Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Perennial Classic / Harper & Row (1964), Mass Market Paperback, 312 pages
Description
Jazz, flappers, flasks, rumbleseats, and raccoon coats; Mah Jong, crossword puzzles, marathon dancers, and flagpole sitters; Red Grange, Rudolph Valentino, and Lucky Lindy. These were the catch words of the roaring, irrepressible '20's. But so were the Boston Police Strike, the K.K.K., women's suffrage, Sigmund Freud, Sacco and Vanzetti, Teapot Dome, Black Tuesday. In this span between armistice and depression, Americans were kicking up their heels, but they were also bringing about major changes in the social and political structure of their country. Only Yesterday is a fond, witty, penetrating biography of this restless decade-a delightful reminiscence for those who can remember, a fascinating firsthand look for those who've only heard.
User reviews
LibraryThing member wildbill
I read this book for the first time in my teens. It helped me to see that history is about people and their day to day lives. That was a very useful lesson that helped spark my fascination with history.
LibraryThing member tloeffler
I found this to be one of the most fascinating history books I have ever read. The book was originally written in 1931, so the information and comments in the book were untainted by later events. Allen's writing style is casual, informative, and peppered with hilarious asides that kept me engaged
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through the whole book. My very favorite part was a quotation from John F. Carter in the September 1920 issue of Atlantic Monthly: "The older generation had certainly pretty well ruined this world before passing it on to us. They give us this thing, knocked to pieces, leaky, red-hot, threatening to blow up; and then they are surprised that we don't accept it with the same attitude of pretty, decorous enthusiasm with which they received it, way back in the 'eighties." Sound familiar? I read this simultaneously with a book about 1890-1918, and a book about the stock market in the 2000s, and realized that it is true: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Show Less
LibraryThing member Schmerguls
I started reading thisw bookon May 19, 1946. The next day I said: "Reading in Only Yesterday. Golly, what queer people lived in the 1920's." I made no further comment on the book but I well remember that I was utterly fascinated by the account of the 1920's, of which I had no memory whatsoever
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since I was born in 1928. Show Less
LibraryThing member JazzFeathers
Written only at the beginning of the Thirties, this is probably the first book concerning the Twenties ever written, and probably one of the closest to the matter at hand.
Maybe this is why I had great expectation about it. This is certainly not the first social history book about the Twenties I've
Well, regarding the subject matter, it's not very different from other books about the Twenties I- and this is probably a merit to the author that was able to capture the most important aspects of a time he did live - but on the other hand, its flavour is maybe a bit amateurish, the analysis of causes and effects are sometimes questionable... in my opinion. This doesn't really sounds like a study of the period, but more like the remembrance of someone who lived it, and was also quite critical about it. The style is very colloquial and judgmental at times, which is, in my opinion, the weakness of the book as well as its strong point. We don't really get an objective treatment of the Twenties, but we do get the feeling of how people lived this period of incredible, sometimes shocking changes.
The author covers the political life of the country in details, although here too we don't really get a scholarly examination of facts and circumstances, but more an `inside view', the version of someone `who was there' and maybe isn't detached enough to really make an analysis of the matter. Some parts sounded even a bit gossipy to me.
A section in devoted to the changes in the lifestyle of people, with particular regard to young people. And honestly I did expected a bit more from here. The social analysis of the huge change in behaviour and feelings of what was acceptable, with special regard to young people and women in particular, seems a little superficial to me. I was also surprised that so little space was dedicated to Prohibition and the jazz, and I wonder whether this depends on the author failing to see their reverberations on the following decades - which of course can't be blame on him, he just wasn't in the historical position for judging it. On the other hand, space is devoted to things that are never covered in other books on the matter, things like the popularity of the game of Mah Jong and the success Freudian ideas had inside that society. Maybe this is because they weren't after all as significant as the author thought, but they do give an additional facet to the decade. Events that marked the time, like the two important trials - the Scopes and the Sacco-Vanzetti - are swiftly dealt with and never entered in an in-depth social analysis - which is quite a shame.
