After WW I?

Question

After WW I, Most peole over 30 years of age in Europe and N America probably wished to return to a pre-1914 type of life. However, in a transformed world in which so much had been destroyed, a return to a pre-1914 type of existence was impossible. Was this really true? If so, why and if not Why?

Answer 1

The "reason" many people wanted to return to pre- 1914 is simple. They wanted to return to the "Progressive Era" (it was just after the "Gilded Age").
It was a time or era that witnessed the invention of the car, airplane, and big oil- also, it was simply a time of innocence and prosperity.
WWI (1914) shattered that image with the so-called war to end all wars. That is why people wanted to return to a pre- 1914 environment.
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Answer 2

Actually, most people after WWI did not want to return to pre-1914 life. The first year after the war was hard as people tried to get back to normal life, but this was not as difficult as after WWII. Due to trench warfare and limited aircraft capabilities, there was not much damage to major population areas. The 1920's were called the "roaring 20's" because people were excited with future possibilities and rapidly advancing technology, such as with aircraft and medicine. WWI, at the time, was called the "war to end all wars" because people believed that the world would never experience such a large and deadly conflict. All of this ended with the Great Depression, but even then I don't think that anybody wanted to go back to pre-WWI days, if anything they wanted to go back to the 1920's.

Answer 3

There was a song of that time called "How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm After They've Seen Paree?" (Paris).....

People who survived WW1 certainly would have wished to return to a simpler time; after the millions dead......many British schools, on their War Memorials, instead of listing names, simply state "Class of 1914" Class of 1902"....
people could have wanted a time to forget and a time for simpler lives.

But it was not to be;1918 was a year of tremendous transformation; within a decade as others mentioned, society loosened up.....( can you picture your grand or great grandparents as twenty somethings, getting drunk, driving fast and doing the nasty with a half dozen partners before marriage?); suddenly there were things like automobiles....it didn't take a day to get to town.....telephones everywhere.....you could call someone rather than take hours to get to them to speak to them......radio....nationwide entertainment in the home every night that everyone could talk about the next day.......day to day life for people in the 20's probably changed more than at any other time in history ( and I'll include today in that)......so going back was impossible.

Answer 4

No, it was the Roaring Twenties. Women started wearing short skirts, threw away their corsets, wore make-up for the first time and cut their hair short, started drinking. Men started driving cars, instead of bicycles or horse-driven carriages. They danced the charleston and other new rythms. Something similar happened in Europe.

Answer 5

Sounds like a question directly out of a history book. There is likely a sentence of similar wording in the section that has the exact answer, as the question itself is quite a general question. Something like that always varies from country to country and from individual circumstance to individual circumstance. People in the United States likely felt very little difference.

Answer 6

Most people did want to go back to the pre war time where so many people had not died and so much destruction had not taken place.

Answer 7

I think most people just wanted to go back to the peacefull way of life, without rationing and fear. Many longed for the "slower" pace of pre way life.