Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1939: Decades of Promise and Pain

Front Cover
Bloomsbury Academic, 2002 - 271 pages
Of course people were not all alike even way back then, admits Kyvig (history, Northern Illinois U.), and there was too much distinction in location, occupation, economic circumstances, race, gender, and other factors than he can accommodate. Still, he wants to avoid the emphasis historians usually give to dramatic events, and focus instead on what daily life was like for a sampling of Americans in what we now know, but they did not, was a mere lull between world wars. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Annotation. During the 1920s and 1930s, changes in the American population, increasing urbanization, and innovations in technology exerted major influences on the daily lives of ordinary people. Explore how everyday living changed during these years when use of automobiles and home electrification first became commonplace, when radio emerged, and when cinema, with the addition of sound, became broadly popular. This enjoyable read brings the period clearly into focus. Annotation. Discover what everyday life was like for ordinary Americans during the decades of development and depression in the 1920s and 1930s. Annotation. During the 1920s and 1930s, changes in the American population, increasing urbanization, and innovations in technology exerted major influences on the daily lives of ordinary people. Explore how everyday living changed during these years when use of automobiles and home electrification first became commonplace, when radio emerged, and when cinema, with the addition of sound, became broadly popular. This enjoyable read brings the period clearly into focus.

About the author (2002)

DAVID E. KYVIG is Presidential Research Professor and Professor of History at Northern Illinois University. He is the author of Explicit and Authentic Acts: Amending the U.S. Constitution (winner of the 1997 Bancroft Prize) and the editor of Unintended Consequences of Constitutional Amendment (2000), Reagan and the World (Praeger, 1990) and New Day/New Deal: A Bibliography of the Great American Depression, 1929-1941 (Greenwood, 1988).

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