ELIT 48C

Class 2

+Spelling Error #1

Don’t Write “then” when you mean “than.”

The first is a description of time—―I wrote the

sales letter and then I wrote the

advertisement‖—while the other is used when

making a comparison—―I am nicer than you

are!‖

+AGENDA

Teams

Introduction to American

Literature 1914-1945

2. The teams will change on or near exam dates.

3. You must change at least 50% of your team after each project is completed.

4. You may never be on a team with the same person more than twice.

5. You may never have a new team comprised of more than 50% of any prior team.

1. We will often use teams to earn participation points. Your teams can be made up of 4 or 5 people.

+Points will be earned

for correct answers to

questions, meaningful

contributions to the

discussion, and the

willingness to share

your work. Each team

will track their own

points, but cheating

leads to death (or loss

of 25 participation

points).

Answers, comments,

and questions must

be posed in a

manner that

promotes learning.

Those who speak

out of turn or with

maliciousness will

not receive points for

their teams.

At the end of each class,

you will turn in a point

sheet with the names of

everyone in your group and

your accumulated points

for the day.

It is your responsibility to

make the sheet, track the

points, and turn it in.

Sit near your team

members in class to

facilitate ease of group

discussions

+ Your First

Group!

Get into groups of

three or four. (1-2

minutes)

If you can’t find a

group, please raise

your hand.

Once your groups is

established, choose

one person to be the

keeper of the points.

Write down members’

names

Turn in your sheet at

the end of the class

period.

+Take 10 minutes to discuss the

following:

Historical events that took place

between the wars

Aspects of literary modernism

Radical social changes that took

place during the interwar period.

American Literature

1914–1945

An Introduction

+ Historical events that took

place between the wars

+

The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1920)

American women’s efforts to win the right to vote were ―given a final push by women’s work as nurses and ambulance drivers during the war‖ (NAAL 4).

The Immigration Act of 1924

―prohibited all Asian immigration and set quotas for other countries on the basis of their existing U.S. immigrant populations, intending thereby to control the ethnic makeup of the United States‖ (NAAL 4).

The Great Migration (c. 1910–1930)

the American landscape was transformed by the internal migration of two million African Americans from the rural South to urban centers in the Northeast, West, and Midwest

The Two Wars as Historical MarkersDuring the period of literary history that falls between 1914 (the

beginning of World War I) and 1945 (the end of World War II), the

United States grew and changed in radical ways.

+The Two Wars as Historical Markers

The first Red scare (1919–1920)

Following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the birth of the Soviet Union, American leftists looked to socialism and communism as models for the labor movement in the United States. Many Americans were intensely suspicious of European-style socialism, and the first Red scare of the twentieth century took place during this time, a generation earlier than the McCarthyism that took hold following World War II.

The stock market crash (1929)

The stock market crash of 1929 and the decade-long Great Depression that followed it were also events both international and domestic in scope

The Great Depression (c. 1929–1939)

Unemployment in the United States reached a high of twenty-five percent during the Depression years, international trade dropped off by fifty percent.

+Aspects of literary modernism

+

Literary modernism

tradition vs. innovation:

―One conflict centered on the uses of literary tradition. To some, a

work registering its allegiance to literary history—through allusion to

canonical works of the past or by using traditional poetic forms and

poetic language—seemed imitative and old-fashioned. To others, a

work failing to honor literary tradition was bad or incompetent writing‖

(NAAL 6).

―The two wars . . . bracket a period during which the

United States became a fully modern nation‖ (NAAL 6).

The aspects of social and political modernity that are laid

out in the previous slides have their counterpart in literary

modernism, which is better defined as a series of conflicts rather

than as a homogeneous set of characteristics.

+Literary modernism

serious vs. popular literature:

―A related conflict involved the place of popular culture in

serious literature. Throughout the era, popular culture gained

momentum and influence. Some writers regarded it as

crucial for the future of literature that popular forms, such as

film and jazz, be embraced; to others, serious literature by

definition had to reject what they saw as the cynical

commercialism of popular culture‖ (NAAL 6).

politics vs. aesthetics

―Another issue was the question of how far literature should

engage itself in political and social struggle. Should art be a

domain unto itself, exploring aesthetic questions and

enunciating transcendent truths, or should art participate in

the politics of the times?‖ (NAAL 6).

+

Radical social changes that

took place during the

interwar period.

