One Summer: America, 1927
by Bill Bryson
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A Chicago Tribune Noteworthy BookA GoodReads Reader's Choice
In One Summer Bill Bryson, one of our greatest and most beloved nonfiction writers, transports readers on a journey back to one amazing season in American life.
The summer of 1927 began with one of the signature events of the twentieth century: on May 21, 1927, Charles Lindbergh became the first man to cross the Atlantic by plane nonstop, and when he landed in Le Bourget airfield near Paris, he ignited an explosion of worldwide show more rapture and instantly became the most famous person on the planet. Meanwhile, the titanically talented Babe Ruth was beginning his assault on the home run record, which would culminate on September 30 with his sixtieth blast, one of the most resonant and durable records in sports history. In between those dates a Queens housewife named Ruth Snyder and her corset-salesman lover garroted her husband, leading to a murder trial that became a huge tabloid sensation. Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly sat atop a flagpole in Newark, New Jersey, for twelve days—a new record. The American South was clobbered by unprecedented rain and by flooding of the Mississippi basin, a great human disaster, the relief efforts for which were guided by the uncannily able and insufferably pompous Herbert Hoover. Calvin Coolidge interrupted an already leisurely presidency for an even more relaxing three-month vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The gangster Al Capone tightened his grip on the illegal booze business through a gaudy and murderous reign of terror and municipal corruption. The first true “talking picture,” Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer, was filmed and forever changed the motion picture industry. The four most powerful central bankers on earth met in secret session on a Long Island estate and made a fateful decision that virtually guaranteed a future crash and depression.
All this and much, much more transpired in that epochal summer of 1927, and Bill Bryson captures its outsized personalities, exciting events, and occasional just plain weirdness with his trademark vividness, eye for telling detail, and delicious humor. In that year America stepped out onto the world stage as the main event, and One Summer transforms it all into narrative nonfiction of the highest order. show less
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Bill Bryson can write about anything and make it fascinating. Here he writes about some incredible events that took place during the summer of 1927 and the impact each perosn/event had on America and the world. Reading Bryson is like listening to someone with ADD who has not taken their meds - he starts a paragraph about Babe Ruth, slides onto a famous (at the time) murder), moves onto the state of capitol punishment, diverges onto what people were eating at baseball games back then, and yet somehow manages to tie everything together. Bringing to life, with meticulous research, the stories of Babe Ruth, Charles Lindbergh and Al Capone, Bryson tells us their stories and how what they did that summer changed us. He also tells us what show more happened to each character further down the road.... Add to that there is also a mass school massacre, a murder that inspired the movie The Postman always Rings Twice, Lou Gehrig, the original Ponzi of the Ponzi scheme, one of America's dullest Presidents, tennis great Bill Tilden, Henry Ford, Prohibition, the rise of "talkies" the musical Showboat, and so much more. There are so many great tidbits and asides, little things most people don't know or have forgotten, fun facts and background details. Many critics have noted that many events echo recent events (Newtown, extreme weather events, the Stock market crash) and it is interesting to see what may have changed and what has not! show less
I don't know that it's the best thing Bryson has ever done, but I devoured it--1920s America was a seriously weird place and the number of insane things happening in one summer is pretty intense. Just as we say we would listen to our best voices read the phone book, I'd read Bryson's survey of the phone book of East Lansing from 1998. I did not think I cared in the slightest about transatlantic flights or Babe Ruth, but here we are.
And what a summer it was. Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean and forever changed the course of aviation history. Babe Ruth and his Yankee teammates hit home runs and won games at a prodigious pace and forever changed the way the National Pastime was played. Al Jolson starred in the first widely distributed “talkie” which brought the American voice to the world for the first time and forever changed the entertainment business. Decisions were made by international banking authorities that led directly to the stock market collapse of 1929 and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Further, the activities of myriad other characters, including Al Capone, Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney, Clara show more Bow, Sacco and Vanzetti, Calvin Coolidge, Henry Ford, Herbert Hoover, and Admiral Byrd, were prominent in the public eye.
