For many people, the 1920s were an exciting time. After all, it wasn’t called the “Roaring Twenties” for nothing! The economy was on a roll and looked like it wouldn’t be stopping anytime soon, and that meant people had money to burn. For the first time in history, the average American had the spending power to buy things like cars and appliances. Indeed, the 1920s were marked by immense prosperity and a vast cultural shift. Here are some titles either set in or
about the 1920s for you to enjoy!
Juvenile / Young Adult Titles
A Stitch in Time by Daphne Kalmar
In 1927 Vermont, eleven-year-old Donut, recently orphaned after the death of her beloved pops, stands to lose everything when she learns her Aunt Agnes plans to move her to Boston, but little does her aunt know that Donut has no intentions of leaving her friends or her home.
The 20s & 30s: Flappers & Vamps by Cally Blackman
Focuses on fashion during the 1920s and 1930s while charting the rise of the flapper, the birth of screen idols, and the impact of the Great Depression on couture.
Al Capone and the Roaring Twenties by David King
Reared in an atmosphere of violence and corruption, it is easy to see how Alphonse Capone was destined for a life of crime. Capone raised organized crime to a new level of sophistication, turning the city of Chicago upside down in the process. How did he get away with it? Check this book out to find out!
Adult Level Titles
The Chicago Tribune Tower Competition: Skyscraper Design and Cultural Change in the 1920s by Katherine Solomonson
The Chicago Tribune Tower competition was one of the largest, most important and most controversial design contests of the 1920s. The international competition generated 263 entries for the design of the new Tribune office building, and they represented a broad constellation of approaches to the skyscraper at a time of transition. In the decades following the competition, the design entries have often been evaluated in terms of the rise and demise of particular conceptions of modernism. This study examines the various contexts in which the Chicago Tribune Tower design competition took place and how they shaped the event. Analyzing how the competition contributed to changing concepts of the skyscraper, it also demonstrates how it engaged with the production of consumer culture, with conflicts of national identity and cultural unity, and with a newspaper’s efforts to produce a civic and corporate icon during the turbulent years following World War I.
Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed
With penetrating insights for today, this vital history of the world economic collapse of the late 1920s offers unforgettable portraits of four men–Montagu Norman, Amile Moreau, Hjalmar Schacht, and Benjamin Strong–whose personal and professional actions as heads of their respective central banks changed the course of the twentieth century.
Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class by Larry Tye
Describes how the Pullman Company hired former slaves as sleeping car porters and became the largest employer of African American men in the country by the 1920s, creating a unique culture that blazed a path for a black middle class.
Jacksonville Public Library 