Book Review: Only Yesterday

Contemporary history is fascinating in that it captures the general demeanor of the public in a much more genuine fashion than the historian who hopes to recreate the scene after the fact based on written memoirs and the media of the time. Details that may eventually be sifted out with time are front and center. Events which will later be discounted as trivial are still present and important. The flow of the text is not an orderly list of events, but a close retelling of a story, leaving in the unimportant parts. Paired with a traditional historical text, contemporary writing from the period can fill in a lot of the details easily glossed over and provide a more human perspective to an event or time period.

In the intro, Fredrick Lewis Allen sums this up quite well: “It has seemed to me that one who writes at such close range, while recollection is still fresh, has a special opportunity to record the fads and fashions and follies of the time, the things which millions of people thought about and talked about and became excited about and which at once touched their daily lives; and that he may prudently leave to subsequent historians certain events and policies. Particularly in the field of foreign affairs. The effect of which upon the life of the ordinary citizen was less immediate and may not be fully measurable for a long time.”

I very much enjoyed Fredrick Lewis Allen’s Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920’s. I had been eyeing it for some time, and when I finally purchased it from Amazon I was annoyed at how slow the two-day shipping was. I had high expectations for the book, and they were completely met.

I really enjoyed Allen’s writing. He employed an informal tone complete with sarcasm and offhand quips, causing me to laugh audibly a handful of times but mostly to smile at his dry humor. His narrative flowed smoothly, never jumping around and always providing thorough descriptions of events and situations. The organization and ordering of the subject matter provided for quite a coherent amble through the Post-war Decade.

It begins with the description of an average day for an urban couple near the end of the first World War, taking us through what they had for breakfast, how they got to work, what they paid for groceries, what vices they engaged in at their evening dinner party, topics of conversation as they enjoy alcohol before the coming prohibition, and what songs and music styles they danced to for the rest of the night. The reader is taken roughly chronologically through the immediate post-war glee, the falling-apart of Woodrow Wilson, the brief scare of socialism, Harding and his scandals, prosperity taking a steady hold of the country mid-decade, the Ballyhoo fascination with trivial trends, Prohibition and organized crime, the Stock Market boom, and the close of the decade with a bang. The coherent threading of all the various strands of the time period produced a narrative that paired unexpected causes and unforeseen effects, highlighting the overlap between the seemingly discrete pulls on the attention of the participants of the post-war decade. And what a decade it was!

The main things I enjoyed from this text were

  1. A comprehensible narrative of the 20’s as a whole. I’ve learned about the Stock Market crash, women’s suffrage, Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations, and Calvin Coolidge in isolation, but being able to understand how all of the pieces fit together as they occurred concurrently or in close proximity provided much more insight in the why as well as the what.
  2. “Insignificant” details that colored in the era. Why had average citizens played so riskily in the Stock Market? Well, they were primed to buy items on credit with the proliferation of installment payments in the beginning of the decade, along with rampant real estate speculation in Florida (which gave rise to Coral Gables and Miami) and elsewhere. Jumping into the stock market once the easy real estate profits dried up was a natural step. What did the closed automobile have to do with the spread of intimacy in unwed youngsters? Well, closed automobiles were practically private rooms away from prying eyes where young couples could engage in whatever they wished, an accessible, movable accommodation not widely available before the decade.

One last note. When describing the 1920’s, the term “disillusionment” comes up quite a bit. I thought Allen provided a nice succinct description of the cause: the “collapse of Wilsonian ideals, the spread of political cynicism, the slow decay of religious certainty, and the debunking of love.”

My notes while reading this book:

