all, the simultaneous collapse in commodities and the Fed's foredoomed efforts to stabilize the international system all have their counterparts today. A compelling social history intertwined with the ineluctable progress towards the disaster on Wall Street has all the elements of the finest tragedy. A book to rival 'The Titanic' in its sweep, it leaves Galbraith for dead as a narrative of this most fascinating of decades. Also consider Allen's follow-up account of the 30's aftermath in 'Since Yesterday' for an eyewitness account of the Depression and a surprising perspective on Roosevelt and the New Deal.

This is exactly the type of history book I like to read. The subject matter is brought to life in a way simply not found in other authors. It reminded me quite a bit of Howard's Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" because I read that first and I wonder if Professor Zinn took a hint from Mr. Allen's style because they are very similar.
I will remember events, people and places in this book long after I am done reading it (for a college class) simply because of the way the author seems to be talking directly to you.
It is as if you are just sitting down for dinner, or a chat, and he's laying out the 1920's to you because you asked.
I am throughly impressed with this book and I am glad my Professor exposed me to it. I recommend it to anyone who has ever wondered what the "Roaring 20's" were all about.

Very good account of the historical events of America in the 1920's. The vivid description of the period enables the readers to "live" through that time again. The change of collective mentality is another focus of the book. For example, it reflects the general public attitude towards the war that is outside of their continent.

Therefore this book have given me a lot of insight of how USA comes to be what it is now. And moreover, it can be read as a FORWARD-LOOKING book: the Globe is closer to the blink of Great Depression than ever. We can spot a lot of parallel between US then and US now: speculation of real estate, stock; the style of the media (aren't they all interested in soapie-like story?). As well, we can spot all the syndromes in our current econ situation that were present in US in 20's. If the world leaders cannot learn from History and steer the course correctly, we will soon dive into the merciless age of depression again, and soon someone else will follow the author and wrote us a book of World in 90's, "Yesterday Once More"(?!)

This is a well written and fascinating blend of popular and academic history. A broad survey of the 1920's, it covers everything from the Teapot Dome Scandal to the revolution in manners and morals to the single best account of the 1929 stock market crash I've ever read. Frederick Lewis Allen is a fine storyteller, and thankfully he sticks to the interesting figures of the day, so while you get to read in detail about subjects such as the Scopes trial and Lindbergh's flight to Paris, you don't have to wade through dull anecdotes of average people sitting on flagpoles in a desperate bid for attention. In hindsight from 70 years later, his filter for determining what was important about the decade is almost flawless.

I think what makes the book so special is its modernity. The author impartially examines all the events of that turbulent decade with a sort of bemused detachment which has worn very well. It's awfully hard to believe the book was written on the immediate heels of the decade; it seems as if it could have been written Only Yesterday. Only Yesterday deserves to be widely read; there's a reason it's still in print today.

Reading this book should be mandatory. The decline of formal religion and the sexual revolution all happened in the 1920s; the issues then (and this book was written in 1931), a time that seems like ancient history now, are the issues of today. Terrorism, business fraud, government corruption, investment mania, rapid technological advance, the move to the suburbs, are all covered. I found this book because it was referenced in several other books I read and consider it extremely important for everyone today. Our modern problems are not as modern as we think.

I purchased this book mainly as research for a novel I am writing set in the time period. I expected to wade through a lot of tedious history but what I found was a great perspective of the era written just after it occurred. Insightful, packed with useful informatin, I couldn't have asked for a better guide through the roaring 20s.