Since Yesterday Essay, Research Paper

The Authors Point of View

Since yesterday talks about a time in history that was very unstable. The author Frederick Lewis Allen writes this book which is based on the 1930 s to portray to the reader that the 1930’s along with the rest of America was prejudice. This book attempts to explain to the reader some of the major events that occurred in 1930’s. Frederick Lewis Allen shows the reader that the 1930 s was a tough time period to live in. He accomplishes not only by words but explicit detail along with examples. This book is an attempt to tell, and in some measure to interpret the story of what in the future may be considered a distinct era in American history. He has written the events that have never been chronicled before. Allen begins to empathize about Coolidge and Harding era and WWI. For example, he tells the reader how these events lead to the disastrous events which have dramatically affected America. He tells us about the destruction of what had been known as Coolidge and Hoover prosperity. Allen uses facts that show how rent towards the end of WW1 began to become unbearable. As he can be quoted Rent in most instances were worse than food prices . It is a perfectly grand piece of historical record and synthetic journalism. In the 1930 s America was struck with the Depression they were introduced to even harder times . He writes this to show the people that hey were living life wrong and did not see this coming .Allen talks about FDR and his presidency . He tells the reader how when FDR was elected in office he began to pass bills that would boost the American economy . Next Allen tells us that the people in 1930’s were extremely racist. In the 1930 s there was a rebirth of The Klu Klux Klan . It was headed by a man named Colonel William Joseph Simmons in 1935. This was the biggest and horrifying racist group, they went around killing off people because they felt they were inferior of them. Next Allen writes about Wilson and New Freedom to the collapse of Wall Street and the New Era. Allen used many events written in the newspaper to help get his point across. With a novelist’s eye for detail and a historian’s attention to the facts. Peppering his narrative with actual stock quotes and financial news, Allen tracks the major economic trends of the decade and explores the underlying causes of the Crash. Here are fresh accounts of Harding’s oil scandals and the growth of the automobile industry, as well as the decline of the family farm, the Coolidge prosperity, and the long bull market of the late twenties. Allen’s virtual hour-by-hour account of the Crash itself, told from multiple perspectives with mounting suspense, is as gripping as anything you are likely to read in fiction.

New Insights

Frederick Lewis Allen gave me a new point of view on this time period. Allen helped me learn some new things and also increase my knowledge on things I already knew. I never knew how rent was such a high thing. I also never how tuff times were in the 1930 s. The most important thing that I learned from this book is that living in 1930’s is a very tough job. The first thing that struck my mind was that how can a senate choose a President like Harding. Wilson thought in his mind that he was a “forward looking men.” .” After reading the whole book there was only one problem with me that why did Wilson make the Treaty of Versailles which they were not involved in. The important thing I learned was that England tricked Germany and America in the sinking of Lusitania. There were many new ideas evolved in Mr. Allen’s mind as he talks about the death of Mr. Harding. At that time President Hoover and Ex-President Coolidge say that he was the man who had, “taught us the power of brotherness.” By reading this book I understand many new things The Big Red Scare etc. This book talks about a broad based overview of all the history about 1930’s. The people were afraid and looked to racism in 1930’sas a sense of protection . William Simons was the person who led the racism in U.S. He was a German and he was the one who led to the Klu Klux Klan in U.S. in 1918 he had only about hundreds members in the KKK but in 1934 the Klan members had grown to the staggering figure of four and a half million people. ” The Klan began commiting hate crimes against minoroties . Slowly, as the years passed and the government began to intervene the power of Klan diminished until it was dead and it became merely a political fraction dominated by white men: but not until it had become a thing of terror to millions of men an women. Allen tells us about the crash in 1938 to 1939. Allen shows the reader how the price of steel had gone to 261 and in few weeks it went down as low as 204 . , “Although the speculation has gone through far in United States, the market generally are now in a healthy condition. The last six weeks has done immense amount of good by shaking down prices”. that the market went low but a little but this went down a lot and I can read in this famous book.

Literary Criticisms

The length of this book was in a sense a little long. I felt that the author could have wrote about the same thing but done it in a shorter fashion. In some instances the author took to long to actually make his point. How ever the author did manage to keep the book on a simple reading level which made me enjoy it. I personally do not have a preference because if the book isn t something that catches my interest it doesn t matter how long it is because I will not like it. It also helped that Allen wrote in easy flowing sentences. The book is filled with tons of information but was not a difficult task to read. He used specific instances, which gives the reader a good idea of what went on.

Frederick Lewis Allen writes this book on an adequate level of vocabulary level. It was quite uncommon that I found a word that I was not sure of but at the same time the book managed a sense of complexity. This is one thing that managed to keep me somewhat focused on reading besides the topic since I was able to understand what the author was clearly saying.

I would have to say from reading this book that it is a wake up call. It shows us how many things in history that are not glorious get pushed under the rug. It also shows the reader in reality how prejudice our country is. I think Allen did a great job in mixing facts and interpretations and I am curious to read any other works he might have published besides these two books.