The last part, which includes a few chapters, covers the building up, the explosion and a brief followed up of the Big Crash. Here the author becomes quite technical, so much so that I had a hard time following his analysis.
On the whole, it's a nice book on the Twenties, certainly worth reading. It does give a sense of the decade from a first-hand source. Just don't content yourself with this if you are interested in the Roaring Twenties.
Maybe this is why I had great expectation about it. This is certainly not the first social history book about the Twenties I've
Show More
read, but because it was written so close to that period, I was expecting a different take at it.Well, regarding the subject matter, it's not very different from other books about the Twenties I- and this is probably a merit to the author that was able to capture the most important aspects of a time he did live - but on the other hand, its flavour is maybe a bit amateurish, the analysis of causes and effects are sometimes questionable... in my opinion. This doesn't really sounds like a study of the period, but more like the remembrance of someone who lived it, and was also quite critical about it. The style is very colloquial and judgmental at times, which is, in my opinion, the weakness of the book as well as its strong point. We don't really get an objective treatment of the Twenties, but we do get the feeling of how people lived this period of incredible, sometimes shocking changes.
The author covers the political life of the country in details, although here too we don't really get a scholarly examination of facts and circumstances, but more an `inside view', the version of someone `who was there' and maybe isn't detached enough to really make an analysis of the matter. Some parts sounded even a bit gossipy to me.
A section in devoted to the changes in the lifestyle of people, with particular regard to young people. And honestly I did expected a bit more from here. The social analysis of the huge change in behaviour and feelings of what was acceptable, with special regard to young people and women in particular, seems a little superficial to me. I was also surprised that so little space was dedicated to Prohibition and the jazz, and I wonder whether this depends on the author failing to see their reverberations on the following decades - which of course can't be blame on him, he just wasn't in the historical position for judging it. On the other hand, space is devoted to things that are never covered in other books on the matter, things like the popularity of the game of Mah Jong and the success Freudian ideas had inside that society. Maybe this is because they weren't after all as significant as the author thought, but they do give an additional facet to the decade. Events that marked the time, like the two important trials - the Scopes and the Sacco-Vanzetti - are swiftly dealt with and never entered in an in-depth social analysis - which is quite a shame.
The last part, which includes a few chapters, covers the building up, the explosion and a brief followed up of the Big Crash. Here the author becomes quite technical, so much so that I had a hard time following his analysis.
On the whole, it's a nice book on the Twenties, certainly worth reading. It does give a sense of the decade from a first-hand source. Just don't content yourself with this if you are interested in the Roaring Twenties.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Matke
An easy and entertaining read, this book by Fred Allen was written in 1930 to reflect on the 20’s and how life in the US changed during that decade.
Fascinating in its immediacy, this book has only aged and dated a little. It was both reassuring (most of this has happened before) and depressing
Allen writes engagingly. This book is highly recommended
.
Fascinating in its immediacy, this book has only aged and dated a little. It was both reassuring (most of this has happened before) and depressing
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(have we learned nothing in a hundred years?). A lot of focus is, of course on the enormous financial bubble of the late twenties and it’s ultimate collapse. What the book lacks in mature, studied analysis is more than compensated by the feeling that the reader is right there, watching events unfold.Allen writes engagingly. This book is highly recommended
.
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LibraryThing member write-review
Lessons That Go Unheeded
History teaches many lessons but people are bad pupils. Not just people today, but people throughout history have ignored the lessons taught by events preceding them. Consequently, we repeat mistakes over and over again. Those new to Only Yesterday will only have to read a
Only Yesterday is a contemporaneous history published two years after the 1929 stock market crash, as well as shortly after the Florida Land Bubble bust that began in 1925 (and is argued to be the precipitating cause of the Great Depression by Christopher Knowlton in his recent book, Bubble in the Sun). Frederick Lewis Allen worked as a contributor to Harper’s Magazine, later, in 1941, assuming the position of editor-in-chief. Readers will enjoy his breezy and often tongue-in-cheek style, making this anything but a dry trudge.