In One Summer: America, 1927, Bill Bryson departs from his usual approach of writing clever and wry travelogues to bring us a wonderful account of the events that defined one of the most memorable periods in American history. The book is full of detailed narratives—in fact, at almost 500 pages, perhaps too detailed—of notable people who lived at a time just out of memory for most of us alive now. Bryson makes the interesting decision of organizing the book into monthly sections, from May through September, which means that several of the stories (e.g., Babe Ruth’s pursuit of the home run record) play out over several chapters. I did not find this to be overly distracting, but it did create discontinuities in some of the individual tales, particularly those that required considerable “backfill” to create a proper context (e.g., Sacco and Vanzetti trials and convictions that lead to their execution, Henry Ford’s development of the modern automobile industry). Nevertheless, One Summer is an enlightening and entertaining look at one remarkable season in the United States that did nothing less than change the history of the world. show less
In One Summer: America, 1927, Bill Bryson departs from his usual approach of writing clever and wry travelogues to bring us a wonderful account of the events that defined one of the most memorable periods in American history. The book is full of detailed narratives—in fact, at almost 500 pages, perhaps too detailed—of notable people who lived at a time just out of memory for most of us alive now. Bryson makes the interesting decision of organizing the book into monthly sections, from May through September, which means that several of the stories (e.g., Babe Ruth’s pursuit of the home run record) play out over several chapters. I did not find this to be overly distracting, but it did create discontinuities in some of the individual tales, particularly those that required considerable “backfill” to create a proper context (e.g., Sacco and Vanzetti trials and convictions that lead to their execution, Henry Ford’s development of the modern automobile industry). Nevertheless, One Summer is an enlightening and entertaining look at one remarkable season in the United States that did nothing less than change the history of the world. show less
I wish Bill Bryson had been my history teacher! I don’t care for politics, sports, or even history all that much, but Bryson is such a good storyteller that I devoured this book. It was interesting and compelling from word one. Bryson includes obscure facts, points out irony, and ties events together in ways that had never occurred to me. Great read!
With Bill Bryson, a lack of focus is actually an asset. He is always at his best when he is allowed to ramble in his books, moving from one topic to another, wherever his interests take him. “One Summer: America 1927” (2013) is just such a book.
So much was going on in America during the summer of 1927 that Bryson is free to ramble at will, turning up fascinating stories and trivia wherever he turns. This was the summer Babe Ruth hit 60 homes runs (and Lou Gehrig almost as many), Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic, Gene Tunney beat Jack Dempsey, Henry Ford introduced the Model A, Al Capone became the most powerful man in Chicago, Walt Disney introduced Mickey Mouse to the world, silent movies reached their peak with show more “Wings” just as talkies burst upon the scene, Sacco and Vanzetti were executed and on and on.
And so Bryson wanders from flagpole sitters to the severe flooding that covered much of the Midwest in water that summer to the invention of hot dogs to flappers to Prohibition. He tells us that Babe Ruth spent his first paycheck on a bicycle. The IQ test was designed to determine stupidity, not intelligence. The Rockettes were originally called the Roxyettes after Roxy Rothafel, founder of the Roxy theaters.
There is never a dull moment reading these nearly 500 pages. It makes one wonder what someone like Bryson might someday be able to write about the wild year 2020, with the impeachment of one president, the scandal uncovered in the administration of the previous president and the virus that shut down not just the country but the entire world. Bryson himself is too close to these events, hardly objective enough to do them justice. But 90 years from now, give or take, some writer will give it a go and amaze readers with the wonder of it all. Let's hope this writer will be the equal of Bill Bryson. show less
So much was going on in America during the summer of 1927 that Bryson is free to ramble at will, turning up fascinating stories and trivia wherever he turns. This was the summer Babe Ruth hit 60 homes runs (and Lou Gehrig almost as many), Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic, Gene Tunney beat Jack Dempsey, Henry Ford introduced the Model A, Al Capone became the most powerful man in Chicago, Walt Disney introduced Mickey Mouse to the world, silent movies reached their peak with show more “Wings” just as talkies burst upon the scene, Sacco and Vanzetti were executed and on and on.
And so Bryson wanders from flagpole sitters to the severe flooding that covered much of the Midwest in water that summer to the invention of hot dogs to flappers to Prohibition. He tells us that Babe Ruth spent his first paycheck on a bicycle. The IQ test was designed to determine stupidity, not intelligence. The Rockettes were originally called the Roxyettes after Roxy Rothafel, founder of the Roxy theaters.
