Culture Makers: Urban Performance and Literature in the 1920s

In This Study, Amy Koritz Examines The Drama, Dance, And Literature Of The 1920s, Focusing On How Artists Used These Different Media To Engage Three Major Concurrent Shifts In Economic And Social Organization: The Emergence Of Rationalized Work Processes And Expert Professionalism; The Advent Of Mass Markets And The Consequent Necessity Of Consumerism As A Behavior And Ideology; And The Urbanization Of The Population, In Concert With The Invention Of Urban Planning And The Recognition Of Specifically Urban Subjectivities. Koritz Examines Several Plays From The 1920s That Embodied Anxieties Created By The Mechanization Of Labor Through Both The Taylorized Assembly Line Of Fordism And The Rationalization Of Office Work In Corporate Bureaucracies. She Also Focuses On The Playwright Rachel Crothers, Whose Middlebrow Flapper Plays Considered The Consequences Of Mass Production For The Young Affluent Women Expected To Consume Its Goods. Finally, In The Domain Of American Fiction And Letters Of The 1920s, This Study Points To Several Authors' Concerns With The Social And Cultural Effects Of Urbanization In Modern America. Analyzing The Various And Sometimes Contrasting Strategies Of Anzia Yezierska's Salome Of The Tenements, John Dos Passos's Manhattan Transfer, And Lewis Mumford's Commentary On Architecture And Urban Planning, Koritz Shows How Writers And Public Intellectuals Were Deeply Engaged With Working Out The Problems And Possibilities Of Urban Life.--book Jacket. Introduction: Work, Consumerism, And The City -- Drama And The Rhythm Of Work In The 1920s -- Consumption And Commitment: Rachel Crothers And The Flapper's Dilemma -- More Than Rhythm: The Charleston -- The Inner Self Of Martha Graham: Versions Of Authenticity -- Make Yourself For An American: Anzia Yezierska's Public Sphere -- Urban Form Versus Human Function In The 1920s: Lewis Mumford And John Dos Passos -- Conclusion: Geographies Of Knowledge. Amy Koritz. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [177]-192) And Index.