Time Frame – 1890 – 1929
The years between 1890 and 1929 transformed American and European society. The Victorian world gave way to the Edwardian era, World War I reshaped global culture, and the Roaring Twenties introduced new attitudes toward technology, entertainment, fashion, and social life. For actors and historians, this period marks the transition from the nineteenth century into the modern age.
Politics/Economics
By 1890, the United States felt that at least for the Lower Forty Eight states, there was no area left that could be called a frontier. Rail service quickly connected almost every village to a metropolis, and the feeling of isolation between the civilized world and the more remote areas of the country slowly faded. Even oceans were no great barrier to movement, as what once was a two or three week perilous journey on a sailing ship from London to New York could now be done in six days in the comfort of a stateroom aboard a luxury steamship.
As the workplace becomes more machine-oriented, effective production using machines requires that the flow of work accommodates them instead of the workers. Focus on the craftsman must be left behind as assembly-lines transform factories. Even social services follow this trend, with ever larger hospitals, prisons, orphanages are thought to be the most efficient way of taking care of the less fortunate. The electrification of cities, automobiles, aeroplanes, subways – all of these incredible advancements were only in their first stages, but captured the public imagination immediately. As the century drew to a close, they felt that they were witness to a grand beginning in the life of humanity. It was a heady time; full of optimism that human endeavor could conquer any problem.
Along with this confidence came an increasing of decadence for its own sake, with upper society allowing themselves a certain libertine license. The two decades that bracket this period have more dissimilarities than commonalities. During the Naughty Nineties, the sense was that Christian Man had finally conquered nature and the heathen, bringing the fruits of God’s bounty to its rightful owners. The capitalists and industrialists who created this massive change saw themselves as the next aristocracy, the true leaders of the civilized world. A new century was about to usher in a future of promise. This was a male-centered world, with women providing a diverting background and taking care of some domestic concerns, but even in entertainment the men were catered to almost exclusively. It is at this time that men withdraw to smoke their cigars after dinner, or retire to private clubs after work, or visit burlesques where decent women were not allowed. Wherever men of power congregate, that is the center of the social world.
But by the time of the roaring twenties, many things had happened to shake that confidence. Disasters large and small – the flooding of Galveston, the sinking of the Titanic, the San Francisco earthquake – took the lives of both rich and poor, sinner and saint. A World War wiped out half a generation of young men in Europe, and the influenza pandemic of 1918 wiped out millions more. Yet at the same time, cities had become modern, no longer made of low wooden structures, but towered above the landscape in concrete and steel. As the postwar world began to regain its economic footing, people were ready to enjoy all that a bustling city life could offer. Light and heat came on with the flick of a switch, hot water came out of faucets in every floor of the house. It didn’t matter that the United States had passed Prohibition. Speakeasies were open, nightclubs were available, jazz was playing and whiskey was flowing. People were ready to party.
Fashion/Manners
There was difficulty in adapting 19th century manners to 20th century realities. A bustling city requires practical manners, better to deal with the relative anonymity and fast pace of city life. The formal bow and then even the bow en passant fade into disuse. On the street, a wave of the hand to an acquaintance might be perfectly acceptable, provided one maintained the sober demeanor expected of someone who imagined himself in command of the modern world.
Hat etiquette also evolved under these pressures. A gentleman might remove his hat with the right hand and transfer it to the left, leaving the right free for a handshake. Hats were expected to be removed in private rooms, though not in public places. In a crowded city, however, the distinction was not always easy to determine, particularly in large multi-office buildings. By convention, an elevator was considered a private room, and the hat came off accordingly. A hallway or corridor, however, was treated as the equivalent of a public street, and the hat remained on.
Subtle distinctions governed social acknowledgment as well. One tipped the hat to a stranger but removed it for an acquaintance. When acknowledging a lady, however, a gentleman was expected to avoid direct eye contact, since eye contact would oblige her to return the glance, creating an undesirable familiarity. For similar reasons, a man did not smile at an unknown or only casually known person on the street, whether male or female, since even a smile could imply an improper assumption of intimacy.
In the 1920’s, by contrast, there is a palpable feeling of people throwing out old ways by the shovelful. Informality is the rule of the day, with people greeting each other directly, male or female. Introductions are appreciated, but no longer socially necessary. A cosmopolitan flair was striven for, as well as an easygoing stride and a boyish enthusiasm for fun and nightlife and entertainment in all its forms. And while there was still a strong line between the upper class and the serving class, the stuffiness and gender isolation of the Edwardian period was tossed out in favor of elegant sophistication and thoroughly modern sensibility. Everyone had seen too much of death; dance now, was the theme, while the band is still playing.
For formal wear, men’s fashion, as usual, mimics the military uniform of the time, even going so far as to put a satin stripe down the legs of Tuxedo pants, mimicking the parade dress uniform. That satin sash, black on black, is still the distinctive feature of men’s formal trousers to this day.