Allen covers all the highlights of the years 1919 through 1929, among them the incapacitated years of Woodrow Wilson, the scandal-plagued presidency of Warren G. Harding, the Red Scare spearheaded by AG Mitchell Palmer, the complacent and laissez-faire presidency of Calvin Coolidge, the disaster that was Prohibition, the rise of organized crime that features Al Capone, the rising popularity of spectator sports starring Tunney, Ruth, and others, the adoption of more liberal mores, the books and intellectual arguments of the times, and the financials of the day, among them the above mentioned Florida Land Bubble, the plight of American farmers, intermingling of business and religion, margin buying, unregulated mutual trusts, boosterism, and other like factors resulting in the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Readers cannot help but be struck by the similarities, especially in government and business, to what we are experiencing today.
To emphasize this, readers will find much that rings true in this brief quote from the Red Scare pages: “There is a certain grim humor in the fact that what Mr. Palmer did during the next three months was done by him as the chief legal officer of an Administration which had come into power to bring about the New Freedom.” Palmer-ism burned hot in America for a time with some pretty terrible consequences, as this passage reveals: “The intolerance of those days took many forms. Almost inevitably it took the form of an ugly flare-up of feeling against the Negro, the Jew, and the Roman Catholic. The notions of group loyalty and of hatred, expanded during war-time and then suddenly denied their intended expression, found a perverted release in the persecution not only of supposed radicals, but also of other elements which to the dominant American group—the white Protestants—seemed alien or ‘un-American.’” Yes, it is as if we are gazing into a mirror and seeing ourselves.
So, here’s a book of its times that speaks as truly of our own, with lessons for us all. Americans should spend a couple of hours with it, and maybe, hopefully, draw some lesson from it.
History teaches many lessons but people are bad pupils. Not just people today, but people throughout history have ignored the lessons taught by events preceding them. Consequently, we repeat mistakes over and over again. Those new to Only Yesterday will only have to read a
Show More
few chapters to see how true these statements are, because the parallels between the 1920s and current times are numerous. Errors made then are still being made today. Read it for yourself to see the truth in this.Only Yesterday is a contemporaneous history published two years after the 1929 stock market crash, as well as shortly after the Florida Land Bubble bust that began in 1925 (and is argued to be the precipitating cause of the Great Depression by Christopher Knowlton in his recent book, Bubble in the Sun). Frederick Lewis Allen worked as a contributor to Harper’s Magazine, later, in 1941, assuming the position of editor-in-chief. Readers will enjoy his breezy and often tongue-in-cheek style, making this anything but a dry trudge.
Allen covers all the highlights of the years 1919 through 1929, among them the incapacitated years of Woodrow Wilson, the scandal-plagued presidency of Warren G. Harding, the Red Scare spearheaded by AG Mitchell Palmer, the complacent and laissez-faire presidency of Calvin Coolidge, the disaster that was Prohibition, the rise of organized crime that features Al Capone, the rising popularity of spectator sports starring Tunney, Ruth, and others, the adoption of more liberal mores, the books and intellectual arguments of the times, and the financials of the day, among them the above mentioned Florida Land Bubble, the plight of American farmers, intermingling of business and religion, margin buying, unregulated mutual trusts, boosterism, and other like factors resulting in the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Readers cannot help but be struck by the similarities, especially in government and business, to what we are experiencing today.
To emphasize this, readers will find much that rings true in this brief quote from the Red Scare pages: “There is a certain grim humor in the fact that what Mr. Palmer did during the next three months was done by him as the chief legal officer of an Administration which had come into power to bring about the New Freedom.” Palmer-ism burned hot in America for a time with some pretty terrible consequences, as this passage reveals: “The intolerance of those days took many forms. Almost inevitably it took the form of an ugly flare-up of feeling against the Negro, the Jew, and the Roman Catholic. The notions of group loyalty and of hatred, expanded during war-time and then suddenly denied their intended expression, found a perverted release in the persecution not only of supposed radicals, but also of other elements which to the dominant American group—the white Protestants—seemed alien or ‘un-American.’” Yes, it is as if we are gazing into a mirror and seeing ourselves.