There is never a dull moment reading these nearly 500 pages. It makes one wonder what someone like Bryson might someday be able to write about the wild year 2020, with the impeachment of one president, the scandal uncovered in the administration of the previous president and the virus that shut down not just the country but the entire world. Bryson himself is too close to these events, hardly objective enough to do them justice. But 90 years from now, give or take, some writer will give it a go and amaze readers with the wonder of it all. Let's hope this writer will be the equal of Bill Bryson. show less
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times .... okay, so 1927 America may not have achieved either of these extremes, but Bill Bryson's entertaining, informative, unexpectedly even-handed stroll through the events of 1927 is a timely reminder that those who wish to restore our country to the "good old days" are either ill-informed or deliberately deceiving.
True, 1927 was a year that celebrated many of the things that we Americans celebrate about ourselves and our heritage: "Lucky Lindbergh" courageously conquered the Atlantic crossing; Hollywood released the first talkie blockbuster, The Jazz Singer; Dempsey & Tunney staged what may have been the greatest "boxing exhibition" of all times; a teenager plowing a field suddenly show more came up with the inspiration for the technology that would make television possible; the U.S. stock market soared, due in no small measure to American entrepreneurship and ingenuity; and Babe Ruth, a big-hearted orphan from Jersey, hit an almost unimaginable 60 home runs.
But it was also the year that Al Capone reigned supreme in Chicago, backed up by Tommy-gun armed hoodlums; thousands of people died or were rendered homeless by unprecedented flooding in the Mississippi valley; anarchists bombed the homes of politicians and judges; a disturbed public employee set off a bomb in a school, killing 38 children - still the deadliest school disaster in U.S. history; a group of secretive bankers made and implemented a decision that would make the Great Depression inevitable; and the KKK staged a major resurgence on the backs of self-aggrandizing eugenicists who wrote best-selling books about the dire need to "cleanse" the US of undesirables such as criminals, the mentally feeble, immigrants, blacks, and Jews.
Admit I'm not the biggest fan of some of Bryson's other works, but I found this engrossing. It helps that he made some good editorial decisions along the way, such as giving himself permission to temporarily depart the confines of 1927 long enough to place the events of the year in the context of what had come before and what would follow. Thanks to this, what could have felt like a collection of loosely related anecdotes - sepia-tinted postcards from a "simpler time" - is transformed into something a lot more narratively complex, morally ambiguous, and thought-provoking.
By all means enjoy the opportunity Bryson provides to celebrate our country in all its over-eager, quirky glory (what kind of country makes pole-sitting a thing?); but don't pick this up unless you're also prepared to be reminded of the fact that our country's history is a whole lot more socially and morally complex than some conservative narratives would have us believe. show less
True, 1927 was a year that celebrated many of the things that we Americans celebrate about ourselves and our heritage: "Lucky Lindbergh" courageously conquered the Atlantic crossing; Hollywood released the first talkie blockbuster, The Jazz Singer; Dempsey & Tunney staged what may have been the greatest "boxing exhibition" of all times; a teenager plowing a field suddenly show more came up with the inspiration for the technology that would make television possible; the U.S. stock market soared, due in no small measure to American entrepreneurship and ingenuity; and Babe Ruth, a big-hearted orphan from Jersey, hit an almost unimaginable 60 home runs.
But it was also the year that Al Capone reigned supreme in Chicago, backed up by Tommy-gun armed hoodlums; thousands of people died or were rendered homeless by unprecedented flooding in the Mississippi valley; anarchists bombed the homes of politicians and judges; a disturbed public employee set off a bomb in a school, killing 38 children - still the deadliest school disaster in U.S. history; a group of secretive bankers made and implemented a decision that would make the Great Depression inevitable; and the KKK staged a major resurgence on the backs of self-aggrandizing eugenicists who wrote best-selling books about the dire need to "cleanse" the US of undesirables such as criminals, the mentally feeble, immigrants, blacks, and Jews.
Admit I'm not the biggest fan of some of Bryson's other works, but I found this engrossing. It helps that he made some good editorial decisions along the way, such as giving himself permission to temporarily depart the confines of 1927 long enough to place the events of the year in the context of what had come before and what would follow. Thanks to this, what could have felt like a collection of loosely related anecdotes - sepia-tinted postcards from a "simpler time" - is transformed into something a lot more narratively complex, morally ambiguous, and thought-provoking.
By all means enjoy the opportunity Bryson provides to celebrate our country in all its over-eager, quirky glory (what kind of country makes pole-sitting a thing?); but don't pick this up unless you're also prepared to be reminded of the fact that our country's history is a whole lot more socially and morally complex than some conservative narratives would have us believe. show less
Reading this book took forever!
