The eleventh meeting of the Fredonia Shakespeare Club was held on Jan. 17 at the Darwin R. Barker Library hosted by Mary Croxton. Fifteen members were in attendance. President Joyce Haines welcomed members and thanked the hostess and presenter.

Priscilla Bernatz read the minutes from the Jan. 10 meeting. The minutes were approved as written.

The Club’s area of study this year is The World Between WWI and WWII. Croxton presented her paper “The Roaring Twenties,” which is summarized as follows:

What happened before the decade of the Twenties that helped to define the times? The Civil War shaped attitudes that were very different in the more rural South and the industrialized North. The ‘War to End all Wars’ had been won, but for many it was hard to see that anything worth winning had been gained. The generation after the war was disillusioned with the world in general and unwilling to move into settled life. In 1918 there was a great epidemic of influenza that killed as many as 100 million people all over the world. The effect was a sense of isolation among families and communities. When the flu subsided in the 20s it was no wonder people wanted to forget, get out, enjoy themselves by dancing the Charleston, and go to theaters and speak-easies.

Of course it was not like this for everyone. There were millions who never drank bootleg liquor and never bought a share of stock during the most frantic days of the Great Bull Market on Wall Street. Most people did not put moral standards away in moth balls, so neither the scandalous doings in Washington nor the murderous forays of the Chicago gangsters seemed very disturbing. The 20s were certainly an interesting time; what with prohibition, the monkey trial, new inventions like the automobile, the teapot dome scandal, the passage of the 19th amendment, and the “lost generation.” There was the dark side of the decade as well. The Ku Klux Klan and the Eugenics movement had been around for some time but flourished during this time.

During the war, Congress temporarily restricted the manufacture of intoxicating beverages to conserve grain. No alcoholic beverages could be sold after June 30, 1919 until the end of the war. The 18th amendment went into effect six months later. The dramatic decline in alcohol consumption occurred between 1916 and 1922, not 1920 to 1933. This was because the temperance movement was active and successful. Self-sacrifice during the war was extended to temperance. Probably the best reason for the decline was that illicit sources of production by the mob and other gangs had not started yet.

Corruption, such as the Teapot Dome scandal, was rampant. In this scandal the Secretary of the Interior diverted oil reserves for the Navy with the help of oil company executives and made money off the deal.

There was a serious movement to make teaching of evolution illegal in the schools. The issue came to the courts in 1925 in Tennessee. The result was that a teacher, Mr. Scopes, was found guilty of teaching evolution even though it was illegal in that state. The case was lost but momentum seemed to be on the side of the teaching of science.

One other momentous event took place in Tennessee in 1920. In 1919 the Congress passed the nineteenth amendment. Now it had to go to the states to be ratified. Tennessee legislator Harry Burn was the deciding vote after a long battle for ratification. His mother had written a letter to him telling him to help Mrs. Carrie Catt and vote for the passage of the nineteenth amendment. He was on the fence but listened to his mother. Tennessee was the last state needed for ratification.

The automobile produced a dramatic change in the United States. The cities expanded and the suburbs were created. Rural folks expanded their horizons and ventured out. The mass production developed by Henry Ford changed industry forever.

Radio also helped to alter the pattern of American politics by making it possible for a candidate to reach voters they never could have appealed to in person. It brought a new kind of music and improved people’s ability to communicate.

Everything seemed good, so why did the crash of 1929 occur? Many people were investing in stocks on borrowed money, and people were buying on credit at a rate never seen before. There were automobiles, refrigerators, washing machines, and radios to buy. While American productivity and real wealth grew, beneath the surface prosperity there lurked economic weakness in the form of continuing farm depression, unequal distribution of personal incomes, as well as shaky credit and speculative practices bordering on outright fraud by the bankers of Wall Street. The answer to this question is more complex but these circumstances were a foundation for the crash.

The lost generation could generally be used to refer to the post World War 1 generation. Young soldiers came back from the war disillusioned. The war had been won, but it was hard to see that anything worth winning had been gained. Post war women demanded and were granted a new freedom. The old ways were left to another era and the new thinking turned the 20s into the wildest decade America had ever seen.

Barbara Albert assisted at the tea table. The next meeting of the Club was scheduled for Jan. 24 when Barbara Albert was to present her paper “Folk Music of the Time.”