  • 1919
    • “She has read in Vogue the alarming news that skirts may become even shorter, and that “not since the days of the bourbons has the woman of fashion been visible so far above the ankle”
    • “Short-haired women, like long-haired men, are associated with radicalism”
    • IWW union, Peace Conference at Paris finishing up, flights across the Atlantic, Suffrage, passenger cars (7m vs. 23m 10 years later) (and without many concrete roads), inflation of prices since the war ended without wage increases, prohibition starting on the 1st of July (though drinking is almost exclusively a male activity, especially when ordering at the bar), Jazz slowly replacing orchestras but without the wailing solo instruments, movies and theater shows, but no radio broadcasting yet
  • Back to Normalcy
    • On the announcement of the armistice, the streets flooded, effigies of the Kaiser were burned and dragged through the streets, and the mood joyous
    • There was a dangerous feeling that Bolshevism May spread to America, with a mob mentality to squash it from both political figures and citizens
    • As soon as the forces of war were lifted, some detractors of Wilson began to become more vocal, saying “with impunity” that he was egotistical (going to Paris himself for the treaty), a pacifists (he had stayed out of the war too long), hypocritical (we had gone into the war to save our own skids, not the Wilsonian talk of making the world safe for democracy). “As the first weeks of peace slipped away, it began to appear doubtful whether the US was quite as ready as Woodrow Wilson had though ‘to assist in the establishment of just democracy throughout the world.’”
    • Opposition to Wilson’s 14 points and the League of Nations was high both at home, by people who felt it would muddle the process of transitioning to peacetime in the world and enter the US in entangling alliances (Republicans politically held this perspective) and “old world” diplomats of various nations that wanted spoils of war rather than an idealistic peace. Wilson was in high regard among political leaders and laypeople, but many did not believe in his idealistic intents - the support he felt he had during the war effort as he toured Europe afterward gave him a feeling of being a superhuman savior, and placed upon his own shoulders an impossible task of negotiating toward his idealistic single purpose. He did solely manage to confront to slicing and annexation of Germany, but still the final treaty, after six months of negotiations, was a compromise. He was an optimist, and because he had proclaimed the conference and its attendees would be guided by righteous ideals (even though it clearly wasn’t), he had to carry on as of the treaty was perfect and he agreed with all the points. But he knew it fell short, and was created out of disillusionment, hate, and nationalism.
    • Many unhappy with the treaty for various reasons: entanglement with foreign affairs, Irish who argued for Irish independence and against numerous British seats in the league, senators who wanted to show no President could operate without them, Republicans incensed that Wilson campaigned for a Democratic senate during wartime, Italians who were upset the President did not give Italy Fiume. Wilson went on a speaking tour in the west to drum up support, put his heart and soul into the success of the League and treaty, but says after the ratification vote went against the treaty, could hardly stand and became partially paralyzed due to a breakdown. The rest of his presidency saw him a feeble man, sick and virtually unable to function.
    • Republican Warren G. Harding is elected in 1920 as man who worked in contrast to Wilsonian principles - he was a practical, accessible, small-town man that wasn’t interested in foreign entanglements, much to the appreciation of the war-weary American public
  • The Big Red Scare
    • The war and its tales of international espionage conditioned businessmen to associated labor unions fighting for better wages with Bolshevik motives
    • There was growing sentiment that radicalism, Bolshevism and Socialism would spread through the states. Mobs sometimes formed to break up a socialist group celebration. There was a mail bombing scare in the spring of 1919 attributed to alien radicals. There was a feeling that a revolution like those happening abroad would happen here. Communists, friends of communists, and anyone who walked adjacent to communists, knowingly or not, were rounded up and sent to jail, many without due cause or evidence. The war-time sedition act allowed the Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, “The Fighting Quaker”, to deport foreigners suspected of socialistic sympathizing.
    • Boston Police Strike of September 1919, due to low wages. Temporary forces were ineffective and hoodlums ran amok. Calvin Coolidge, the governor of Massachusetts, opposes the strike and became a national hero.
    • Association with Bolshevism became a smart tactic for those with an agenda to smear their opposition
    • Blacks, Jews, and Roman Catholics - essentially all who were not white and Protestant in this melting pot of a country - were watched with a distrusting eye. Racial flares occurred fairly often. And in this environment the KKK arose again, drawing inspiration from the reconstruction era Klan. (Allen is quite humorous and cutting with his Klan description, starting with its “art of nomenclature reached its fantastic pinnacle” and ending with equating it to a pyramid scheme. Page 57).
    • By the summer of 1920, the Big Red scare in the American public had mostly subsided, and other things fought for the attention of the public (women’s suffrage, Charles Ponzi, rising prices, presidential election), even with the bombing of Wall Street (presumably by Bolshevik anarchists) on September 16
  • America Convalescent
    • “The temper of the aftermath of war was at least giving way to the temper of peace. Like an overworked business man beginning his vacation, the country had had to go through a period of restlessness and irritability, but was finally learning how to relax and amuse itself once more.”
    • “A sense of disillusionment remained; like the suddenly liberated vacationist, the country felt that it ought to be enjoying itself more than it was, and that life was futile and nothing mattered much. But in the meantime it might as well play…”
