Discover the unique history of the 1920s And WWI

The shifting role and position of women in society was one of the big changes of the 1920s. The way women chose to present themselves and their looks is the mirror of an evolution that goes far beyond mere fashion.

1918-19 INFLUENZA PANDEMIC

It still blows my mind that we got through a pandemic. For so many reasons, it felt like something from the past.
It happened one hundred years ago, the last time. And this is how it went down.

THE LOST GENERATION

The Lost Generation (#AtoZChallenge 2024) Theme Reveal

The Lost Generation were youths who knew the destruction of the war and could not shake it off. And yet they enjoyed themselves and wanted something different. They thought differently and felt differently, and spoke differently and demanded. Even if they didn’t have the strength to create something lasting, nonetheless, they lived the change and marked the way for other young people who would come later.

Pinterest Pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation - Alienation". The black-and-white picture depicts a crowd of WWI soldiers sitting in a field, waiting for their denomination at the end of the Great War. The blog addresses the complex relationship between the Lost Generation and WWI.

Pinterest Pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation - Broken Dreams". The black-and-white picture is a still from the 1920 film "The Flapper" and is a closeup of actress Olive Thomas (who plays the main character) staring into the distance with a haunted expression.

Pinterest pin. The text reads, "The Lost Generation - Cultural Shifts". The picture shows a woman standing in the streets where barricades are visible. She is clearly talking to a crowd of children.

Pinterest pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Decadence." The black-and-white picture is a still from the 1929 film Gold Diggers of Broadway. It shows a party with a crowd gathered around a table on which a young, scanty-clad woman is dancing. The people around the table are all in smart night dresses and hold balloons and champagne glasses. Baloons are scattered on the floor, too.

Pinterest Pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Europe." The black-and-white picture shows an urban scene of 1920s Berlin, with the electric lights shining in the night and a crowd of people silhouetted against them.

Pinterest Pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—First World War." The black-and-white picture shows a group of soldiers of the Great War gathered in a trench.

Pinterest Pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Gender Bending." The black-and-white picture shows two young soldiers of WWI, one with an arm around the other's shoulders.

Pinterest Pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Humanity." The black-and-white picture shows a young soldier of the Great War sitting on the ground. A 'soldier dog' sits beside him.

Pinterest Pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Idealised Past." The black-and-white picture shows two Victorian men sitting on the short of a shady river, chatting in the serene environment.

Pinterest Pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Journaling." The black-and-white picture shows a soldier from WWI writing a letter, sitting on a sand sack.

Pinterest Pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Kinship." The black-and-white picture shows a group of women and young children with mourning clothes huddled together. The fashion of the clothes suggests the interwar years.

Pinterest Pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Literature." The black-and-white picture shows a group of writers (including Ernest Hemingway) standing in front of the bookshop Shakespeare&Co in Paris in the 1920s.

Pinterest pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation - Mourning." The black-and-white picture shows a group of women dressed in 1910s fashion, crying while embracing each other. They walk in the street, possibly in a funeral procession.

Pinterest pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Nationalism." The black-and-white picture shows a statue of an athlete with a perfect body raising his hand in salute while an eagle rests on his shoulder.

Pinterest pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Others." The black-and-white picture shows a crowd of people seated as if in waiting. They are all very close together. Probably a group of newly arrived at Ellis Island in the 1920s.

Pinterest pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Postwar Years." The black-and-white picture shows a vehicle with only one big wheel. A post-WWI invention.

Pinterest pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Question of Faith." The black-and-white picture shows a war chaplain standing in a trench, leaning on a staff and wearing a helmet.

Pinterest pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Roaring Twenties." The black-and-white picture shows a wild Roaring Twenties party with people in their glad rags dancing and drinking.

Pinterest pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Silence" The black-and-white picture shows the WWI Portsmouth Guildhall Square Memorial.

Pinterest pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Trauma and Coping" The black-and-white picture shows a hospital ward with two big windows at the end. A nurse stands at the end of the ward, leaning on a gurney as if about to push it. Two army officers stand on either side of her. Probably from WWI.

Pinterest pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Urbanisation" The black-and-white picture shows a busy London street in the 1920s, with tracks, streetcars and busses.

Pinterst pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Violence." The black-and-white picture shows the memorial to the Great War fallen in the city of Trieste. The group statue on top of the column shows the soldiers as classic warriors.

