contextual info

• Puritan Settlers


  - Mayflower left England with 102 passengers 1620

  - Plymouth Colony

  - Massachusetts Bay Colony

  - Staunchly Religious and Strict
• Boston Tea Party


  - 1773

  - Americans dump tea into Boston Harbour to protest taxation

  - Led to the Revolutionary War
• American Revolutionary War


  - 1775 to 1783

  - Declared Independence on 4th July 1776

  - Rebelled against Britain (George III)

  - American Victory

  - Led to high Patriotism and 'the Land of the Free
• Civil War


  - 1861 to 1865

  - North (Union) Vs South (Confederacy)

  - South wanted to keep Slaves, North against it

  - Abraham Lincoln Emancipated the Slaves in 1863

  - Union Victory

  - Southerners knew how to shoot from hunting. Northern men didn't.
• Emancipation of the Slaves

  - Abraham Lincoln Emancipated the Slaves in 1863

  - Done to harm the Confederacy

  - Slaves were given no rights (led to the Civil Rights Movement)
• Victorian Period and Ideals

  - Patriarchal

  - Traditional

  - Industrialisation

  - Emergence of technology
• World War One


  - 1914 to 1918

  - Increase in Individualism

  - American only in last few months

  - No major attacks on America and not many lives lost

  - National Pride high
• Prohibition and Crime


  - Alcohol Purchase Banned

  - Led to smuggling rings and gangs

  - Rise of Al Capone, $110 million/year in Chicago

  - Speakeasies and illegal alcohol made

  -Rampant corruption, government officials etc

  -18th amendment 1920, 21st amendment 1933
• Economic Boom


  - Rapid industrial growth

  - Advances in technology

  - Increases in productivity, sales and wages

  - Rising demand for consumer products, cars/radios

  - Massive profits for businesses and corporations

  - Higher wealth divide, 25% owned by 0.1%, Rockefeller owned 90% of oil industry

  - Rise of hire purchasing, debt systems and credit

  - Rise of consumerism, $600 million spent on advertising
• The New Woman


  - Often from the middle class

  - Dressed practically, moved about freely

  - Lived apart from her family, and supported herself

  - Modern

  - Drift from Victorian Ideals

  - No chaperone, drink, smoke etc.

  - Flapper generation
• 1920s Wealth


  - High wealth divide

  - Old money got richer, people left behind
• Wall Street Crash


  - 1929

  - Stocks and shares lost $64 billion value, Stock Market Crash

  - Many businesses closed due to no credit

  - High unemployment, 25% at peak

  - Bank runs, 9,000 closed 1930-33

  - Led to Great Depression
• The Great Depression


  - High Unemployment

  - Wages Fell

  - Higher hours

  - Over-farming begins- agricultural overproduction crashed prices and ruined land

  - High death rate
• The Dust Bowl


  - Extreme drought in 1930 lasting for a decade

  - Left many farmers without work or substantial wages

  - Led to mass migration to California

  - Dorothea Lange's famous pictures document it
• The Migrant Farmers


  - called "Okies"

  - Moved west to California looking for work

  - Mass Exodus for work, =/= 500,000 from Oklahoma, 2.5 million total

  - Travelled in Jalopies

  - Dustbowl caused banks to reclaim land, pushed them out
• Hoovervilles


  - Depression shantytowns

  - Named after Herbert Hoover who was blamed for financial distress

  - Horrible conditions

  - Starving people

  - Juxtapose of Government Camps, higher quality
• California and Route 66

  - California 'Garden of Eden'

  - Promised Land

  - Made of Bum Blockade in LA, 1936

  - Mother Road, crosses American, brings them to Safety

  - Orange handbills, false advertising to draw in scab labour
• American dream


  Belief the US was land of opportunity, through hard work anyone can achieve anything

  Demonstrably false through wealth disparity
• Roaring 20s


  Rise of hedonism and rejection of moral values

  New dances/music, coincided with Harlem renaissance

  Charleston etc, Miles Davis/Duke Ellington etc
• Lost Generation


  Americans who became disillusioned with society after World War I

  Inspired roaring 20s
• Red Scare


  1917 bolshevik revolution, rise of communism

  American support of non-communists failed

  Fear of communism in American whipped up

  Palmer raids, summer 1920, 3,000 arrested, 600 deported

  Sacco and Vanzetti trial, accused of robbing bank, maintained innocence, executed due to Anarchist ties
• Anti-Immigrant sentiment


  Founded on immigration but rejected by end of WW1

  1921 Emergency quota act- 357,000/year

  No more than 3% of immigrant population already in US

  Banned Asian immigration
• Pioneer Age


  1862 Homestead Act

  Manifest destiny/ westward expansion

  Glamorisation of native suffering- trail of tears

  Nostalgia for simple times, focus on rugged individualism and self sufficiency
• Protest literature


  American writers drawing attention to issues within society through their work

  TGOW- banned in schools across country

  Associated Farmers of California publicly condemned it
• Realism


  working class, lots of detail, verisimilitude
• Naturalism


  environment and its effect on the characters
• Modernism


  stylistic experimentation such as questioning tradition

  Industrialisation and urbanisation can make people feel alienated
• Bildungsroman


  Story of character development and growth
• Transcendentalism


  The 'oversoul', principle of universal mind/spirit. Collective belief that leads to unification, American version recognises individualism within this system.
• Humanism


  Shift from religious to humanity based philosophy with emphasis on human dignity and worth. Also emphasis on human agency within social, ethical and spiritual life with a preference for logic and critical thinking and evidence to support it then using this to live their own lives.
• Pragmatism


  Has a focus on what life is not what it could/should be. States that life experience and personal judgement are what actions should be based upon, Steinbeck called this 'non-teleological' or 'is' thinking, with a focus for living in the moment, not focusing on distant events.
• Agrarianism


  Belief that values to live by should be based upon the land and there should be a mutual respect. Belief that human identity stems from connection to the land and you are only whole when living in the land. Links to idea that people are depleted, less somehow when taken away from it for extended periods of time, similar to belief of modernism.
• Intercallary chapter


  Intercallary chapter: Used to provide commentary, draws parallels to plot