    • Radio and sport became the fascinations of millions of Americans. Beauty contests, tabloids, and Mah Jong leagues popped up.
    • Sacco-Vanzetti, a murder case initially unimportant but stoked abroad via radical press as two Italian radicals were arrested, briefly brought the Red Scare front and center again. Liberals felt that the radicals had been improperly identified as the murders and held to a different guilty standard because of their political views, and those who felt radicals “ought to be strung up on general principle” argued for their guilt. Received attention from around the world, but after their executions was quickly forgotten by the American public
  • The Revolution in Manners and Morals
    • The moral code of women as the moral standard-bearers was being broken with drinking, smoking, necking, petting, and dancing, all wrapped up as the Problem of the Younger Generation
    • A number of forces were working together to make this revolution inevitable
      • State of mind by the war: eat-drink-and-be-merry-for-tomorrow-we-die, acquired tastes for speed, excitement, passion
      • Growing independence of the American woman due to suffrage, which “consolidated woman’s position as mans equal” (although “she seemed, it is true, to be very little interested in it once she had it”)
      • Canned goods, smaller houses and apartments, machinery, products all simplified housemaking and led to more economic independence for women
      • Freud and psychology cast sex as a pervasive, central force to mankind
      • Prohibition sparked sincere opposition and led bootlegging and the speakeasy to be the “thing to do” for both genders
      • Closed cars provided anonymity for teens as they could drive to another town or use it as a private room
    • Drinking lubricated talk and manners between men and women, and both media and conversations became more frank and risqué
    • “Some day, perhaps, the ten years which followed the war may aptly be known as the Decade of Bad Manners.” “If the decade was ill-mannered, it was also unhappy.” “There were millions to whom in some degree came for a time the same disillusionment and with it the same unhappiness. They could not endure a life without values, and the only values they had been trained to understand were being undermined. Everything seemed meaningless and unimportant. I Well, at least I’ve could toss off a few drinks…and forget that the world was crumbling”
  • Harding and the Scandals
    • Harding was almost an opposite to Wilson - good natured, friendly, open to the people and public
    • However, he lacked the ability to glean essential facts and make decisions, and relied much on subordinates, who were mostly installed from his local Ohio political community.
    • He enjoyed his own cronies company, and tended to willfully ignore their grafting on the side
    • He also had an illegitimate child with a mistress
    • Harding had success in his presidency - a tremendous disarmament naval agreement with Japan and Britain, appointees doing well, business-friendliness satisfying the mood of the country
    • He died suddenly on August 2, 1923, from a stroke - he had earlier became ill on a trip back from Alaska
    • Rumors swirled that he had committed suicide or that his wife had poisoned him, due to his affair and the predicament of his cronies machinations
    • After his death, the scandals began to come to light:
      • Teapot Dome scandal. 
        • Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall used Harding to gain control of three oil reserves for military use. Once the Navy wanted to use the oil reserves, Fall gave the contracts to two oil companies without bidding and in secrecy, and took some bribes to do so
        • Before that deal, oil company executives began funneling some oil trades through a newly conceived Continental Trading Company, which used the “profit” to purchase Liberty bonds that were then dealt to oil executives, which in turn were used by some for political meddling, like the bribes given from Sinclair to Fall.
      • Veterans Bureau gross overspending, favoritism, and choosing projects so that the head, Charles R. Forbes, could pocket the money
      • Payments to leaders (such as the Attorney-General) in the Alien Property Custodian office for access
      • Bootleggers paying millions to Harding’s “Ohio Gang”
      • The framed suicide of Jess Smith, the “Ohio Gang”’s accountant and money handler, as he was rumored to becoming a state’s witness against the gang
      • The suspicious deaths of many players around the graft, including the president himself
  • Coolidge Prosperity
    • After the short depression in 1921, prosperity rose again from 1923 almost steadily until the big crash. While many thrived economically, some industries were left behind such as coal mining, textiles, and farmers as diets, fashion and other parts of society were changing.
    • Cars infiltrated every aspect of life, and the public’s interest in cars was unmatched! The decade saw a change from a single traffic officer in the early years to traffic lights, blinkers, one-way streets, and parking ordinances at the end
    • Radio infiltrated every third house, and sales grew rapidly throughout the decade
    • America became prosperous due
      • Europe in ruin after the Great War
      • America’s natural resources and mass production
      • Automobiles
      • Installment payments (credit)
      • Stock market speculation
    • “At the beginning of the decade advertising had been considered a business…but by the end…we’re beginning to refer to it-among themselves-as a racket.”
    • The American public became enthralled with business and its successes. They courage’s Henry Ford to run for office. Mellon and Hoover considered their wealth to be an asset in public office. Businessmen were considered to be in the upper echelon of employment classes. Business had become the national religion of America.
    • Calvin Coolidge is first discussed in the last part of “Coolidge Prosperity”, and the author informs us that is because there is not much to be said about the president that did not say too much. He was extremely prudent, offering almost no deviations from the inevitable course of the country. He had no big personality and employed brevity in speech and small talk. He maintained the status quo. He believed in the old American ways of hard work and frugal living and piety. He also trimmed the government and lowered taxes multiple times.
  • The Ballyhoo Years
