The student essay included here is reprinted as it appeared in the student's free-response booklet. It is used with the student's permission. When reading the essay, remember that the student who wrote it had limited time to read the question and to organize and write a response. Even the best essays may contain some mistakes in grammar and punctuation and occasional awkwardness in expression due to the students' lack of time to proofread, polish, and revise.
Every society goes through periods of change every so often.
As various forces are at work among the people and conditions are altered, tensions mount and attitudes change. In the United States, the 1920's were just such a time of hesitation between new beliefs and traditional values. Between the drastic occurances of World War I and the stagnation of the Great Depression, many events showed this tension. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, American society was changing rapidly. Many of these changes helped produce the tension of the 1920's.