<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article is written like a personal reflection or opinion essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal feelings about a topic . Please help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style . (July 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article is written like a personal reflection or opinion essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal feelings about a topic . Please help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style . (July 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> American modernism, much like the modernism movement in general, is a trend of philosophical thought arising from the widespread changes in culture and society in the age of modernity . American modernism is an artistic and cultural movement in the United States beginning at the turn of the 20th century, with a core period between World War I and World War II . Like its European counterpart, American modernism stemmed from a rejection of Enlightenment thinking, seeking to better represent reality in a new, more industrialized world . </P> <P> Characteristically, modernist art has a tendency to abstraction, is innovative, aesthetic, futuristic and self - referential . It includes visual art, literature, music, film, design, architecture as well as life style . It reacts against historicism, artistic conventions and institutionalization of art . Art was not only to be dealt with in academies, theaters or concert halls, but to be included in everyday life and accessible for everybody . Furthermore, cultural institutions concentrated on fine art and scholars paid little attention to the revolutionary styles of modernism . Economic and technological progress in the U.S. during the Roaring Twenties gave rise to widespread utopianism, which influenced some modernist artists, while others were skeptical of the embrace of technology . The victory in World War I confirmed the status of the U.S. as an international player and gave the people self - confidence and a feeling of security . In this context American modernism marked the beginning of American art as distinct and autonomous from European taste by breaking artistic conventions that had been shaped after European traditions until then . </P>

American businessmen in the 1920s thought that this defined modernity