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I Remember Distinctly: A Family Album of the American People in the Years of Peace, 1918 to Pearl Harbor
A family album of the American people in the years of 1918 to Pearl Harbor.
251 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1947
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 4, 2025
A different way of reading about history .. 1947's view of the interwar years, told with lots of visual detail and contemporary commentary. I felt like I was holding someone's scrapbook of their last few decades in America, and it made this book so fascinating. There were definitely details and nuances that are unexplored. I felt jazz music was treated as a silly fad rather than a lasting contribution to music. However keeping in mind this was published in the 40s, it's interesting to see which impressions were really captured from their recent past. Overall an enjoyable read.
December 18, 2025
Siemen if you see this you're wrong about White America
November 14, 2015
This is a volume of photographs of American life and trends in the inter-war period of the 20th Century - 1918-1941, assembled by Agnes Rogers with a running commentary by Frederick Lewis Allen.
I thought it was entertaining, and an interesting look into how the period that preceded the war was viewed in the early post-war period, when the book was published. Events that led up to the war were written about with hindsight, and irony, and perspective, stemming from knowledge of what was to come later, shapes the commentary.
The book is a tribute to the transformation of the country from the 20s - the excesses, and income extremes, the poverty - through the efforts of the Roosevelt years (1933-1945) to "start up" the stalled economy, the incredible almost instantaneous switch to war production in the early 40s followed by the near-elimination of unemployment by means of deficit spending once the war did arrive in the US with the bombing of Pear Harbor.
Changing tastes in topics such as fashion, kitchen design, architecture, are covered, as well as books that were popular in one or another era. New categories of products enabled by the then new materials of plastics, methyl methacrylate resin - "lucite" - which made possible contact lenses, nylon zipper fabric fasteners and the introduction of nylon for stockings, which could withstand dry cleaning heat, ethocel sheeting, are discussed. Crazes, notable crime stories, sports landmarks, race horses, evolving auto design, are all covered. The book covers a period of only 23 years - 1918 to 1941; however, these were years of transformation in all aspects of American life.
Looking back from the 21st century, with the hindsight of almost 100 years since 1918, one can only wonder what the authors would make of the upheavals of the 23 years since 1941, an interval which included the Korean war and which ended in 1964 with the expansion of intervention in Vietnam, as well as the mass opposition to the war, which was to intensify through the decade of the 60s. Although there were always isolationists, the antiwar movement during the 60s was unparalleled - the level of unpopularity of this war was probably unequalled.
I would recommend this volume to anyone interested in learning about minutiae of everyday life. It's also an entertaining way to learn about American history during the inter-war period - the commentary is witty and well-written.
I thought it was entertaining, and an interesting look into how the period that preceded the war was viewed in the early post-war period, when the book was published. Events that led up to the war were written about with hindsight, and irony, and perspective, stemming from knowledge of what was to come later, shapes the commentary.
The book is a tribute to the transformation of the country from the 20s - the excesses, and income extremes, the poverty - through the efforts of the Roosevelt years (1933-1945) to "start up" the stalled economy, the incredible almost instantaneous switch to war production in the early 40s followed by the near-elimination of unemployment by means of deficit spending once the war did arrive in the US with the bombing of Pear Harbor.
Changing tastes in topics such as fashion, kitchen design, architecture, are covered, as well as books that were popular in one or another era. New categories of products enabled by the then new materials of plastics, methyl methacrylate resin - "lucite" - which made possible contact lenses, nylon zipper fabric fasteners and the introduction of nylon for stockings, which could withstand dry cleaning heat, ethocel sheeting, are discussed. Crazes, notable crime stories, sports landmarks, race horses, evolving auto design, are all covered. The book covers a period of only 23 years - 1918 to 1941; however, these were years of transformation in all aspects of American life.
Looking back from the 21st century, with the hindsight of almost 100 years since 1918, one can only wonder what the authors would make of the upheavals of the 23 years since 1941, an interval which included the Korean war and which ended in 1964 with the expansion of intervention in Vietnam, as well as the mass opposition to the war, which was to intensify through the decade of the 60s. Although there were always isolationists, the antiwar movement during the 60s was unparalleled - the level of unpopularity of this war was probably unequalled.
I would recommend this volume to anyone interested in learning about minutiae of everyday life. It's also an entertaining way to learn about American history during the inter-war period - the commentary is witty and well-written.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews