1927: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of the Jazz Age’s Greatest Year

Hischak (1939: Hollywood’s Greatest Year), emeritus professor of theater at SUNY Cortland, revisits 1927, what he believes to be the peak year of the Roaring ’20s, in this uneven survey. Hischak works his way through the calendar in brief encyclopedic entries, noting such significant events across the globe as the public opening of King Tut’s tomb on the first day of the year, the haphazard leadership of President Calvin Coolidge, civil unrest in China and Nicaragua, the premiere of the first real sci-fi film, Metropolis by Fritz Lang, on January 10, and the October sixth premiere of the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer. That year witnessed several calamitous storms, including a typhoon that killed 16,000 people in the Pacific and hurricane-force winds and rain in California that claimed 243 lives. It was a time of milestones, such as the first solo transatlantic flight by Charles Lindbergh on February 25, the first San Francisco–London telephone call the next day, the lifting of the Bavarian ban on Adolf Hitler’s speaking in public in March, and the mass protests on the eve of the execution of suspected anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti on August 21. There are some intriguing facts here, but the overall effect feels like rushed glimpses of history. (June)