Kyvig, Daily Life In The United States, 1920-1940 - How Americans Lived Through The 'Roaring Twenties' And The Great Depression

Abstract

Only rarely are we treated to a volume that serves equally well as a resource for lecture preparation and as a required text. Most books that we keep on a handy shelf for quick reference are, too narrow and technical for undergraduate or secondary school students; most texts that we choose for classroom use are too general and derivative to bother with for reference. David Kyvig's new volume fills both bills for the cultural and social history of the 1920s and 1930s. Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940 is virtually encyclopedic in its coverage of a vast array of topics, yet it manages to be readable and engaging. Kyvig ranges across changes in family demographics, religion, education, media (especially radio and the movies), leisure pursuits, courtship, labor, immigration, transportation, economics, and fashion (right down to women's underwear), paying careful attention to the differential experiences of social change across region, race, class, and gender. For introductory courses in United States cultural history, or as a supplementary text in survey courses, Daily Life is accessible and absorbing without talking down to students; for teachers and scholars, Kyvig provides an excellent synthesis of the last three decades of historical scholarship in social and cultural history, with well-chosen data and vignettes to illustrate findings and trends.