Overall I really liked this book but boy, sometimes, it felt like being stuck in quicksand. It really was a fascinating summer. Aviation, baseball, mobsters, anarchists, politicians, floods, you name it, it's in there. Oddball history and random facts galore. It makes me want to read biographies of half the people involved (Babe Ruth, Herbert Hoover, Charles Lindbergh and Al Capone to name a few.)
I think they key to enjoyment here is to read this book at the same time as a novel and not to keep it as your primary focus.
If you liked Bryson's other books like "At Home" or "A Brief History of Nearly Everything" you will probably enjoy this one too. It's not as funny as his travel books like "A Walk in the show more Woods" or "In a Sunburned Country" but it's good as a light history book. show less
Overall I really liked this book but boy, sometimes, it felt like being stuck in quicksand. It really was a fascinating summer. Aviation, baseball, mobsters, anarchists, politicians, floods, you name it, it's in there. Oddball history and random facts galore. It makes me want to read biographies of half the people involved (Babe Ruth, Herbert Hoover, Charles Lindbergh and Al Capone to name a few.)
I think they key to enjoyment here is to read this book at the same time as a novel and not to keep it as your primary focus.
If you liked Bryson's other books like "At Home" or "A Brief History of Nearly Everything" you will probably enjoy this one too. It's not as funny as his travel books like "A Walk in the show more Woods" or "In a Sunburned Country" but it's good as a light history book. show less
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Author Information
70+ Works 136,293 Members
Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa on December 8, 1951. In 1973, he went backpacking in England, where he eventually decided to settle. He wrote for the English newspapers The Times and The Independent, as well as supplementing his income by writing travel articles. He moved back to the United States in 1995. His first travel book, The Lost show more Continent: Travels in Small-Town America, was published in 1989. His other books include I'm a Stranger Here Myself, In a Sunburned Country, Bill Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words, Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe, Made in America, The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson's African Diary, A Short History of Nearly Everything, At Home: A Short History of Private Life, Walk About, and Seeing Further: The Story of Science, Discovery, the Genius of the Royal Society. A Walk in the Woods was adapted into a movie starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte. Bryson's titles, The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain, Notes from a Small Island and Neither Here Nor There made the New York Times bestseller list in 2016. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- De zomer van 1927
- Original title
- One Summer: America, 1927
- Original publication date
- 2013 (Engels) (Engels); 2014 (Nederlands) (Nederlands)
- People/Characters
- Charles A. Lindbergh; Babe Ruth; Calvin Coolidge; Bartolomeo Vanzetti; Nicola Sacco; Charles Nungesser (show all 50); Francois Coli; Richard Byrd; Jacob Ruppert; Bernt Balchen; George Noville; Bert Acosta; Charles A. Levine; Clarence Chamberlin; Edsel Ford; Henry Ford; Lou Gehrig; Judd Gray; Ruth Snyder; Jack Dempsey; Robert G. Elliott; Alvan Fuller; Myron Herrick; Herbert Hoover; Miller Huggins; Dwight Morrow; Benjamin Strong; Webster Thayer; Gene Tunney; Luis Firpo; Bill Tilden; Al Capone; Charles Ponzi; Mabel Walker Willebrandt; Francesco de Pinedo; Al Jolson; Roxy Rothafel; Clara Bow; William Wellman; John Monk Saunders; Jerome Kern; Oscar Hammerstein II; Raymond Orteig; Gutzon Borglum; Montagu Norman; Alexis Carrel; Big Bill Thompson; Kenesaw Mountain Landis; Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh; Anne Morrow Lindbergh
- Dedication
- To Annie, Billy and Gracie, and in memory of Julia Richardson
- First words
- On a warm spring evening just before Easter 1927, people who lived in tall buildings in New York were given pause when the wooden scaffolding around the tower of the brand new Sherry-Netherland Apartment Hotel caught fire and... (show all) it became evident that the city's firemen lacked any means to get water to such a height.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)She died in 2001 at the ripe age of ninety-four, the last person of consequence to this story to have lived through that long, extraordinary summer.
- Blurbers
- Brown, Craig; Ridley, Matt; Wagner, Erica; Showalter, Elaine
- Original language
- English
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
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- History, Sports and Leisure, General Nonfiction, Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 973.91 — History & geography History of North America United States 1901- 1901-1953
- LCC
- E791 .B79 — History of the United States United States Twentieth century 1919-1933. Harding-Coolidge-Hoover era. "The Coolidge's administration, August 2, 1923-1929
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- ISBNs
- 43
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- 26