Five Books on the Roaring 20s
A look back at the Jazz Age as we enter a new era of corrupt government and reactionary politics
In a few weeks, America will enter an age of reactionary politics, corrupt government, isolationist foreign policy unseen of since the 1920s. Though they were nowhere near as uncouth and vulgar as the incoming president and administration, American political leaders in the Jazz Age pulled back from the world, denying any real responsibility for world security while erecting barriers to trade and immigration as high as the new skyscrapers going up in New York City. At home, massive corruption and a light touch were the name of the game—until it all fell apart with the great Wall Street crash of 1929.
Though the president-elect has a fetish for the 1890s—one we should take seriously—it’s worth looking back at the 1920s to see how the last great age of reaction played out. Here are some of my favorite books and documentaries on that era:
The Perils of Prosperity, 1914-1932: If there’s any one book to read about the Jazz Age, historian William E. Leuchtenberg’s excellent and concise companion to his Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal: 1932-1940 is it. He provides a superb introduction to 1920s and the transformations it wrought to American society. It lays out the context for and consequences of the age of reaction that brought Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover to the White House by large margins, as well as the changes Americans of all backgrounds experienced to their daily lives as the country’s industrialization proceeded apace.
Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition: Author Daniel Okrent’s account of Prohibition brings to life the colorful cast of characters that either enforced or defied the attempt of one section of the nation to impose its social mores on the rest of the country through the force of law—and no, Okrent makes clear, Joseph P. Kennedy didn’t build his fortune as a bootlegger. It also becomes clear that Prohibition was one of those public policies that seemed like a good idea to voters who hadn’t thought through the full implications of what they’d supported as Prohibition enforcement took a heavy-handed, authoritarian turn. For a more academic look at the far-reaching political and social consequences of Prohibition, see historian Lisa McGirr’s The War on Alcohol.
Crooked: The Roaring '20s Tale of a Corrupt Attorney General, a Crusading Senator, and the Birth of the American Political Scandal: Before the first Trump presidency, the administration of President Warren G. Harding was widely considered the most corrupt in American history—with Attorney General Harry Daugherty leading the way in official malfeasance. Author Nathan Masters details in true crime style the ways Daugherty abused his power to both enrich himself and cover his tracks through intimidation and coercion. (Of current note: Daugherty helped organize hush money payments for Harding’s mistresses during the 1920 campaign.) Daugherty met his nemesis in newly-elected Senator Burton K. Wheeler, Democrat of Montana, who Daugherty enraged for his role in breaking a rail worker strike. But Masters touches on just about all the Harding administration’s corruption scandals, including the notorious Teapot Dome imbroglio.
Supreme City: How Jazz Age Manhattan Gave Birth to Modern America: Historian Donald L. Miller—best known today for Masters of the Air, the definitive modern account of the American strategic bombing campaign against Nazi Germany—penned this engrossing tale of New York City in the Jazz Age about a decade ago, with characters ranging from rakish city Mayor Jimmy Walker and bootlegging gangster Owney Madden to nightclub proprietress “Texas” Guinan, aviator Charles Lindbergh, and auto exec Walter Chrysler. His sprawling narrative isn’t confined to New York, of course, and Miller demonstrates just how economic, social, and cultural developments bled out from the city to the rest of the country. Each vignette would be worthy of a book in itself, but Miller perceptively cuts to the core of each story.
The Great Gatsby: No list of books about the Jazz Age would be complete without F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short but penetrating novel. It’s perhaps the definitive document of America in the 1920s, full of acute observations and critiques of a society and culture dominated by greed and acquisitiveness, laced with racism, and obsessed with the trappings of status and success. But it’s also a romantic work—not in the sense Baz Luhrmann tried to make it in his sexed-up 2013 film version, but in a literary and artistic sense. As Fitzgerald’s narrator Nick Carraway observes at the book’s end, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out or arms farther…. And one fine morning—”
In addition, Ken Burns has produced some excellent documentaries that touch on the Jazz Age:
Prohibition, a three-part 2011 series whose last two episodes—”A Nation of Scofflaws” and “A Nation of Hypocrites”—dwell most extensively on the 1920s.
Inning Four of Baseball, “A National Heirloom,” that focuses on the national pastime in the 1920s—and the rise of slugger Babe Ruth in particular.