(Congratulations to our winner from last week’s post, Brentlee Shoemaker! Brentlee, please email your mailing address to me, Amy, at agreen@bethanyhouse.com so I can send you a copy of Against the Tide.)
The 1900s brought some dramatic changes: from fashion to world events to courtship. Three of our authors responded with thoughts on the historical events of their books’ settings, and how the traditions of romance have changed from back then to where they are now.
First, Janette Oke shares more about the shift in attitude that came in the 1920s, and how that change impacted the heroine of her new release.
Title and Setting: Where Courage Calls, 1920s Canada
My Question:
What was the attitude of the time period toward romance and courtship?
Janette’s Answer:
The story of Beth Thatcher took place during the Roaring Twenties—a time when the world was quickly changing in so many ways, after the First World War. Coming from a very wealthy, conservative home and daring to venture out on her own seemed scary enough—but forming new worldviews, new perimeters, new social standards, and new relationships was totally mind-boggling. Especially for a young girl who was not looking for a life partner . . . yet.
At the time, there was a measure of transition happening. In the past, the parents of the upper class were very involved in the process of match-making. Young ladies debuted into society. Proper young men were welcomed as suitors, others quietly rejected.
In the time period for our story, more young women were seeking a new independence. Many were furthering their education and thus choosing their future career. They were being much more exposed to the world and all of its possibilities and pitfalls. For many it was a totally new world that frightened parents and excited youth. In a way, they were joining the society around them, where the lower classes had already been making such decisions on their own.
Chat with Janette on a March 4th Facebook Party!
Siri Mitchell‘s upcoming release, Love Comes Calling, also takes place in the 1920s…but in the bustling city of Boston instead of a remote mining town. Her main character, Ellis, encounters all the commotion and chaos of the Prohibition era.
Title and Setting: Love Comes Calling, 1920s Boston
My Question:
What did you personally find interesting about your main characters’ relationship?
Siri’s Answer:
It’s a romance between two people in the upper strata of Boston society who are burdened by the expectations of their family and friends¬. They both see (and love) each other for the people they are, not the people others want them to be.
My Question:
What was an interesting dating tradition of this time?
Siri’s Answer:
The Roaring Twenties was known for its fads. These were the years in which the dance marathon was born. This is also when “dating” truly began. The term “blind date” first appeared in 1921.
My Question:
What about the relationship in your book was typical of the time period and what was not typical?
Siri’s Answer:
Part of the story takes place on a college campus. As a writer of historicals, it was a treat to place a book in an era when women were attending college. One of the plot points involves the heroine, Ellis, trying to avoid being “pinned” by the fraternity boy hero, Griffin. Pinning is long-time tradition in the Greek System in which the fraternity boy offers his fraternity pin to his sweetheart. As a member of Alpha Xi Delta sorority, it was fun to be able to share that tradition with my readers.
My Question:
How was romance/courtship different from what it looks like today?
Siri’s Answer:
Actually, it was during this period that romance and courtship began to take on the look and feel of our modern era as the concept of dating became established. The 1920s are also notorious for their ‘anything goes’ mentality. The slide in morality among the decade’s youth can be blamed on two things: movies and the automobile. Many young men of the era freely volunteered that everything they knew about kissing, necking, and petting they learned from the movies. And the car changed everything. No longer did a boy have to spend his time courting a girl within the confines of her family home at the invitation of her wary parents. If you were going to let a boy buy you a drink or take you out to dinner, then you owed him something. This shift of control in the dating arena from the female to the male forever altered relations between the genders.
Connect with Siri on Facebook, Twitter, and her website.
Finally, Kate Breslin writes about the turmoil of the early half of the century from an ocean away in the midst of World War Two. Here, she shares how such a conflict might shape the lives and hearts of those in the middle of it all.
Title and Setting: For Such a Time, 1944 Czechoslovakia
My Question:
What did you personally find interesting about your main characters’ relationship?
Kate’s Answer:
The fact that they have one. My hero, Aric von Schmidt, is a SS-Nazi Kommandant in charge of the camp; my heroine, Hadassah Benjamin, is a blond, blue-eyed Jewess who poses as his Aryan secretary, Stella Muller. Stella has every reason to despise Aric as she watches her own people struggle against Nazi brutality and the constant threat of Auschwitz. Aric, a man of hidden depths, finds himself drawn to “Stella,” knowing only that she was raised by Jews and fearing her hatred of him once he’s executed his part in the Nazi’s Final Solution—the total annihilation of Jews inside his camp.
My Question:
What about the relationship in your novel was typical of the time period and what was atypical?
Kate’s Answer:
During my research, I found the occasional instance of Jewish women marrying Nazi officers, but it certainly wasn’t the norm. Nazi romance and courtship was a very “white bread” ideal. Each man of good German stock was to marry a blond, fair-featured Aryan female to bear him many children for the Nazi state. She would be a model mother and homemaker, unobtrusive in her manner and dress, and keep for him a happy home and hearth. The Nazis expended much propaganda to this end. The U.S. had their own share of propaganda, but aimed it more toward encouraging women to take on roles previously held by men.
As far as romance and marriage, while expectations here were not rigidly idealized as in Germany, many young women felt pressured to meet and marry a serviceman before he departed for the war. I’ll also note here that German women were prohibited from a professional career during wartime or from joining the armed service, while our women became more independent, filling in for our men in all facets of work as well as serving as nurses and other occupations in the armed forces.
I believe that romance, when it did occur during this time, must have felt more amplified than it does today. The world was at war, and men everywhere were being pressed or drafted into service to fight and perhaps die. The European Jewry had been rounded up by Hitler and was being slowly exterminated. Life in every aspect became precious, the future fragile and uncertain. For many, a sense of urgency to form lasting bonds drove them beyond conventional rites of romance and courtship. Marriages took place in all venues—perhaps a weekend’s liberty in some foreign country or in the middle of a concentration camp.
Connect with Kate on Facebook and her website.
This time our giveaway prize is a little different: two winners will receive DVDs of When Calls the Heart, based on the novel by Janette Oke. To enter, comment on this blog post with an answer to this question: if you could travel back in time to any period in history, which would you pick and why? Winners will be posted on a new blog post on Thursday, March 6th.
