- Pronouns
- he/him
Discuss this article here.
-
Hi Guest!
The costs of running this forum are covered by Sea Lion Press. If you'd like to help support the company and the forum, visit patreon.com/sealionpress
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
Living the Twenties: J,K,L
- Thread starter Gary Oswald
- Start date
I get what Zama is saying, namely that the years preceding WW1 had felt stultifying, but to say that the 19th century as a whole was a period of stagnation is strange. It was a century of cataclysmic change in all domains of life, political, social, economic, technological, artistic, you name it. France, for one, went through five violent regime changes during that time, and if Chateaubriand had lived to see the world that Proust was writing in, he would have considered it utterly alien.This was a generation who entered the war with enthusiasm. Born at the end of the long 1800s – a century of peace, but in many ways also of stagnation – these young people thought that war was the right way to set things right.
- Location
- Visiting BWBs.
I feel I must take issue with the comment: "Born at the end of the long 1800s – a century of peace, but in many ways also of stagnation ..."
Telephones, radio, iron ships, cars, planes, antiseptic, repeating rifles, machine guns, cinema, telegraph, disinfectant, the periodic table, women doctors, creation of Germany and Italy and others, tractors, railroads, the underground, the list goes on and on and on.
Of all the words to describe the period, in pretty much every aspect of life, the absolute last word that describes it is: "Stagnation."
I mean, a popular children's history programme looked at science in the Victorian era.
Telephones, radio, iron ships, cars, planes, antiseptic, repeating rifles, machine guns, cinema, telegraph, disinfectant, the periodic table, women doctors, creation of Germany and Italy and others, tractors, railroads, the underground, the list goes on and on and on.
Of all the words to describe the period, in pretty much every aspect of life, the absolute last word that describes it is: "Stagnation."
I mean, a popular children's history programme looked at science in the Victorian era.
- Pronouns
- he/him
Demographic changes, too. Some of the biggest cities in the world in 1920 didn't exist a hundred years earlier. Whole continents had seen genocide, conquest and settlement. Tens of millions of people had embarked on some of the biggest waves of migration in history, from Manchuria to Melbourne.
The physical nature of the world changed more in the long nineteenth century than at any time since the seventeenth century globalisation.
The physical nature of the world changed more in the long nineteenth century than at any time since the seventeenth century globalisation.
- Location
- Visiting BWBs.
Slavery - completely legal and socially acceptable in 1815 in most of the western world. Gone by 1914.
US states in 1814 - 18.
US states in 1914 - 48.
US states in 1814 - 18.
US states in 1914 - 48.
- Pronouns
- he/him
Yeah.
I mean, say what you like about nineteenth century Chicago I don't think any writer has ever used the word 'stagnant.'
Actually, given the meatpacking works and the river, quite a lot of them probably used that word.
But about the culture of a city that went from non-existence in 1830 to being one of the biggest, richest, unequal and dynamic places on the planet by 1920? No.
I mean, say what you like about nineteenth century Chicago I don't think any writer has ever used the word 'stagnant.'
Actually, given the meatpacking works and the river, quite a lot of them probably used that word.
But about the culture of a city that went from non-existence in 1830 to being one of the biggest, richest, unequal and dynamic places on the planet by 1920? No.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- he/him
Here's the quote I was looking for!
Ole Matsen was a Danish immigrant to Australia. Born 1850, arrived in Queensland in 1872. A fairly typical settler, save for not being British, he kept a diary in later life.