So, here’s a book of its times that speaks as truly of our own, with lessons for us all. Americans should spend a couple of hours with it, and maybe, hopefully, draw some lesson from it.
Show Less
LibraryThing member wunder
A lively and intriguing book. I knew tidbits about the 1920s—flappers, Al Capone, Lindbergh—but this puts it all together in a meaningful narrative. Dramatic, too, especially the full chapter on the Big Bull Market of 1928 and 1929, when we all know what happens on October 29, 1929.
I kept
The acknowledgments are a reminder that the author lived the decade he's writing about. His account of Woodrow Wilson at the end of his life comes from visiting the man in 1923. His source for the founding of Simon & Schuster is William F. Simon. And so on.
I kept
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making connections while reading. At one point, he was describing the major changes in literature, and I realized that this had to line up with when photographers broke with pictorialism and went to straight photography. Yep, Ansel Adams left behind pictorialism in 1922, Weston in 1923, and the Group f.64 exhibit in 1931 displayed the work done during the decade.The acknowledgments are a reminder that the author lived the decade he's writing about. His account of Woodrow Wilson at the end of his life comes from visiting the man in 1923. His source for the founding of Simon & Schuster is William F. Simon. And so on.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Angelic55blonde
This is a great historical book, written shortly after the 1920s was over. It gives a great overall history of the 1920s in America. Great read!
LibraryThing member gbelik
A classic history of the 1920s, written the early 1930s, so without the knowledge of what would come later. Still a great read.
LibraryThing member VashonJim
I had to read this book for a class I was taking and was absolutely fascinated with Allen's look inside the 1920s.
LibraryThing member jerry-book
Interesting history of the 1920's
LibraryThing member MelissaLenhardt
I'm not very far in but am excited to read about an era of American history that I've only nominally been interested in.
LibraryThing member ladycato
This is an approachable, fascinating overview of the 1920s, covering everything from popular culture to hemlines to the Florida land boom to the stock market crash. The original edition was published in 1931 (and is available as a free legal download through the New York Public Library at
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archive.org). Show Less
LibraryThing member shabacus
Many books have been written about the 1920s, but this is the only one I've read that was written in the 1930s. While there is none of the objectivity that comes with time, Allen brings an immediacy and familiarity that he expects his reader to share. Some of it translates to the 21st century, and
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some does not, but it is a fascinating look at a culture examining itself. Show Less
LibraryThing member write-review
Lessons That Go Unheeded
History teaches many lessons but people are bad pupils. Not just people today, but people throughout history have ignored the lessons taught by events preceding them. Consequently, we repeat mistakes over and over again. Those new to Only Yesterday will only have to read a
Only Yesterday is a contemporaneous history published two years after the 1929 stock market crash, as well as shortly after the Florida Land Bubble bust that began in 1925 (and is argued to be the precipitating cause of the Great Depression by Christopher Knowlton in his recent book, Bubble in the Sun). Frederick Lewis Allen worked as a contributor to Harper’s Magazine, later, in 1941, assuming the position of editor-in-chief. Readers will enjoy his breezy and often tongue-in-cheek style, making this anything but a dry trudge.
Allen covers all the highlights of the years 1919 through 1929, among them the incapacitated years of Woodrow Wilson, the scandal-plagued presidency of Warren G. Harding, the Red Scare spearheaded by AG Mitchell Palmer, the complacent and laissez-faire presidency of Calvin Coolidge, the disaster that was Prohibition, the rise of organized crime that features Al Capone, the rising popularity of spectator sports starring Tunney, Ruth, and others, the adoption of more liberal mores, the books and intellectual arguments of the times, and the financials of the day, among them the above mentioned Florida Land Bubble, the plight of American farmers, intermingling of business and religion, margin buying, unregulated mutual trusts, boosterism, and other like factors resulting in the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Readers cannot help but be struck by the similarities, especially in government and business, to what we are experiencing today.
