Assignment task:
To a generation of artist and intellectual coming of age in the 1920's, the new society in which they lived was even more disturbing. Many were experiencing a disenchantment with modern America so fundamental they were often able to view it only with contempt. As a result, they adopted a role sharply different from those of most intellectuals of earlier eras. Rather than involving themselves with their society's popular or political culture and attempting to influence and reform the mass of their countrymen, they isolated themselves and embarked upon a restless search for personal fulfillment. Gertrude Stein once referred to the young American emerging from World War I was a "Lost Generation." For many writers and intellectuals, at least, it was an apt description. At the heart of the Lost Generation's critique of modern society was a sense of personal alienation, a belief that contemporary America no longer provided the individual with avenues by which he or she could achieve personal fulfillment. Modern life, they argued, was cold in person, materialistic, and thus meaningless.
Question: Use the quotation from Historian Douglas Brinkley (1991) to respond to a), b), and c).
a. Explain the author's point of view for one of the following developments:
++Consumerism ++Urban life ++Modernity
b. Explain one piece of evidence to support the point of view in a).
c. Explain one development from 1919-1928 that supported or challenged the point of view expressed by the author.