Postwar Uncertainty

CH.15.1

Main Idea: The postwar period was one of loss and uncertainty but also of invention, creativity, and

new ideas

Why it matters now: Postwar trends in physics, psychiatry, art, literature, communication, music,

and transportation still affect us today

Objectives

• Explain how new scientific theories

challenged old beliefs.

• Summarize new art styles.

• Identify the changing roles of women.

New World

• WWI shattered the idea that “reason will

prevail” that had been around since the

enlightenment

• People question traditional beliefs

• Science and technology become the new

sources of authority over religion

Revolution in Sciences

• Albert Einstein and his theory of relativity • Said space and time are relative when measured to a relative

object E=MC2

• “It’s all relative”

• People stop believing that everything is orderly and follows set laws in science

• Freud and his theories in psychology • Theorized about the human mind

• Called irrational part of the mind the unconscious – Many levels to the unconscious, the pleasure seeking drive,

• His theories weakened the argument for reason

Literature in the 1920s

• Most artists in postwar felt the world was a “wasteland” LEAVING no hope

• Writers begin to focus more on the present and the future

• Franz Kafka – wrote novels where the main character was put into a dangerous and bizarre situation. – The Trial

– The Castle

– Metamorphosis – man turns into a cockroach

• James Joyce – influenced by Freud, writes

like the mind thinks, in stream of

consciousness

• F Scott Fitzgerald – writes about

disillusioned people of the 1920s, became

the icon of the “Lost Generation”

Philosophy

• Existentialism – No meaning in life, everyone has to find the meaning of their own lives for it to count.

• Fredrick Nietzsche – German philosopher said reason, democracy, and progress had stunted human creativity and action

• Wanted people to be heroic = proud, assertive, and strong (Nazis use this thinking later)

Art!

• Artists want to start depicting emotion,

imagination and dreams.

• Cubism – 1907 developed by Pablo

Picasso and Georges Braque • Natural shapes into geometric forms

• Many times showing many views at once

• Surrealism – sought to display dreams,

again inspired by Freud • Salvador Dali and his melting clocks

Salvador Dali and his melting

clocks

Cubism

Music

• Composers use irregular rhythms to

produce harsh sounds

• Jazz is created! • Starts in the United States (one of the only true art

forms that is all American)

• Black Americans begin jazz, mainly coming from

New Orleans, Memphis, Harlem, and Chicago

Society Changes

• Women's Rights

– WWI had allowed many women to leave the home and experience new things

– Women gain the right to vote

– Clothing changes, girls start showing a little ankle.

– Women began wearing makeup

– Women drank and smoked in public!

Technology • The Car

– Improved upon during WWI

– Soon many people can afford a car!

– Opens up world, people take “vacations”, move to the suburbs etc

– Cars are now sleek, bright, attractive, with headlights and bumpers

• The Airplane – 1919 first transatlantic flight

– 1927 Charles Lindberg flew from NY to Paris in 33 hours

– Airlines begins forming, Pan Am, United, American

• The Radio – 1920s first radio station KDKA out of Pittsburg

– Soon Radios in every home!

– Broadcast, news, music, talk shows, sports and serial dramas

• The Movies – 1920s the movie industry took off, 90% of movies will

be made in Hollywood!

– Charlie Chaplin – King of the silent screen, comic genius, produced, directed and starred in many major motion pictures.

Technology

ET…55 ways…#27

• 3,2,1s