F. Scott F. Scott Fitzgerald Fitzgerald

and the 1920’sand the 1920’s

Edited by Nina Lee BradenEdited by Nina Lee Braden

Changing Ways of LifeChanging Ways of Life

Urbanization accelerated More Americans in cities than in rural areas New York City home to over 5 million Chicago nearly 3 million

Urban versus RuralUrban versus Rural

Urban life = a world of anonymous crowds, strangers, moneymakers, and pleasure seekers Rural life = safe, with close personal ties, hard work and morals

ProhibitionProhibition

Example of clash between city & farm 18th Amendment in 1920Illegal to make, sell or transport liquorRepealed in 1933 by 21st Amendment

Speakeasies and Speakeasies and BootleggersBootleggers

Many Americans, especially immigrants, did not believe drinking a sinDrinkers went to hidden saloons known as speakeasies People also bought liquor from bootleggers who smuggled it in from Canada, Cuba and the West Indies

SpeakeasiesSpeakeasies

A speakeasy was an establishment used for selling and drinking alcoholic beverages.

A bartender would tell a patron to be quiet and “speak easy”

Connected to organized crime

1920’s Fashion Trends1920’s Fashion Trends

Boyish silhouettes became the fashion

Hemlines went above the calves (scandalous!)

Youth becomes the epitome of beauty

Coco Chanel “Eton bob” Cloche hats Lots of lipstick

Pin-striped suits came into fashion (Al Capone)

Trousers are more tapered

Fedoras Tight fitting

clothing

1920’s Fashion1920’s Fashion

The FlapperThe Flapper

New ideal emerged for some womenAn emancipated young woman who embraced the new fashions and urban attitudes

Modern Family EmergesModern Family Emerges

Marriage became based on romantic love Women managed the household and finances Children no longer considered laborers/ wage earners but rather developing children who needed nurturing and education

F. Scott Fitzgerald F. Scott Fitzgerald

Born in St. Paul, MN on Sept. 24, 1896"That was always my experience--a

poor boy in a rich town; a poor boy in a rich boy's school; a poor boy in a rich man's club at Princeton ... . However, I have never been able to forgive the rich for being rich, and it has colored my entire life and works." –Fitzgerald

Early LifeEarly Life

Fitzgerald always conscious of class differences.

Mother’s family: Irish, fairly well-to-do

Descendant of Francis Scott Key

Father: failed businessman and salesman

SchoolingSchooling

Catholic boarding school in NJ (1911-13)

Entered Princeton (1915); involved in campus literary magazine and wrote scripts for campus musical productions

Not a great student

Military and CourtshipMilitary and Courtship

1917: received commission as 2nd Lt. in the U.S. Army

At bases in KS and KY, worked on a novel, The Romantic Egoist—rejected twice by Scribner’s

1918: moved to Camp Sheridan in Montgomery; met and fell in love with Zelda Sayre

ZeldaZelda

Daughter of an AL Supreme Court judge: a debutante and great beauty

Zelda initially rebuffed Fitzgerald’s advances

War ended before Fitzgerald could go overseas

He goes to NYC to work in advertising to make money to marry Zelda

She calls off the engagement

After Zelda’s RejectionAfter Zelda’s Rejection

Moved back to Minnesota spent the next several months revising This

Side of Paradise The novel published in March 1920:

Instant best-seller and fame for Fitzgerald; Zelda marries him 8 days later.

Began his life-long association with The Saturday Evening Post Becomes perhaps the best-paid writer of his

generation

F. Scott FitzgeraldF. Scott Fitzgerald

When critics objected to Fitzgerald’s concern with love and success, his response was: “But, my God! it was my material, and it was all I had to deal with.” The chief theme of Fitzgerald’s work is the aspirational idealism he regarded as defining American character.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Lifestyles of the Rich and FamousFamous Coins the term “Jazz Age” and he and Zelda

become the embodiment of the excesses of the 1920s

Floods the Biltmore Hotel, lights cigars with money, displays $500 bills in his shirt pocket

1921: working on his second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned; they go to St. Paul where daughter Scottie is born (“I hope it’s beautiful and a fool—a beautiful little fool.”)

Two collections of short stories published: Flappers and Philosophers (1921) and Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)

Fitzgerald’s DrinkingFitzgerald’s Drinking

Part of the Fitzgerald myth; helped along by Hemingway in A Moveable Feast

Was always a careful craftsman and reviser, even of popular stories

Because of his image, Fitzgerald wasn’t taken seriously as a writer in his own lifetime

Paris AgainParis Again

1924: Fitzgeralds move to France:

Becomes friends with Hemingway, Stein, other expatriates

Writes Gatsby Zelda begins having an

affair 1925: Gatsby published;

receives limited critical praise but is not commercially successful

The Zelda FactorThe Zelda Factor

1927: Zelda’s behavior becoming more erratic (decided to pursue ballet dancing, practicing up to 10 hrs. a day)

Has a nervous breakdown and is in and out of hospitals in the 1930s

To pay the bills, Fitzgerald continues to write stories, though he wanted to work on his novels

The Zelda MystiqueThe Zelda Mystique By 1929, Fitzgerald

earning $4000 for a story in the Post; never out of debt.

1932: Zelda suffers a relapse; rest of her life in and out of sanitariums

Zelda published a novel, further broadening the gulf

Zelda died in a fire in a NC hospital in 1948

Death and Fitzgerald’s Death and Fitzgerald’s ReputationReputation1940: dies of a heart attack at

age 44, all but forgottenReputation begins to revive in

1945 with the publication of The Crack-Up and The Portable F. Scott Fitzgerald and continued to grow throughout the 1950s and 1960s