The Lost Generation

The young generation of the early 1900s grew up in a period filled with devastation and technological changes. They grew up during the Great War and had their values on life shattered due to the truths war brought. After the First World War ended, America transitioned into a very different nation. The United States went on an economic boom which encouraged urbanization and new technologies. America became a place of business opportunities. She became a country filled with materialism and narrow mindedness, no longer concerned with her past values and traditions. The new path America was headed down as a nation troubled some Americans. Those disturbed by the nation's path fled to Europe expecting to find strength in the many cosmopolitan cultures of Europe. A small group of American writers went to Europe not just to escape America's values but to also gain literary freedom. These writers became known as the "Lost Generation." The writers belonging to the Lost Generation group include some of America's best such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and, most famously, Ernest Hemingway.

Factors in technology and culture of the early twentieth century contributed to the American transition. The rapid transformation of new technologies led to a change in lifestyle for Americans during this time period. "Life was becoming safer, cleaner, more comfortable, and longer for most sectors of the population" (Kreis). The improvements to people's lives were happening at a quicker pace during this period. People became focused on these constant improvements and on finding faster ways to accomplish tasks. The greatest outbreak of technological advancements occurred with inventions such as the telephone, wireless telegraphs, x-ray, cinema, automobile, and airplanes. Cultural developments such as "the stream-of-consciousness novel, Cubism, and the theory of relativity" (Kreis) also caused changes in young American minds. The advancements transformed American lifestyles and created a great distant between the modern age and past methods.

The youth of America were transformed not just by technological and cultural changes but also by the effects of World War I. The war divided the youth's lives into three categories: before the war, during the war, and after the war. It had been "one of the bloodiest and most tragic conflicts ever to occur" (Wiggins). Many sensed moral loss and aimlessness. The war had shattered the morals and values that people believed in for years. It destroyed the idea that nothing bad happened to the good because many young, good men died or returned both mentally and physically scarred from the war. The new military advances like the machine gun made the loss of life even more depressing and wartime combat horrifying (Wiggins). Generations of men seemed to be wasting away due to the unspeakable horrors of war that were intensified by technology. The 1920s were bounded between