Historian's book examines daily life in the 20s, 30s

by Tom Parisi

By night, candlelight and gas lamps still illuminated poor neighborhoods and rural homes. By day, the growing use of the tractor was revolutionizing the farming industry. The stock market was poised to soar. A woman's place was in the home. Slim was in. Alcohol was out. At movie theaters, the audience did all the talking. The age of mass consumerism was dawning.

David Kyvig

So began the 1920s. In his new book, "Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1939: Decades of Promise and Pain" (Greenwood Press), History Professor David E. Kyvig provides a new perspective of the era sandwiched between two world wars. It was a unique time in America that would bring electricity, radios, tractors, automobiles and talkies to the masses. The period also ushered in woman suffrage, new powers of the federal government, new standards of beauty, the heights of wealth and the depths of economic depression.

"You really have to understand the texture of everyday life for ordinary people in order to be able to comprehend the high politics of a time period," says Kyvig, an award-winning author. Copies of his new book can be purchased online at http://www.greenwood.com.

"What's distinctive about this period, and relates it to our own era, is that the 1920s was the advent of the mass consumer society," Kyvig says. "New technologies such as automobiles and radio quickly turned from toys for the wealthy to necessities for ordinary people. The development of consumer credit allowed quick access to these new technologies—and eventually contributed to the onset of the Great Depression."

"Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1939" features dozens of illustrations, reprints from Sears catalog pages and previously unpublished photographs to convey the culture and visual landscape of the time period. The text begins with a look at how the era was shaped by two constitutional amendments that went into effect in 1920: woman suffrage and Prohibition. Despite women winning the right to vote, many did not seize the opportunity because they were still caught up in the traditional role of the American female, Kyvig says.

As for Prohibition: "The liquor ban of the 1920s produced the first peace-time federal government intrusion into the details of ordinary people's daily conduct, and a lot of Americans decided they didn't like it," Kyvig says. "Difficult economic times in the 1930s, however, showed most citizens the need for government to regulate business activity and ensure economic security."

Drawing from previous works by historians and scholars on specific topics ranging from the stock market bust to the New Deal to the American diet, Kyvig presents a portrait of daily life in America. In the 1920s, for example, Americans realized they didn't need to eat as much and that it was acceptable, even attractive, to be slim. "The ideal of male and female beauty had shifted," Kyvig says. "This was reflected in the leaders of the era—Harding, Coolidge, Hoover and Roosevelt. In contrast, American presidents from the turn of the century had been very stout—a sign of wealth and prosperity. Taft was our heaviest president, at 325 pounds."

Kyvig's new book also takes a close look at six American communities: Muncie, Ind.; Irwin, Iowa; Harmony, Ga.; El Cerrito, N.M.; Aliquippa, Pa.; and Chicago, Ill. "In the 1920s, the sense of place was much stronger than it is today. Indeed people spent more of their lives within a community, whether it was a small or medium-sized town or a neighborhood in a big city," Kyvig said.

America was transformed by the Great Depression, which followed the stock market crash of 1929. The era holds valuable lessons applicable to today's market, Kyvig says. Then as now, consumer confidence played a large role in the stock market's health, and investors were blinded by the lure of potential easy money.

In the midst of the depression, Americans turned to radio and movies for cheap entertainment. (News wasn't part of the radio format until the mid-1930s.) A night on the town often was spent at the movie theater. "During the era of silent pictures, it was OK for audience members to talk during the movies," Kyvig says. "But the etiquette of going to the movies quickly changed when the talkies arrived. Movie theaters were often much bigger than today. In big cities such as Chicago, the picture palaces would seat more than 2,000 people."

The Great Depression, of course, marked the 1930s. But by the end of the decade and well before World War II, some communities had largely recovered, Kyvig added. "The image of the decade as entirely bleak is much too simplistic," he said.

Kyvig specializes in 20^th century U.S. history and is a recipient of NIU's Presidential Research Professorship, a distinction given to the university's top researchers. He has authored or edited 10 other books, including "Explicit and Authentic Acts: Amending the U.S. Constitution, 1776-1995." That title received Columbia University's Bancroft Prize, the most prestigious book-publishing accolade for American history.