The Jazz Age through Jay Gatsby
The Progressive Era prior to the Great War was a time of tremendous economic, political, and moral growth in America. However, World War I was a crude awakening to the reality that although society seemed to have progressed, life was not getting better and the people were no happier than they had been before. Society was shocked by the horrors of war and their once bright hopes for the future became bleak. Unable to bear this unpleasant vision of the future, the American people looked to return to the artificial world that they had left behind and regain the…