Pinterest pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Women's Citizenship." The black-and-white picture shows a group of women from the 1910s (as their fashion reveals) on an inner-city street. Some of them wear the suffragettes' iconic white. Others wear more humble clothes.

Pinterest pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—eXpressionism and Other Vanguards." The black-and-white picture shows one of the jazz bands of the Bauhaus, all dressed in suits with the characteristic modern design.

Pinterest Pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Youthful Rebellion." The black-and-white picture shows a group of young men raising their arms as if in protest.

Pinterest Pin. The title reads, "The Lost Generation—Zeitgeist." The black-and-white picture shows a group of young people at a wild party. The fashion these people wear is clearly from the 1920s.

ENTER THE NEW WOMAN

Enter the New Woman (#AtoZChallenge 2022) Theme Reveal

Yes, I want to book!

THE GREAT WAR

The Great War (#AtoZChallenge 2021) Theme Reveal

Vertical banner for the book "The Great War". On top is the photo of a group of soldiers standing in a WWI trench. A Yellow button reads, "Go to Shop". On the bottom is a picture of a stake of two books, of which only the spine is visible, and the cover of a book standing upright, with the same group of soldiers standing in the trench. The stake of books stands against an olive green background. A big title in yellow reads "The Great War", and a smaller text reads "The updated ebook".

Yes, I want the book

LIVING THE TWENTIES

Living the Twenties (#AtoZChallenge 2020) Theme Reveal

The 1920s were years of passage. WWI had destroyed the old world. In the 1920s (as well as in the 1930s), people desperately tried to understand what kind of world they were living in now. They experimented a lot. They tried out new languages, new outlooks on life. Society and what was acceptable change in a way that often young people embraced, but older people feared. Life changed dramatically. What at the beginning of the century might have been considered fantasy or science fiction, in the 1920s was real life.

The book contains twice as much information as the original blog series. It’s a great introduction to the 1920s as a global phenomenon and, like the blog series, explores many different aspects of life in the 1920s, especially where change is involved.

Yes, I want the book

BERLINER CABARET

Berliner Cabaret (#AtoZChallenge 2019) Theme Reveal

Berlin in the 1920s was a place of great exuberance, of great contradiction, of a strong urge to live and enjoy life and an equally strong urge for revenge and prevarication.
It would be extremely imprecise to say that cabaret described 1920s Berlin faithfully, but it would also be imprecise to say that cabaret had nothing to do with life in Berlin in that particular time. 1920s Berlin life did mirror itself in cabaret, one way or another.

THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC

AtoZ Challenge Theme Reveal Blogfest Day 2018 – The Weimar Republic

The fourteen years of the Weimar Republic always felt like an in-between time. The Great War before and the Third Reich after seemed to be so much more meaningful.
Born from the revolution in 1919, the Weimar Republic’s troubled time died in the rise of the Third Reich in 1933. Because of how it would end, the first democratic regime in Germany has traditionally been considered as fated to utter failure. But in recent years it has been re-evaluated. Historians have started to consider it a critical time of experimentation and freedom, not just for Germany, but for the totality of European cultures.

1940s FILM NOIR

AtoZ Challenge Theme Reveal Blogfest Day 2017

Everyone knows a film noir when they see it, right? It is something so characteristic and so ingrained in our aesthetic sense that we don’t even think about it.
Still, film noir is one of the most slippery, blurry, ethereal subjects of the film industry. Nobody can even agree on what exactly film noir is. And to make things worse, no director, in the classic time of film noir, ever decided to make a ‘film noir’ since the concept didn’t even exist back then.

JAZZ AGE JAZZ

AtoZ Challenge Theme Reveal Blogfest Day 2016

Many people don’t realise (I certainly didn’t before I started researching) that jazz had a significant impact on 1920s America (and partly Europe). There’s a reason why the 1920s are also called the Jazz Age – and not just because jazz was the most popular music of the time. As Ogren thoroughly exposes in her book, jazz was the expression of a profound change in the American society of the time, but it was also part of the cause.

THE ROARING TWENTIES

The Great and Powerful AtoZ Theme Reaveal Blogfest 2015

Many people don’t realise (I certainly didn’t before I started researching) that jazz had a huge impact on 1920s America (and partly Europe). There’s a reason why the 1920s are also called the Jazz Age – and not just because jazz was the most popular music of the time. As Ogren thoroughly exposes in her book, jazz was the expression of a profound change in the American society of the time, but it was also part of the cause.