+Changing Times: How does Thomas Hart

Benton’s 1931 painting City Activities with

Subway reflect the radical social changes that

took place during the interwar period.

+Changing Times: The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution officially gave women the right to vote. Unofficially, the amendment also opened up new arenas for women to explore—politically, sexually, artistically, and socially.

Suffragists Audre Osborne and Mrs. James Stevens.

+Changing Times: These two women illustrate the era's penchant for both fun and recklessness by doing the Charleston on a rooftop ledge. Their playful posturing also reflects the risks that women were taking in an era of greater opportunity.

December 11, 1926, Chicago, Illinois.

+Changing Times: The increasing mainstream popularity of African American artists, writers, and performers in cities like Chicago and New York during the interwar period is a complex phenomenon to account for, stemming from a movement toward racial equality on the one hand and an escalation in racially motivated violence that contributed to the Great Migration of two million African Americans from the South on the other.

An audience at Harlem's Cotton Club, a popular nightclub, watches a

performance. April 18, 1934.

+Changing Times: ―Class inequality, as well as American racial divisions, continued to generate intellectual and artistic debate in the interwar years. The nineteenth-century United States had been host to many radical movements—labor activism, utopianism, socialism, anarchism—inspired by diverse sources. In the twentieth century, especially following the rise of the Soviet Union, the American left increasingly drew its intellectual and political program from the Marxist tradition‖ (NAAL 8).

Philadelphia, Pennsylv

ania, The Bement Miles

Pond Company. A

general view of the

plant and some of its

workers.

+ Changing Times: The

Industrial Workers of the

World attracted working-

class men and women

frustrated with low wages

and long hours. It also

attracted writers, artists,

and intellectuals who were

sympathetic to socialist

movements across the

world.

+Changing Times: Gastonia, North Carolina,

April 5, 1929.

This photo shows a group of

female textile strikers attempting to

disarm a National Guard trooper,

who had been ordered to the Loray

Mills in an effort to stop the serious

rioting that took place following the

strike.

As evidenced in this photograph,

labor struggles often turned violent,

with strikebreakers (both military

and civilian) brought in to end labor

protests and return disgruntled

workers to their jobs.

+Science and

Technology―Technology played a vital,

although often invisible, role

in all these events, because it

linked places and spaces,

contributing to the shaping of

culture as a national

phenomenon rather than a

series of local manifestations

. . . The most powerful

technological innovation

[was] the automobile (NAAL

10).

Ford Adds to Your Pleasure.

Poster ca. 1920.

+ Automobiles put Americans on the road, dramatically reshaped

the structure of American industry and occupations, and altered

the national topography as well. Along with work in automobile

factories themselves, millions of other jobs— in steel mills, parts

factories, highway construction and maintenance, gas stations,

machine shops, roadside restaurants, motels—depended on the

industry‖

The road itself became—and has remained—a key powerful

symbol of the United States and of modernity as well. Cities grew,

suburbs came into being, small towns died, new towns arose

according to the placement of highways, which rapidly supplanted

the railroad in shaping the patterns of twentieth-century American

urban expansion. The United States had become a nation of

migrants as much as or more than it was a nation of immigrants‖

(NAAL 10).

+ The 1930s

Brokers line up to throw themselves out of the

window after the stock market crash of October

1929. Contemporary American cartoon.

One of the defining features of

the interwar period is the stock

market crash of 1929 and the

resulting depression. ―The

suicides of millionaire bankers

and stockbrokers‖—parodied

in this cartoon—―made the

headlines, but more

compelling was the enormous

toll among ordinary people

who lost

homes, jobs, farms, and life

savings in the stock market

crash. Conservatives advised

waiting until things got better;

radicals espoused immediate

social revolution‖ (NAAL 11).

+The 1930s

+The 1930s

A man walks

past a

farmhouse in a

dust storm at

the height of the

Dust Bowl. Ca.

1937.

+The 1930s

Migrant family

walking on the

highway from

Idabel, Oklahoma

to Krebs,

Oklahoma. Photo

by Dorothea

Lange, 1938.

+Homework

Read ―Modernist Manifestos‖ pp. 335-350

Post #2 QHQ from one of the sections/authors

listed:

A-B: Intro

C-F: Marinetti

G-J: Loy

K-L: Pound

M-P: Cather

Q-S: Williams

T-Z: Hughes