Playing an American character

>The psychological effects of both were more pronounced in America than Europe

Europe didn't have a long period of relative peace and near-famine at the same time.

Yeah, Europe just burnt itself down and destroyed its cities and large part of young male population in war

Consider that you're claiming that the psychological effect of WWI and the Great Depression was bigger in the US than say the Weimar Republic.

WWI barely bothered America at all, aside from the creeping sense that Woodrow Wilson had betrayed the fundamental concept of America in some profound but difficult to articulate sense.

Your character was likely a member of the Ku Klux Klan during its revival, but would have left in the 1930s when it became discredited by a series of controversies.

However, he'll still harbor deep suspicions of Jews, Catholics, and especially blacks.

>wife dies, mother dies
>keep it together for a day
>walk away from life and political career, go be a cowboy on the high plains
>just you, the infinite sky, and the darkness in your soul
>come home, immediately accidentally encounter long-suffering childhood friend/first girl before anyone knows you've come back, marry her, turning her from the most depressed person in the world to the happiest

/ourguy/

>Klansman
>in New York
That sounds like traitor-talk to me.

That and a whole lot of bad debt from the Entente. Stupendous amount, hard to articulate.

During its 1920s and early 30s revival, the KKK wasn't a regionally focused Southern thing. It was everywhere and was primarily focused on a patriotic nationalist identity rather than with a celebration of the Confederacy. They held gatherings in every state, and even paraded in Washington DC itself.

What we've got today is the third Klan, that rose during the Civil Rights movement and embraced the first Klan's regional southern pride focus.

One thing to remember was that America had a massive non-interventionist stance before WWI.

>"[America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit. -John Quincy Adams

The early 20th century occult scene in America was really fascinating, mostly because it didn't represent a counter-culture the way prominent European occultists like Aleister Crowley and Julius Evola were part of differing counter-culture movements in Europe.

Our involvement in the occult was official and almost openly conducted, with the hundreds of Freemason funded and designed public buildings across the country. Particularly in the midwest, where things were really just getting built at that time. Pretty much ever city hall, courthouse, etc. built between the late 19th century and the start of the WWII is a temple to ancient dark gods.

Like, take the St. Louis Civil Courts building for example. The top of the building is a ziggurat with a pair of solid aluminum sphinxes sitting at the peak facing east and west. There is a ring of Babylonian inscriptions between the courtroom floors and this sinister rooftop section, and the building's elevators don't reach the floor of rooms that can plainly be seen in the base of the ziggurat.

Sorry, I meant the part about the 1930s. What user said about WW1 was retarded.

He said American, not British.

It really pops up a lot if you live in the midwest, it's not uncommon to go to a small town and find mason imagery all over the place if you know where to look. It wouldn't really surprise me if the arch had some hidden symbols within it's walls lost to time, incidentally I think I have the plot of my next CoC game in mind.

The arch is absolutely part of the Masonic plot. From the top of the courthouse, the setting sun is visible through the arch on the solstice.

Okay, let me do a little bit of damage control for my fellow American here, because I think I know what he was TRYING to say.

WWI had a pretty disproportionate impact on the US for quite a lot of reasons. Firstly, WWI was almost as bloody as the Civil War - which many were still alive to remember, and was inarguably the bloodiest war in US history even today - and the usage of chemical and air weapons added a whole new dimension of horror and atrocity to warfare that many Americans were not expecting to deal with.

Americans also were not very heavily committed to either Central or Allied powers during the war, because there were large enclaves of ethnic groups hailing from both sides. This ethnic tension caused a lot of division and strife back home, even though the population did end up swaying more towards the Allies (if only begrudgedly). Chances are that this war killed somebody in your family, and that somebody in your neighbors family probably was the one that killed him.

The war was also fought to preserve European colonialism, most specifically that of the French and our previous rivals the British. By supporting the Allies, over 100,000 Americans fought and died to preserve an institution that they had, for at least a century and a half before, worked so hard to resist and end on their shores because it had once been used to suppress them. This left a bad taste in many Americans mouths, especially since GB had up to this point been much more of an enemy than an ally, while Germany had done little to antagonize the USA (until they started torpedoing shipping boats at least).

TLDR the US suffered thousands upon thousands of casualties to fight a horrific war on a foreign continent to protect the interests of their former enemies and preserve a system that had once been used to enslave them to that very enemy, against a foe they didn't really have a problem with, all for virtually no gain to themselves.

Repeat after me, user...

