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Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September 24, 1896. His father, Edward, was from Maryland, with an allegiance to the Old South and its values. Fitzgerald’s mother, Mary McQuillan, was the daughter of an Irish immigrant who became wealthy as a wholesale grocer in St. Paul.
https://tinyurl.com/fitzgeraldbirth -
Between 1900 and 1915, more than 15 million immigrants arrived in the United States. That was about equal to the number of immigrants who had arrived in the previous 40 years combined.
https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/progressive-era-to-new-era-1900-1929/immigrants-in-progressive-era/ -
World War I, also known as the Great War, began in 1914 after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. His murder catapulted into a war across Europe that lasted until 1918. During the conflict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Canada, Japan and the United States (the Allied Powers).
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/world-war-i-history -
The RMS Titanic, a luxury steamship, sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912, off the coast of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic after sideswiping an iceberg during its maiden voyage. Of the 2,240 passengers and crew on board, more than 1,500 lost their lives in the disaster.
https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/titanic -
When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Fitzgerald dropped out of Princeton and took a commission as a second lieutenant in the army. Worried he might die in battle, he began frantically writing in his off-hours in the hopes of leaving behind a literary legacy. While he never made it to the battlegrounds of WWI, the November 1918 armistice was signed shortly before he was to be shipped overseas.
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Russian Revolution of 1917, Revolution that overthrew the imperial government and placed the Bolsheviks in power. Increasing governmental corruption, the reactionary policies of Tsar Nicholas II, and catastrophic Russian losses in World War I contributed to widespread dissatisfaction and economic hardship.
https://www.britannica.com/summary/Russian-Revolution -
Fascism arose in Europe after World War I when many people yearned for national unity and strong leadership. In Italy, Benito Mussolini used his charisma to establish a powerful fascist state. Benito Mussolini coined the term “fascism” in 1919 to describe his political movement.
https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-25-4-mussolini-and-the-rise-of-fascism.html -
Fitzgerald quit his job in July 1919 and returned to St. Paul to rewrite his novel as This Side of Paradise. It was accepted by editor Maxwell Perkins of Scribners in September. Set mainly at Princeton and described by its author as “a quest novel,” This Side of Paradise traces the career aspirations and love disappointments of Amory Blaine.
https://tinyurl.com/FitzgeraldCareer -
18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Primary Documents in American History. Ratified on January 16, 1919, the 18th Amendment prohibited the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors".
https://guides.loc.gov/18th-amendment -
In the fall-winter of 1919 Fitzgerald commenced his career as a writer of stories for the mass-circulation magazines. Working through agent Harold Ober, Fitzgerald interrupted work on his novels to write moneymaking popular fiction for the rest of his life. The Saturday Evening Post became Fitzgerald’s best story market, and he was regarded as a “Post writer.”
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By the early 1920s, Hollywood had become the world's film capital. It produced virtually all films show in the United States and received 80 percent of the revenue from films shown abroad. During the '20s, Hollywood bolstered its position as world leader by recruiting many of Europe's most talented actors and actresses
https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/topic_display.cfm?tcid=124 -
The evolution of mass media in the 20th century reflects the continuous advancements made in technology. People’s aspirations, wishes and lifestyles were increasingly influenced by what they saw on television or heard on the radio. While actively shaping consumers’ thoughts and actions, media in turn started responding to people’s evolving social stratospheres and beliefs.
https://www.europeana.eu/en/exhibitions/a-century-of-technology/the-rise-of-mass-media -
The Harlem Renaissance was the development of the Harlem neighborhood in New York City as a Black cultural mecca in the early 20th Century and the subsequent social and artistic explosion that resulted. Lasting roughly from the 1910s through the mid-1930s, the period is considered a golden age in African American culture, manifesting in literature, music, stage performance and art.
https://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties/harlem-renaissance -
The 1920s was the first decade to have a nickname: “Roaring 20s" or "Jazz Age." It was a decade of prosperity and dissipation, and of jazz bands, bootleggers, raccoon coats, bathtub gin, flappers, flagpole sitters, bootleggers, and marathon dancers.
https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraid=13&smtid=1 -
The publication of This Side of Paradise on March 26, 1920 made the 24-year-old Fitzgerald famous almost overnight, and a week later he married Zelda Sayre in New York. They embarked on an extravagant life as young celebrities.
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In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Fitzgerald struggled with alcoholism and financial problems. Between 1933 and 1937, Scott was hospitalized for alcoholism 8 times and thrown in jail on many more occasions. In February, March, and April 1936, Scott confessed the details about his breakdown on the high-profile pages of Esquire magazine.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/f-scott-fitzgeralds-life-study-destructive-alcoholism -
Upon Tennessee's approval on August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified. This brought the right for a woman to vote. https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/People/Women/Nineteenth_Amendment_Vertical_Timeline.htm#:~:text=Approved%20by%20the%20Senate%20on,long%20fight%20for%20political%20equality -
The Beautiful and Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald's second novel, tells the story of Anthony Patch, a 1920s socialite and presumptive heir to a tycoon's fortune. Anthony and his wife Gloria are young and gorgeous, rich and leisured, and dedicate their lives to the reckless pursuit of happiness.
https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/f-scott-fitzgerald/the-beautiful-and-damned/9781509826384#:~:text=The%20Beautiful%20and%20Damned%2C%20F,the%20reckless%20pursuit%20of%20happiness. -
The Great Gatsby, third novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1925 by Charles Scribner's Sons. Set in Jazz Age New York, the novel tells the tragic story of Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire, and his pursuit of Daisy Buchanan, a wealthy young woman whom he loved in his youth. Unsuccessful upon publication, the book is now considered a classic of American fiction and has often been called the Great American Novel. -
On Black Monday, October 28, 1929, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined nearly 13 percent. By mid-November, the Dow had lost almost half of its value. The slide continued through the summer of 1932, when the Dow closed at 41.22, its lowest value of the twentieth century, 89 percent below its peak.
https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/stock-market-crash-of-1929 -
The 1930s are widely considered to be the “drought of record” for the nation. The 1930s drought is often referred to as if it were one episode, but it was actually several distinct events occurring in such rapid succession that affected regions were not able to recover adequately before another drought began.
https://drought.unl.edu/dustbowl/ -
Tender is the Night was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first novel in nine years (since The Great Gatsby in 1925) and his fourth and final to complete. The generally autobiographical work reflects events surrounding the hospitalization of Fitzgerald’s schizophrenic wife, Zelda, and his own unrelenting alcoholism. Tender is the Night was published in four issues of Scribner's Magazine. https://tinyurl.com/TenderristheNight -
World War II, also called Second World War, conflict that involved virtually every part of the world during the years 1939–45. The principal belligerents were the Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allies—France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China. The 40,000,000–50,000,000 deaths incurred in World War II make it the bloodiest conflict.
https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War-II -
He began his Hollywood novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon, in 1939 and had written more than half of a working draft when he died of a heart attack in Graham's apartment on December 21, 1940. Zelda Fitzgerald perished at a fire in Highland Hospital in 1948. F.
https://tinyurl.com/FitzgeraldDeath -
The Cold War was an ongoing political rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies that developed after World War II. This hostility between the two superpowers was first given its name by George Orwell in an article published in 1945.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War
