Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940: How Americans Lived Through the "Roaring Twenties" and the Great Depression

by David E. Kyvig

Overview

The twenties and thirties witnessed dramatic changes in American life: increasing urbanization, technological innovation, cultural upheaval, and economic disaster. In this fascinating book, the prize-winning historian David E. Kyvig describes everyday life in these decades, when automobiles and home electricity became commonplace, when radio and the movies became broadly popular. The details of work life, domestic life, and leisure activities make engrossing reading and bring the era clearly into focus.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781566635844
Publisher:	Dee, Ivan R. Publisher
Publication date:	06/30/2004
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	350
Sales rank:	1,094,503
Product dimensions:	5.56(w) x 8.61(h) x 0.98(d)
Lexile:	1410L (what's this?)

About the Author

David E. Kyvig is professor of history at Northern Illinois University. He has written a number of books in American history, including Explicit and Authentic Acts, which was awarded the Bancroft Prize. He lives in DeKalb, Illinois.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Circumstances of American Life in 1920 Chapter 2: Automobiles and the Construction of Daily Life Chapter 3: Electricity and the Conditions of Daily Life Chapter 4: Radio and the Connecting of Daily Lives Chapter 5: Cinema and the Extension of Experience Chapter 6: Carrying on Day by Day: Life's Basics Chapter 7: Carrying on Year by Year: Making a Life Chapter 8: Conflict, Crime, and Catastrophe: The Disruptions of Daily Life Chapter 9: Culture for the Masses: The Standardizing of Daily Life Chapter 10: Crisis: The Impact of the Great Depression Chapter 11: Creating the New Deal: A Larger Role for Government in Daily Life Chapter 12: Continuity and Change: American Communities at the End of the 1930s For Further Reading

What People are Saying About This

WILLIAM E. LEUCHTENBURG

...A happy marriage of political and social history.
—PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF HISTORY, UNC CHAPEL HILL

Forbes.com

This enjoyable read brings the period clearly into focus.

Walla Walla Union Bulletin

The details of work life, domestic life, and leisure activities make engrossing reading...on a level we can all understand.

WILLIAM L. O'NEILL

...Essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the origins of contemporary America.

WESLEY G. JOHNSON

...An excellent popular approach to an important subject by a well respected historian.
—BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY

ROGER DANIELS

...An excellent social history which examines how 'ordinary people' reacted to...massive changes.
—UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

Editorial Reviews

Daily Life in the United States, 1920–1940 is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the origins of contemporary America.

William L. O'Neill

The details of work life, domestic life, and leisure activities make engrossing reading. .. on a level we can all understand.

Walla Walla Union Bulletin

Kyvig—a respected historian. .. writes in an agreeably lucid style. .. about subjects that should be of immediate interest to all readers.

The Review of Higher Education

Kyvig regularly comes up with illuminating details. .. and new ways of thinking about familiar subjects.. .. This is an unusually satisfying book.

Atlantic Monthly

This enjoyable read brings the period clearly into focus.

Forbes

A happy marriage of political and social history.

William E. Leuchtenburg

David Kyvig’s Daily Life in the United States, 1920–1940 is an excellent social history which examines how 'ordinary people' reacted to the massive changes during what have been called the 'prosperity' and 'depression' decades.

Roger Daniels

An excellent popular approach to an important subject by a well respected historian.

G. Wesley Johnson

Virtually encyclopedic in its coverage of a vast array of topics, yet it manages to be readable and engaging.

University Of Georgia - Ronald E. Butchart

Kyvig—a respected historian . . . writes in an agreeably lucid style . . . about subjects that should be of immediate interest to all readers.

Review Of Higher Education

This enjoyable read brings the period clearly into focus.

Forbes.Com

Virtually encyclopedic in its coverage of a vast array of topics, yet it manages to be readable and engaging.
— Ronald E. Butchart

University Of Georgia

Kyvig—a respected historian…writes in an agreeably lucid style…about subjects that should be of immediate interest to all readers…

Washington Post

… [Kivig] drops in a few anecdotes and writes in an agreeably lucid style. He also writes about subjects that should be of immediate interest to all readers: the ways in which the American diet changed during these two decades, the widespread acceptance of cosmetics (previously thought the province of "painted" women), the rise of birth control and divorce, the move to the suburbs.
— The Washington Post

Jonathan Yardley

What were your grandparents doing in the 1920s and '30s? How did they spend their days and how were they affected by the popular culture? What were their work and domestic lives like? These are the questions Kyvig, a Bancroft Prize winner for Explicit and Authentic Acts and Northern Illinois University history professor, explores probingly in his new study. Kyvig covers everything from the development of the small pick-up truck to the spread of country and western music and shifting practices in religion and health care. He delineates how the mass production of cars changed people's buying habits with the introduction of credit, and how battery-powered radios meant rural folks could share the new mass culture with city dwellers. Kyvig also documents the massive impact-most of it negative-of Prohibition, a sign of the federal government's growing impact on people's lives, an impact greatly heightened by the New Deal. In the midst of his quite lucid and readable analysis, the author also touches on race, gender, class and the differences between rural and urban environments. In sum, Kyvig's book represents a penetrating information-packed portrait of Main Street, USA, during tumultuous times. 53 b&w photos. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Kyvig (Nearby History) hitches us to the rhythms and interests of Americans' work and play for a ride through two decades of social change and political realignment, a time of sometimes surprising resilience in the habits of family and community. This book is a modest revision of the author's well-received Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1939, with a new year added. Instead of focusing on the middle or upper class and on intellectuals alone, Kyvig emphasizes the diversity of experiences. He relies on census data to gauge economic, social, and geographic mobility and makes much of the technological changes afforded by radio and automobile and the spread of movies, which brought Americans together even as race and class divided them. Especially instructive are his case studies of six places-urban and rural-from across America, which show the tenacity of racial, religious, and regional identities. This work lacks the verve of Frederick Lewis Allen's still useful, if somewhat outdated, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s and Since Yesterday: The 1930s in America, but it stands strong on a bedrock of solid research and clear writing. Highly recommended for any library lacking the original.-Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal