Roaring Twenties

After independence from Mexico and annexation by the United States, Bastrop County was no longer the ragged edge of the wild frontier. Above all, the railroads brought increased prosperity and culture to Bastrop as they did to most locations across the nation. Troupes of players, singers, and dancers followed the rails from location to location on a performance circuit. Some, like the King and the Duke in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, did not follow a specific circuit or…

Imagine just graduating high school and moving to Hollywood to become successful from your music. This occurred to Eddie in Tom Petty’s “Into the Great Wide Open.” Eddie graduates high school and moves to Hollywood to earn fame and fortune. He meets a girl, gets a tattoo, and has big dreams for his future. “Into the Great Wide Open” by Tom Petty tells the story of a man with ambition to become successful, and quickly shifts tones, in a very believable way. “Into the Great Wide Open” Gives…

Kathleen Black Mrs. Morrissy LAL III 31 March 2016 Gatsby’s Dream James Gatz was a poor man who was unsuccessful. When he met Daisy they fell in love, but he had to go off to war. Daisy did not want to wait for him, so she married a rich man named Tom Buchanan. After Gatsby came back from war he decided he wanted to be a wealthy gentlemen. He worked very hard to become rich and win Daisy back. Gatsby felt like he needed to accomplish his dream since he worked so hard. Daisy still loved Tom.…

Doctor Heidegger’s Experiment- Youth In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Dr. Heidegger's Experiment he paints the world with the pessimistic viewpoint that people don’t change and their vices will always remain. Nathaniel explains this in the story by showing his characters as old men and turning them young with Dr. Heidegger’s elixir. All the guests are foolish and show their vices in different ways. The elixir turning them young, allowing them to repeat the same mistakes they made the first time…

F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in 1896. He started to pursue his writing career when he dropped out of Princeton in 1917. A lot of his books are inspired by his own life, and most of them include the 1920’s and the extravagant lifestyle the rich lived during that time. Some of his most famous works are The Great Gatsby, This Side of Paradise, and Tender is the Night. While he did not win any awards for his books when he was still alive, he is now considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th…

Birmingham was known as a frontier town in its establishment in 1871, with its rows of mile-long corn-fields. It was far from being considered American civilization. However, worthy minerals that lied beneath these corn fields caused an industrial revolution for the little town of Birmingham to eventually boom into a city. Soon after two decades, the town was known for its blue-collar industriousness. “There was great wealth to be had if one were shrewd of business and as a result the men worked…

Mainstreaming Arkansas In the early to the middle of the twentieth century, Arkansas began to grow closer to the modern image that the rest of the United States had seemed to obtain. Although Arkansas’ process of growth was much slower than the rest of the country, the state did begin to catch up and dive into the mainstream. Arkansas developed economically, politically, and culturally by means of businesses that blossomed within the state, politicians that rose to the occasion, and the process…

The prohibition era in the United States marks one of the most significant eras of organized crime within the United States. While early forms of organized crime were found in the early 1900s with gambling and prostitution, it was not until 1919 that gangsters would become a real problem. Prohibition was the a hundred-year-old argument that finally reached the breaking point in the late 1910s. At the end of the American Revolution alcohol was still seen as a “good creature of God” and observed…

Music Heals The Soul “A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.” -Leopold Stokowski. Stokowski is not from the 40’s, however, his quote goes with any era. Music in the 40’s was a big hit because it gave people a way to express their feelings. From the war and bombs to clubs and jazz, the 40’s were musical in many ways. Jazz all began in the mid 1930’s after big bands struggled to stay together during WWII. In the 40’s people like Dizzy…

able to view Paris and its beautiful transitions throughout time. The Belly of Paris, which was written by Emile Zola, explores the city in the mid to late 1800s, and A Moveable Feast, which was written by Ernest Hemingway, describes Paris in the roaring 1920s. Both illustrate what the city was like during these times. There are many changes that occur in the city…