Civilian Conflict –
The great influx of immigrants from abroad, together with former agricultural workers drawn from the American heartland into the largest cities, helped give rise to the gangster era, made still more powerful by the immense wealth generated during Prohibition. While respectable society increasingly went about unarmed, often without so much as a penknife in the pocket, urban criminals began carrying a wide variety of concealed weapons. Brass knuckles, switchblade knives, and small revolvers were all weapons intended for sudden violence at extremely close range. Even the Tommy gun, though capable of greater distance, was designed for the compressed environments of streets, hallways, automobiles, and crowded interiors, where overwhelming firepower mattered more than precision marksmanship.
For urban dwellers, pistols are not only hidden when worn, but are also somewhat hidden when used. The elbow is kept close to the body as the forearm is extended, and the rest of the body keeps a normal stance without trying to brace for recoil. From across a crowded street or even in a large room no casual bystander would even notice that a gun was being held. Naturally aiming the gun by looking down the sights is impossible, but it is assumed that the victim is going to be no further than twenty feet away. For all of these reasons, pistols tend to be of shorter barrel length and of lower caliber.
But just as in the previous century, cost kept guns from being commonplace items. For example, in 1900 the cheapest handgun of inferior quality cost $5, while a decent handgun ran about $20. A box of fifty bullets would set you back another 50 cents to a dollar. This at a time when the going wage for an unskilled construction worker was 28 cents per hour. And at a time when there were no unemployment benefits, whatever you earned had to also last through the rainy season when there was no work. In short, a good revolver represented roughly two weeks’ pay for a working man, and that still did not include ammunition. Put in modern terms, the purchase resembled a fast-food worker buying the latest iPhone and finding himself broke halfway through the month, rather than the cheap and casual acquisition many people now imagine.
Side note: It is thought that the lethal game known as Russian Roulette began in this period. It didn’t. As a matter of fact, it didn’t exist until a writer, Georges Surdez, invented it for a magazine short story he wrote in 1937.
“Did you ever hear of Russian Roulette? … with the Russian army in Romania, around 1917… some officer would suddenly pull out his revolver, anywhere, at the table, remove a cartridge from the cylinder, spin the cylinder, snap it back in place, put it to his head and pull the trigger.”
It was only after the story was published that the first accounts of anyone actually playing Russian Roulette (though with only one live cartridge rather than five) become known. And accounts continue to this day, almost always involving adolescent males. What a wonderful legacy for that writer.
Warfare –
The beginning of this time finds us at the end of Victoria’s reign in England. Western ground forces are armed with manually operated (usually bolt action) rifles with fairly long detachable bayonets. As the rifles could hold only six shots at most before reloading (and it takes a few seconds to work the action between each shot) most warriors can expect to engage in hand to hand combat once the lines draw close. At that point, the rifle with bayonet serves as a combination quarterstaff and spear. Most European armies are engaged against poorly armed and inadequately organized rebellions in their third-world colonies. Due to the disparity in arms and training, European forces often have the upperhand in battle even when severely outnumbered. A sense of complacency develops within the Western military, believing in their own invincibility. They were completely unprepared for the carnage that WWI inflicted.
In the decade before the war, all major armies had abandoned colorful uniforms in favor of drab khaki, brown, or green clothing for field service. With radio communication and rifles now capable of accurate fire at several hundred yards, there was no longer any point in exposing lines and columns of soldiers in the open. Better instead to blend into the background whenever possible, limiting the enemy’s ability to observe both position and numbers. But with trains and trucks now able to transport millions of troops, armaments, and supplies directly to the edges of battle, stalemate quickly developed during the First World War. Both sides were equipped with high-powered machine guns, modern artillery, bolt-action rifles, pistols, grenades, and increasingly sophisticated explosives, yet the standard response by many generals remained the direct assault against entrenched enemy positions. Each such charge ended in hundreds, often thousands, of deaths. To sustain this vast military need, universal conscription was imposed, draining civilian economies of men, material, and money.
These new realities shattered the traditional balance between infantry and cavalry. The foot soldier with his bolt-action rifle remained the heavy infantry of the battlefield, but he was now pinned down by devastating machine-gun fire operated by small crews functioning as a new form of light infantry. Normally such a tactical deadlock would have been broken by cavalry maneuver, but no effective countermeasure yet existed. Slowly the battlefield hardened into trench warfare, with soldiers sheltering in long ditches to escape the constant rain of artillery shells and walls of machine-gun fire. Chemical warfare followed, poison gas being lobbed directly into the trenches themselves. When opposing infantry finally met face to face, it was usually in these cramped trenches, where the long bolt-action rifle became an awkward instrument. Medieval weapons returned in altered form: steel helmets, trench knives, and crude clubs studded with spikes. Since tanks and aircraft were still in their infancy, neither side possessed an effective answer to the new style of industrialized warfare. In the end, it was simple attrition — the exhaustion of men, material, and national endurance — that forced the combatants to seek peace. After this, war could no longer be described through the romantic language of the past.