...jesus fucking christ it's prophetic and i'm not even a right winger

You were right, Mr. Adams

I think a sense of optimism and excitement for the future would be an important thing to keep in mind. America was going through one of the largest periods of its growth during the turn of the 20th century, and was rapidly becoming a major world economy with the Second Industrial Revolution. (First Industrial Revolution was more focused in England in the first half of the 19th centurt with steam engines, textile production and Second was more focused in the USA and Germany in the late 19th century and early 20th with such things as combustion engines, steel production, and electricity) There was lots of new wealth and immigration during this period, google "Gilded Age" if you want more information. Contemporary writing from turn of the century America is often optimistic and focused on the future of the nation, whether it be industrial production in the east, settlement in the west, or trying to snatch overseas colonies. I worked at a local museum in my hometown in Montana once and had to look through some pre-WWI local newspapers once. Large amounts of the material was about what was being built in the community, new opportunities, land for sale, et cetera, written in a very entrepreneurial, forward-thinking way that I don't see much in today's writing. I feel that turn of the century Americans had almost a naive sense of optimism in what the nation could accomplish. However, I'm speaking in general terms, there were of course a lot of discontent with increasing income disparity, and there were many socialist figures and even anarchists as well at the time. Essentially, I think it wouldn't be totally inaccurate to play him with an almost naive sense of future thinking and optimism. You say he has a hidden fascination with the supernatural, perhaps he would be thinking of ways that it could unlock human potential or revolutionize the world, for instance. Sorry for rambling, my writing might be bad, but I hope this helps.

t. History student from America

Also if you have any questions about that part of American history I would be happy to try to help, the turn of the century is one of my favorite time periods

Another thing that I remembered is that there was a lot of holier-than-thou moralistic thought going around America during that time as well, especially in the upper classes. Prohibition of alcohol during the 1920s stems from this line of thought, that the suffering of the poor could be alleviated and the moral fiber of the nation could be strengthened by removing sinful alcohol. It is also the reason that the United States still widely practices circumcision, it began in the late 19th century as a way to try to prevent masturbation.
It might be interesting to explore this in your character building, maybe he wouldn't drink alcohol or something on moral grounds.

You might also want to decide whether or not you want to have him lean towards the idealistic, hyper-moral Gilded Age line of thought or the more debauched Jazz Age, which was largely a departure from all the strictness of the previous generation

I have a curiosity, user. How did the anarchy movement in the 1919-1920 arise, and bring about the first red scare?

You don't have to be /pol/ to think America's strayed somewhat from her founding ideals.

What matters is figuring out how to correct the ship. And that's as far as I'll take that.

>the suffering of the poor could be alleviated by removing sinful alcohol
Just how removed from reality you must be to believe it will work?

>Lawyer from a wealthy, upper class background and a hidden fascination with the supernatural.

Darwinist, probably support the sterilization of the poor and the coloured. Is very concerned with being seen as sufficiently masculine, so he's taken to wearing a beaver coat in the city.

>Second biggest continental colonial Empire
>being against colonialism on general principles at any point

This is hilarious.

That's Eugenacist, not Darwinist.

Darwinist is 'let everyone breed, most children = most successful'

I thought Darwinist was gene-engineering giant biological monsters to use against the diesel-powered robots fielded by the axis?

>Darwinist is 'let everyone breed, most children = most successful'

I was talking about Social Darwinism there.

That's the Monroe Doctrine. Hands off the Americas! And we mostly kept our hands off, too, all that lovely Mexican clay we gave back.

Might be of interest to OP:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan
The old stereotype of Americans as cunning do-gooders that always poked their nose into things and came out rich was fading out by 1900 but was nowhere near as forgotten as it is now.

Have you ever met an alcoholic?

>the virgin sit vs the Chad spread

Being against something in principle has never stopped people from actually doing something.
It's just more visible when American's do it because they're so willing to tell people about the principles they don't always follow.

>european colonialism is wrong
>now if you'll excuse me, i need to go conquer the spanish colonies for myself
Americans.

Anarchist movements had been in the United States since the 19th century, but the trend towards violence that took place during the late 1910s mostly came from Italian immigrants who followed a more violent strain of anarchy. Luigi Galleani was the most prominent figure of this type of anarchist, and his followers carried out a number of bombings in 1919 and 1920. The Wall Street bombing in 1920 was the most fatal terrorist attack on US soil up to that point, and a lot of people became intensely suspicious of any and all anarchists, which then extended to all Italians, and then anyone with views outside of the status quo, communists, and so on. It was fear of Galleani's anarchists that ended up extending to anyone that could vaguely be associated with them. There was suspicion of Communists because they were radical and originated in Europe like the Anarchists.

Wear ten-gallon hats. Drop y'all into every sentence, as many times as possible. Speak with a drawl - if anyone at the table can understand you, you're not drawling hard enough.