Non-fiction Spotlight: "Only Yesterday" and "Since Yesterday"

Today I'm pleased to spotlight two books that will be of enormous help to those of you writing books in the 1920s and 1930s. Of course, if you're a fan of those decades, you will also find these books very interesting.

Only Yesterday and Since Yesterday were published by Frederick Lewis Allen in the 30s and 40s. Allen was a journalist who wrote many pieces for such publications as Atlantic Monthly and Harper's. These books are being re-released in digital format and can be found at Amazon.

Only Yesterday begins when President Woodrow Wilson declared the end of World War I in a letter to the American public, and continuing through his defeat, Prohibition, the Big Red Scare, the rise of women’s hem lines, and the stock market crash of 1929. Allen, of course, was a first witness to all these events, so this is a very interesting piece of primary history. Since Yesterday picks up where Only Yesterday left off. Published in 1940, starts in the days before the stock market crash.  From the Lindbergh kidnapping to the New Deal, from the devastating dust storms that raged through our farmlands to the rise of Benny Goodman, the public adoration of Shirley Temple, and our mass escape to the movies, this book is a hopeful and powerful reminder of why history matters.

 Both books are now available.