1. Years of Crisis 1919-1939

2. Background Between World War I and World War II there were many forces at work that dramatically changed the way people thought and expressed themselves. These changes were reflected in the fields of art, literature, psychology, philosophy and music.

3. Age of Uncertainty Changes in Science and Psychology. Albert Einstein-Theory of relativity- studied the relationships among time, space, light and matter.

4. Sigmund Freud He studied human behavior, the unconscious, and how the mind works. He studied the major pleasure seeking drives in humans such as hunger, thirst, sex etc…

5. Literature Many authors were inspired by World War I. They wrote about fear, values, and hope. T.S. Eliot and William Butler Yeats were poets that expressed the darkness after the war. Expatriates-novelists and poets who left America to write literature that expressed the disillusionment of the period.

6. Expatriates T.S. Eliot Ernest Hemingway F. Scott Fitzgerald E.E. Cummings Ezra Pound John Dos Passos

7. Existentialism - People who believe that there is no universal meaning to life. Friedrich Nietzsche – A German philosopher that criticized about western society for putting too much influence on democracy and progress.

8. ART Surrealism- An art movement that linked the world of dreams with real life. Surreal-Beyond or above reality. Artists: Salvador Dali, Otto Dix, Picasso, Man Ray and Escher.

9. Da Da Movement An artistic movement that captures the irreverence of the time period. It contains more abstract art than figurative art. The name Da Da came from a random opening of the dictionary. It literally means “hobby horse”.

10. Jazz Age Jazz music perfectly expressed the chaotic and hedonistic quality of the period. The 1920’s was also known as “The Roaring 20’s”. Musicians- Bessie Smith, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and many more.