The Aspirin Age: 1919-1941

Edited By Isabel Leighton

This book covers the major events of American life in the years between the two World Wars.  The events were written by twenty-two writers, encompassing each year from 1919 through 1941.  These contemporary accounts focus on people and events that the Homestead Museum docent might discuss while covering the decade of the Roaring Twenties.

Of special interest are the writings about Aimee Semple MacPherson and fundamentalist religion; Sacco and Vanzetti and the so-called “Red Menace” and xenophobia; and, Presidents Coolidge and Roosevelt and national economics.  Most of the other writings covered the years outside the main focus of the Homestead Museum Docent.

The writings that discuss economics are dated as more recent books have re-examined the 1920’s and 1930’s and have provided different frames of reference rather than the left of center writings in this book.  For example, at least two writers refer to the “forgotten man” of the Depression.  As used in these writings, the forgotten man is the victim of rapacious capitalists, whereas the correct definition of the forgotten man is the man who had to pick up the pieces and pay for the mess created by the Depression.  The incorrect definition was used in the hagiography of President Roosevelt written by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., a prominent Presidential historian.

Even though one may disagree with the political outlook of the writers, it is instructive to read this compilation of writings.  If nothing else, the contemporary accounts provide an “eyewitness” view of the major news items of the nation, as long as the reader acknowledges that these accounts are not the final word in the matter.

The Homestead Museum docent should read this book as a starting point to explore people and events that span the first part of the Twentieth Century, especially the 1920’s.  This decade was the start of the American Century, where the United States ascended to a world power after Word War I and continues to today.