To emphasize this, readers will find much that rings true in this brief quote from the Red Scare pages: “There is a certain grim humor in the fact that what Mr. Palmer did during the next three months was done by him as the chief legal officer of an Administration which had come into power to bring about the New Freedom.” Palmer-ism burned hot in America for a time with some pretty terrible consequences, as this passage reveals: “The intolerance of those days took many forms. Almost inevitably it took the form of an ugly flare-up of feeling against the Negro, the Jew, and the Roman Catholic. The notions of group loyalty and of hatred, expanded during war-time and then suddenly denied their intended expression, found a perverted release in the persecution not only of supposed radicals, but also of other elements which to the dominant American group—the white Protestants—seemed alien or ‘un-American.’” Yes, it is as if we are gazing into a mirror and seeing ourselves.
So, here’s a book of its times that speaks as truly of our own, with lessons for us all. Americans should spend a couple of hours with it, and maybe, hopefully, draw some lesson from it.
History teaches many lessons but people are bad pupils. Not just people today, but people throughout history have ignored the lessons taught by events preceding them. Consequently, we repeat mistakes over and over again. Those new to Only Yesterday will only have to read a
Show More
few chapters to see how true these statements are, because the parallels between the 1920s and current times are numerous. Errors made then are still being made today. Read it for yourself to see the truth in this.Only Yesterday is a contemporaneous history published two years after the 1929 stock market crash, as well as shortly after the Florida Land Bubble bust that began in 1925 (and is argued to be the precipitating cause of the Great Depression by Christopher Knowlton in his recent book, Bubble in the Sun). Frederick Lewis Allen worked as a contributor to Harper’s Magazine, later, in 1941, assuming the position of editor-in-chief. Readers will enjoy his breezy and often tongue-in-cheek style, making this anything but a dry trudge.
Allen covers all the highlights of the years 1919 through 1929, among them the incapacitated years of Woodrow Wilson, the scandal-plagued presidency of Warren G. Harding, the Red Scare spearheaded by AG Mitchell Palmer, the complacent and laissez-faire presidency of Calvin Coolidge, the disaster that was Prohibition, the rise of organized crime that features Al Capone, the rising popularity of spectator sports starring Tunney, Ruth, and others, the adoption of more liberal mores, the books and intellectual arguments of the times, and the financials of the day, among them the above mentioned Florida Land Bubble, the plight of American farmers, intermingling of business and religion, margin buying, unregulated mutual trusts, boosterism, and other like factors resulting in the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Readers cannot help but be struck by the similarities, especially in government and business, to what we are experiencing today.
To emphasize this, readers will find much that rings true in this brief quote from the Red Scare pages: “There is a certain grim humor in the fact that what Mr. Palmer did during the next three months was done by him as the chief legal officer of an Administration which had come into power to bring about the New Freedom.” Palmer-ism burned hot in America for a time with some pretty terrible consequences, as this passage reveals: “The intolerance of those days took many forms. Almost inevitably it took the form of an ugly flare-up of feeling against the Negro, the Jew, and the Roman Catholic. The notions of group loyalty and of hatred, expanded during war-time and then suddenly denied their intended expression, found a perverted release in the persecution not only of supposed radicals, but also of other elements which to the dominant American group—the white Protestants—seemed alien or ‘un-American.’” Yes, it is as if we are gazing into a mirror and seeing ourselves.
So, here’s a book of its times that speaks as truly of our own, with lessons for us all. Americans should spend a couple of hours with it, and maybe, hopefully, draw some lesson from it.
Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
1931
ISBN
none
Local notes
Perennial Classic?