Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991

• 1914-1945 "European Civil War"
• 1945-1991 Cold War/Prosperity

 The Inter-war Period, 1918-1939

• 1918-1925 Instability and Fascism
• 1925-1929 Peace and Prosperity
• 1929-1939 Depression and Nazism

 How Do Wars End?

Instability 1918-1925

The German Revolution, 1918-1919

• Final Offensive, March-July 1918
• William II flees country and abdicates
• Liberals in power
• The Weimar Republic
• Surrendered

 New Nations

• Eastern Europe
• Ottoman Empire
• British and French Imperialism
• Iraq
• Kuwait
• Palestine
• Syria
• Turkey

League of Nations--mandate system

Germany: The Weimar Republic

• Weakened economy
• War guilt
• Severe Political Polarization
• Right: nationalist and monarchists
• "Stab in the Back" Surrender
• Left: Socialists, Liberals
• Communists--10-20% of vote

FASCISM

• Contempt for Democracy
• Hostility to Socialism
• Racism/Anti-Semitism
• Nationalist Extremes
• Strong Leaders
• Organization

Italy: Benito Mussolini, 1922

• March on Rome
• Violent Seizure of Power
• Abolition of Other Political Parties

German Inflation of 1923

• Reparations
• Dawes Plan 1924
• Treaty of Locarno 1925
• Germany in League of Nations 1926
• German Fascism: The Nazi Party--marginalized

Peace/Prosperity 1925-29

• Reaction against War
• League of Nations
• American Influence in Europe
• Radio
• Consumer Goods

Culture

Movies

• Hollywood: Charlie Chaplin
• Berlin: Marlene Dietrich

Phonograph

• Jazz
• New Orleans
• Dancing

Gay and Lesbian Culture

Votes for Women

• Total War/Mobilization
• Qualification of Women Act (Great Britain) 1918
• 19th Amendment (U.S.A.) 1919
• Weimar Constitution (Germany) 1919
• France?

Role of Women: Culture Wars

• Professions
• The "New Woman"
• The Flapper

Marie Stopes

• Married Love, or Love in Marriage 1918
• Sexual happiness
• Birth control clinics
  • rubber cervical caps
  • spermicides
  • the "gold pin"
  •  
  •  
  • Jeanie, Jeanie, full of hopes,

    Read a book by Marie Stopes,

    But, to judge from her condition,

    She must have read the wrong edition.

• Abortion--forget it

The New Feminism--After the Vote

Eleanor Rathbone

Maternalism

• Government Funding for Mothers
• The Disinherited Family: a plea for the direct provision for the costs of child maintenance through family allowances 1924
• Empire and women--saving non-western women
  • Suffrage in India
  • Clitoridectomy in Kenya

Virginia Woolf

• A Room of One's Own 1929
  • Independence: money & privacy
  • Equality and the family
  • Women's history
  • Legal Rights vs. Cultural Expectations
  • Shakespeare's sister

  "would have been so thwarted and pulled apart by contrary obligations to genius and womanhood that she would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at."

Conservative reaction/churches/fascism

• Attack on "Degeneracy": movies/modern art
• Berlin: Lesbian Culture
• U.S.A. Prohibition of alcohol
• Radio Evangelism: Aimee Semple McPherson
• Prosecution of birth control advocates
  • Margaret Sanger
• Children or Profession?

Depression 1929

Rise of Hitler