Here's his thoughts on 1900:
'The old century is dead and gone... in the past century great changes have taken place, the development of Steam-power have transformed every thing, communication by telegraph, between all places on the globe have also been established, and any great events taken place is in a few short hours known all over the world. The great Ocean-Steamers have brought the commerce of the world, from distant countries, on a different footing from what it was a century ago, and aided by the thousands of miles of Railways in every country, goods are quickly distributed to all centres of every country. The opening of the Suez canal brought India, China and Australia thousands of miles nearer to Europe, and a Voyage formerly taking so many months, is now done in the same number of weeks, and if they succeed in the way or Airships, the same Voyages will be done in as many days.... Many curious Inventions have been brought out of late year, which twenty years ago, nobody would believe it possible to invent, but we are getting so used to see the impossible made possible, that we only wonder what will come next...'
quoted in Ray Evans, Clive Moore, Kay Saunders, Bryan Jamison, 1901: Our Future's Past (Sydney, Macmillan, 1997.)
In other words, any sense of stagnation was generally confined to elite bourgeoisie worried about the channelling of national energies. If we focus on the nineteenth century as experienced by the working classes- the vast majority of the population- we can see that the defining experience was change.
Ole Matsen was a Danish immigrant to Australia. Born 1850, arrived in Queensland in 1872. A fairly typical settler, save for not being British, he kept a diary in later life.
Here's his thoughts on 1900:
'The old century is dead and gone... in the past century great changes have taken place, the development of Steam-power have transformed every thing, communication by telegraph, between all places on the globe have also been established, and any great events taken place is in a few short hours known all over the world. The great Ocean-Steamers have brought the commerce of the world, from distant countries, on a different footing from what it was a century ago, and aided by the thousands of miles of Railways in every country, goods are quickly distributed to all centres of every country. The opening of the Suez canal brought India, China and Australia thousands of miles nearer to Europe, and a Voyage formerly taking so many months, is now done in the same number of weeks, and if they succeed in the way or Airships, the same Voyages will be done in as many days.... Many curious Inventions have been brought out of late year, which twenty years ago, nobody would believe it possible to invent, but we are getting so used to see the impossible made possible, that we only wonder what will come next...'
quoted in Ray Evans, Clive Moore, Kay Saunders, Bryan Jamison, 1901: Our Future's Past (Sydney, Macmillan, 1997.)
In other words, any sense of stagnation was generally confined to elite bourgeoisie worried about the channelling of national energies. If we focus on the nineteenth century as experienced by the working classes- the vast majority of the population- we can see that the defining experience was change.
- Pronouns
- he/him
If we focus on the nineteenth century as experienced by the working classes- the vast majority of the population- we can see that the defining experience was change.
It has been a persistent criticism of this series that it doesn't do that. Perhaps if we'd more clearly advertised it as being about middle class 20s life, rather than all of the 1920s we'd have had a better reception.
- Pronouns
- he/him
It has been a persistent criticism of this series that it doesn't do that. Perhaps if we'd more clearly advertised it as being about middle class 20s life, rather than all of the 1920s we'd have had a better reception.
I don't like to pop into these threads just to criticise, but I admit that the 'stagnation' line rankled with me. Possibly that's because my bailiwick is the late nineteenth century!
I think that the reason this series has stumbled compared to the first, at least in terms of its reception, is certainly that the first was clearer about what it was trying to explain: a particular society, at a particular moment, for readers who were generally unfamiliar with the topic and wanted a gentle introduction. I think that the Weimar alphabet worked very well on that basis.
This one- yeah, I think that the series has persistently veered between writing about a small group of middle classes in an undefined society, as well as occasionally making enormously sweeping blanket statements. A lot of it isn't wrong exactly, but without being pinned down to a specific perspective it can be quite misleading. A particular problem is that given the series wants to nod to the complications around race, sex, and gender in the 1920s, statements that try to address those issues can actually be quite exclusionary if they're not clear about where they're coming from. See the whole thing about the 20s being a good time for racial minorities, which as we addressed in a previous thread simply isn't true unless you are very, very clear about how you're qualifying your statement. Get that wrong, and you're actually brushing people's lived experiences under the rug.
If it had said 'put yourself in the shoes of a middle class resident of New York, Paris or London in 1925, here's what you might see around you' I think that the reception would have been much more favourable. People would quibble, god knows, because that's what people do. But I think it would have generally worked a lot better.