    • The early to mid 20s can be described as a time of unanimous infatuation with trivial interests, largely due to the conglomeration of newspapers and mass production of news content
    • Crossword puzzles swept the nation in 1924, first published by Simon-Schuster
    • Church attendance grow in proportion with population growth, but the post-war decade seemed to be the first time where religion was a debatable subject rather than accepted without question
    • Science took root, dimming the awe of humanistic parts of religion and providing the feeling that anything was possible.
    • Scopes trial
      • Billed as the battle between Fundamentalism and twentieth-century skepticism, but was ultimately right of taxpayers vs. academic freedom
      • The Fundamentalist side won, but it had really lost - civilized opinion regarded the trial with amazement and amusement and the slow drift away from Fundamentalist certainly continued
    • It was a great sporting era, with golf taking the country by storm, the Dempsey and Tunney fight breaking attendance records, and baseball, tennis, and football stars becoming household names
    • Lindbergh’s grip on the nation cannot be understated. He was given too many awards and honors to count for his flight from NYC to Paris. He was a universal, American hero beloved by all
      • Why such an outpouring of delight at a stunt flight? The author postulates that the flight was a wholesome victory for the American public against a backdrop of slipping moral interests, corrosion of earlier ideals, and disillusionment. The nation was fed on cheap heroics and scandals, science was undermining religious and sentimental notions, and they had been spiritually starved
  • The Revolt of the Highbrows
    • There existed a new class-conscious group, a group of self-described creative intellectuals that rallied against American disillusionment and pleasure-seeking. Their opinion was summed up with “the most amusing and pathetic fact in the social life of America today is its emotional and aesthetic starvation”
    • H.L. Mencken led the way with his magazine American Murcury
    • The pushed the moral code, were more open about sex, detested previous generations as stuffy, anti-Prohibitionist and anti-reformer, religious skeptics, disposed the bourgeois and yuppies, participated in idol-smashing, wanted to disassemble assembly-lines, spurred alternative education, and spurned American culture.
    • Disillusionment with their own rebellion
  • Alcohol and Al Capone
    • Prohibition country-wise would’ve been unthinkable before the war
      • The war distracted those who may have organized to oppose
      • The country became used to dramatic legislation
      • The war brought a mood of Spartan idealism, and had Utopian visions
      • Many big brewers and distillers were of German origin
    • Al Capone joined forces with Johnny Torrio of Chicago and controlled the bootlegging operation in Chicago
      • Over 500 gang murders in all
    • Racketeering took rose with organized crimes empowered by bootlegging. Extortion via trade and labor unions
  • Home, Sweet Florida
    • A real estate boom and bust happened in Florida in the middle of the decade, with many speculators purchasing and hoping to turn around and sell to make a quick profit
    • Happened in varying degrees all around America, in suburbs and in cities
    • Primed the public for stock market speculation
  • The Big Bull Market
    • In early March 1928, many financial forecasters feared a correction, as business output was slowing
    • A few big investors were buying in large volumes, thinking that American business would come back, that there was recent selling, and that the American public would buy right back in if prices surged
    • This all occurred in the backdrop of the 1928 election, Al Smith vs Hoover. Smith chose the VP if the finance committee of General Motors as chairman of the DNC
    • Prices plummet and skyrocketed, oscillating every few months as the government attempted to curb speculation, banks attempted to avoid a panic, and speculators lost and gained dramatically. The public would not be shaken out of speculation without a major disaster
    • The feeling was that a new era of prosper was starting, which is why all the signals seemed to be false positives
  • Crash!
    • After 18 months of general inflation of stock market prices, many were lulled into a false sense of a permanently high plateau of stock prices and business. Business growth was slowing and there were for sure some bears, but most held the belief that any drop would be “the runner catching his breath”
    • The initial drop was likely not fear, but margin traders at their breaking point over the last few weeks of price drops. But one the waterfall of prices occurred, fear set in as everyone scrambled to get out
    • A bankers pool of six of the largest houses came together and pledged $40m each in the afternoon or Thursday October 24th, as the market began to bottom. They used that to purchase bellweather stocks to steady prices, which actually caused some of the stocks to settle
    • Throughout the weekend stock prices had retreated again, somethings without having any bids to purchase stocks at all! Brokerages went over customer accounts and made margin calls, which caused more selling
    • The crash was a sign that the economy had over expanded, capital had overproduced, stimulus via installment buying had grown too much, and that European trade had become depressed. It also caused a mind shift, from a feeling of prosperity to one more online with the coming depression
  • Aftermath
    • “Doubtless the Administration’s campaign of optimism had been overzealous, but Mr. Hoover’s greatest mistake had been in getting himself elected for the 1928-32 term.
    • In the beginning of the 30s, the public sentiment shifted away, slightly embarrassed, from the feeling of the 20’s. Skirts were longer, rebels were tired of the thrashing against morals, sex was an overproduced commodity, and the country as a whole returned to a similar but shifted feeling of that before the post-war decade. It’s almost as if the 20’s was the time of a teenager, disillusioned, focus on trivial matters with some resigned disappointment from the high brows, yearning for freedom from a strict moral code, but at the conclusion shrugged off those silly notions and returned to a settled yet more experienced version of itself