First published 2014
Donald L. Miller chronicles how Manhattan transformed into America's cultural and commercial center during the 1920s. The book examines the ambitious figures who drove this change, from Walter Chrysler arriving from Kansas prairies to entertainment mogul Florenz Ziegfeld from Chicago. William Paley built the CBS radio network while competing with Russian immigrant David Sarnoff at NBC. Cosmetics rivals Elizabeth Arden from Canada and Helena Rubinstein from Poland battled for market dominance. Miller traces how mass communication emerged alongside engineering marvels like Grand Central Terminal, the Holland Tunnel, and modern skyscrapers. These developments shifted the city's center from downtown to midtown. In less than a decade, Manhattan became the nation's social, cultural, and commercial hub. Duke Ellington called it "the capital of everything" during this Jazz Age explosion. Miller's research reveals how vaulting ambition and shared dreams drew these diverse figures to New York, where they collectively created modern Manhattan.
Genres: biography, history, 20th-century, business, non-fiction, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: shared-dreams, vaulting-ambition
Setting: Manhattan, Kansas, Chicago, Canada, Poland
Period: 1920s, Jazz Age
784 pages · Kindle Edition · Simon Schuster