Welcome to The Graduate Gatsby! This is a website designed to immerse you in the culture of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. The Roaring Twenties was an explosive time of art, music, history, and culture. At the heart of Daisy and Gatsby's star-crossed love story is the hustle and bustle of New York City and the hoity-toity Long Island snobs. Experience what scholars call "the great American novel!" Below are some blogs about some of the historical allusions of the novel.
0 Comments
First, some music to set the tone!
The 1920s was a burst of music, from the Charleston to the jazz of the Harlem Renaissance. It marked the beginning of the modern music era as technology improved and music was more easily distributed to the masses.
The most significant musical trend from the 1920s was the evolution of jazz. Jazz music stemmed from the South and eventually made its way to Harlem. Jazz eventually birthed a subset genre, known as the Blues. The Blues expressed the African angst and despair with the racism they lived with every day. Music became an expression for this disenfranchised community. Jazz was considered lowly music to white culture, even though many white bands began to copy some jazz archetypes into their own styles of music. Ivy League colleges are a preoccupation for Tom and Gatsby. Gatsby claims he went to Harvard, while Tom was a "Yale man." But what's the big deal about Ivy league colleges during this time? The Ivys became home for the "WASP" students (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) from upper class families. Many of the schools were publically racist about who would get in, such as Harvard's President, A. Lawrence Lowell, who said: “The summer hotel that is ruined by admitting Jews meets its fate . . . because they drive away the Gentiles, and then after the Gentiles have left, they leave also" (Gladwell). In the summer of 1922, applicants were forced to list their race, parents' birthplace, and their own birthplace. Personal interviews were also necessary for applicants because it provided some insight into their "breeding," as sociologist Jerome Karabel writes, “to ensure that ‘undesirables’ were identified and to assess important but subtle indicators of background and breeding such as speech, dress, deportment and physical appearance.” Ivy League colleges were another example of how the rich maintained their dominance over the public in these social spheres, which is why Tom is so preoccupied with where Gatsby went to school. Attending an Ivy League was a sure shot way of demonstrating a person's worth.
Read more here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/10/10/getting-in Meyer Wolfsheim is a man with teeth for cuff links. He also apparently fixed the 1919 World Series. What really happened between the Reds and the White Sox during the "Big Fix?"
It's an event largely debated among baseball historians. The idea first materialized weeks before the World Series when White Sox first baseman C. Arnold "Chick" Gandil and a gambler named Joseph "Sport" Sullivan met to discuss the idea of the White Sox throwing the game. Prior to this exchange, many gamblers had given money to other baseball players to benefit their gambling. The "Big Fix" apparently cost about $100,000 (a LOT of money for the time). A lot of White Sox players bought in, from pitchers to basemen, and even "Shoeless" Joe Jackson! Works Consulted: https://www.history.com/news/the-black-sox-baseball-scandal-95-years-ago Prohibition was a historical period brought on by the ratification of the 18th Amendment of the Constitution that banned the manufacture, transportation, and sales of alcohol. The ramification was the result of the temperance movement, a movement lead primarily by women and members of the churches. Prominent leaders were Bishop James Cannon Jr., Ernest Cherrington, and Mary Hunt.
This sparked the practice of "bootlegging," which was the act of illegally producing and selling alcohol to customers. People still drank frequently at secret clubs called "speakeasies." Organized crime flourished in this volatile time; many of the crime families have their roots in the Prohibition. Tom accuses Gatsby of being a bootlegger. The theory would explain how he made all of his money out of nothing and why he is in business with a shifty man like Meyer Wolfsheim. Works Consulted https://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties/prohibition |
Kaitlin StellingwerfI am a graduate student at Seton Hall University, pursuing an M.A. in Literature. My dream job is to teach this novel for years to come in a high school class. ArchivesCategories |