The Birth of Modern America: 1919 – 1939

John McClymer argues that the interwar years need a more modern definition. While public policy in the New Deal, from Social Security to issues of the Great Depression, remain highly significant, newer concerns reveal that the period is a historical water–shed reflected importantly in the social mores of our own day. McClymer redirects the story from the salons of Greenwich Village before the Great War to the doings of working class immigrant girls and boys in dance halls and amusement parks, the science of eugenics and its implications for the Ku Klux Klan, the use of cultural and racial stereotypes in the process of acculturation, fundamentalism and the "acid of modernity," popular culture and the Pentecostal religions so much a force in today’s politics. By combining these topics into one book and making connections with American life today, McClymer has made the period both manageable and exciting. A rich use of dozens of images seamlessly joins with topics discussed in the text.

Preface. Introduction. Eugenics and the Ku Klux Klan. Who is an American?. Minstrelsy and Acculturation. What Sadie Knew: The Immigrant Working Girl and the Emergence of the Modern Young Woman. Marketing Fantasy. Fundamentalism and "the Acids of Modernity.". "Speaking in Tongues": Sister Aimee McPherson and the Pentecostal Revival. Popular Culture and the Arts. A New Deal and a New Policy. Legacies.

John McClymer is professor of History at Assumption College.