One Summer: America, 1927

These chapters continue to color the narrative with details about culture and society in the 1920s while advancing the chronology of the main story through June.

Much of the content centers again on aviation, as Bryson demonstrates that the main themes and stories of his book—even the main historical actors in the storylines—overlap and intersect. Public fascination with aviation, for example, was not contained merely to May, though aviation took center stage in the “May” section because it was in that month that Lindbergh took his legendary flight and ignited a new age of American celebrity. In Chapter 10, Bryson follows up on other previously mentioned American aviators as they attempted various “firsts” in aviation to follow Lindbergh’s accomplishment. Clarence Chamberlain (“the world’s most laid-back pilot” (137)) has fallen into obscurity in the near-century since his career, but he enjoyed a spectacular moment of fame in his time: He and his flight mate, an apparently dislikable man named Charles Levine, flew from New York to Northeastern Germany, a record-breaking distance of 3,905 miles (139). Germany regarded them as national heroes much the way France had received Lindbergh (139).

Lindbergh’s fame continued to surge in the United States. Chapter 11 details the type of enthusiasm he produced at various events around the country. Bryson says Lindbergh was “the most valuable human commodity on the planet” (155), and he balanced public appearances and receptions with endorsement deals and interviews. A parade in his honor in New York City was far more attended than even the Armistice parade that marked the end of World War I in 1918 (153). Bryson notes that both Lindbergh and his mother displayed “odd” behaviors when confronted with public interest and adoration, like snubbing the president and sneaking out of parties without saying goodbye (144; 154).

Babe Ruth surfaces in these chapters both on and off the baseball diamond. Chapter 10 opens with a scene from within a movie theater—Babe Ruth watching the movie Babe Comes Home, about and starring himself. It was generally unpopular, though Ruth adored it (135). He also promised to hit a home run for Lindbergh during a game the aviator was scheduled to attend. Ruth hit the home run, but Lindbergh’s schedule was so busy, he never made it to the stadium. Ruth’s home run hitting in general improved throughout the early summer, and as the championship season approached, professional baseball in 1927 “was suddenly getting interesting” (157).

Chapter 12 details Prohibition—the 13-year legal ban on alcohol (for recreational consumption) that centrally shaped American life in the 1920s. Bryson stresses the logistical failures of the legislation: “Almost everything about Prohibition was either inept or farcical” (162). For example, without a liquor tax, the government lost an estimated $500 million a year (162). The law was also incredibly difficult to enforce. An unregulated black market opened, and clandestine “speakeasies” operated with great success. Alcohol consumption actually increased during Prohibition, as did crime and murder rates (167). The chapter opens with a grizzly anecdote that explains how the government poisoned (“denatured”) industrial alcohol so that anyone who consumed it as liquor could be blinded, crippled, or killed as an example and warning (161).

Bryson provides some background on the grassroots movement that produced Prohibition legislation, which stressed “that drinking was responsible for poverty, broken marriages, lost earnings, and all the other evils of modern society” (164). Throughout the 1910s, many states adopted Prohibition laws, and stances against alcohol became politically savvy. Anti-German sentiment in the United States created a surge of support for Prohibition since German immigrant families owned so many breweries in the United States. The general public, however, vastly underestimated the extent to which Prohibition legislation would extend. Many “had assumed that beer and unfortified wines would be spared” (167). Alcohol sales and consumption flourished through loopholes and illegal operation. Bryson flags that Prohibition was “about to have a turning point” by June 1927, particularly for its chief enthusiast and propagandist, a man named Wayne Wheeler.

Chapter 13 is brief and concludes the “June” section with the final American aviation accomplishment of the summer: explorer Richard Byrd’s late-June drama-filled flight in an aircraft much larger than Lindbergh’s with the purpose of proving “that the world was ready for safe, regular, multiperson flights over the Atlantic” (180). The team crash-landed near Ver-sur-Mer, France, but no one was injured, and the French and American publics were yet again enamored by American aerial accomplishments. Bryson concludes the section by declaring, “America, it seemed, had become a land of gods” (185).