The Modern Period

The Modern period took place around 1914 through 1945. The people questioned social norms and were held to a higher standard. After World War I, the United States found itself in an era of unpredictability and change. Ernest Hemmingway’s book A Farewell To Arms is about an ambulance driver in World War I who falls in love with a nurse during the war. People wanted changes and feminists started standing up for the changes they wanted including women’s rights to vote. Flappers appeared and woman started becoming more independent. The government prohibited alcohol just as the Jazz Age started. A good reference to the Jazz Age would be The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Many African American poets and their poems became known during the Harlem Renaissance, such as Langston Hughes’ “The Weary Blues” and Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die”. Towards the end of the Roaring Twenties, in 1929, there was a stock market crash which caused the Great Depression and left many Americans unemployed and broke. John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath, is written about a family during the Great Depression and how they lived/ survived during it.