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The Great Depression in 1929 marked a return to the U.S. for a number of American artists, writers and musicians who had chosen a sort of self-imposed exile to Paris at the end of world War I.
Many of the writers – Ernest Hemmingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and John dos Passos – experienced the horrors associated with World War I that created an alienation aspect separating them from seeking fortune and fame in the U.S. Their overseas adventures courtesy of the U.S. government gained them entry to the cosmopolitan centers of Europe that included London, Paris, Rome and other famed cities.
Other affluent Americans continued the practice many stateside pursued taking extended holidays to the continent where exposure to these history-rich, culture-packed urban centers attracted many of the disillusioned like Gertrude Stein. It was Stein who coined the term “Lost Generation” when she referred to Hemmingway and his pals who sought the true meaning of life in their self-exiled adventures.
Eventually, many like Hemmingway and Fitzgerald would return to the U.S. where these adventures would find their way in words in the many novels and other literary works considered by critics as some of the best produced during the 20th century. Additionally, artists and other American musicians returned to the states incorporating those influences experienced in early 20th century European life into a new post World War I American viewpoint.
Returning home was not without its hardships and obstacles. The leftover Victorian social mores and repressed values exhibited in such American anomalies as Prohibition haunted many repatriates. Some, like Hemmingway, took off again. This time he headed for the Caribbean paradise of Cuba where the Latin flavors he tasted during the Spanish Civil War in 1936 could once again be tasted.
The Spanish Civil War had among its observers British expatriates such as George Orwell. His experiences during this time of civil unrest on the Iberian Peninsula would form the basis for many of his writings once returned home to England out the outbreak of the second World War.
The 10-year time period between the advent of the Great Depression in 1929 and the beginning of World War II in 1939 saw the return of many western country-based writers and other artists forced to return to their native lands due to economic hardships or fear of capture from the advancing German armies that soon conquered all of Europe save the British Isles.
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