The search for authenticity and meaning on the part of many people throughout the past has been different and similar at the same time for 1920s, 1950s and 1960s decades in American culture. Depending on the point in time and social, political, economic as well as moral, internal factors, the search has culminated in the variety of consequences for generations to come which are still felt and lived through nowadays. Each decade had its own special circumstances which shaped its historical significance and magnitude. To better understand what was behind each decade in question we need to compare and view the decades through the historical, cultural and social lens.
1920s was a complex and ambivalent decade. It was characterized by modern temper, the social and cultural transformation that did not start, but culminated in the 1920s. Many Americans have found themselves in a position where they had to determine whether they belonged to this new order. Some of them embraced the new “modernist” ideas, some rejected and placed high value on older Victorian norms, and some were ambiguous – they embraced some elements and resisted other. Nevertheless, they all had one thing in common – they all searched for authenticity and meaning.
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Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, e.e. cummings, John Dos Passos. These intellectuals “created a powerful literary legacy that helped to set the tone for the decade.” Many of them “experimented with form and language and celebrated experience and individual liberation.” Many sought to define the new culture, explore its pluses and minuses. Many felt release from restraints of Victorian norms of the past and adapted to the new moral code and social transformation of the present. Lynn Dumenil gives a perfect summary of what Lost Generation writers did: “… they explored the crisis of the individual in a modern world of machines and mass culture, of uncertainty and spiritual