Description
Book SynopsisA wide-ranging study of the cultural, social, and technological developments of the 1920s and their effect on the performing arts and literature
Trade Review"Cleverly investigates ways in which drama, dance, and literature either embraced or challenged the rhythm of the time. . . . Highly recommended."--
Choice"A lucid and insightful cross-genre study of the engagement between cultural producers and the transformations that took effect in American society in the decade often characterized as the Jazz Age."--
American Studies“Amy Koritz's engaging book brings together drama, dance, and fiction of the 1920s in paired case studies of ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture. Koritz provides an eloquent and refreshing collection of detailed, insightful case studies that illuminate the way in which artists, intellectuals, and cultural commentators used culture-making to pose ‘symbolic resolutions’ to key social and cultural tensions of modernity.”--David M. Scobey, author of
Empire City: The Making and Meaning of the New York Landscape"Amy Koritz makes a compelling case for the necessity of cultural production to a just society. Looking across an era,
Culture Makers shows how several kinds of artistic producers and their work strove to make sense of radical changes confronting people in the 1920s United States. This excellent book speaks eloquently to dance studies, American studies, theatre studies, and architecture and urban design readers alike."--Linda J. Tomko, author of
Dancing Class: Gender, Ethnicity, and Social Divides in American Dance, 1890-1920Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction: Work, Consumerism, and the City 1
1. Drama and the Rhythm of Work in the 1920s 19
2. Consumption and Commitment: Rachel Crothers and the Flapper's Dilemma 39
3. More than Rhythm: The Charleston 64
4. The Inner Self of Martha Graham: Versions of Authenticity 86
5. "Make Yourself for an American": Anzia Yezierska's Public Sphere 111
6. Urban Form versus Human Function in the 1920s: Lewis Mumford and John Dos Passos 135
Conclusion: Geographies of Knowledge 155
Notes 163
Works Cited 177
Index 193
