"This book considers American art as a response to political, social, and economic conditions. It opens at the start of the century, when boundaries between high art and all that simmered beneath it were collapsing. In these pages, we are able to see the dramatic changes that characterized art in the first half of the century. We discover why the New York Armory Show of 1913 was such a shock to many artistic sensibilities; how Alfred Stieglitz and his circle drove photography toward modernism, a movement that would eventually include all the arts; and how the Depression (and the WPA) shaped a generation of artists, leaving a rich, public legacy in photography, painting, literature, and architecture. By the century's midpoint, the artistic output of this still young nation was astonishing."--BOOK JACKET.