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...which explains a lot of the shock/horror expressed in the imagery. The first two decades of the 20th century were marked by the acceleration of the military/industrial complex which helped drive the world toward the war, Marxism rising in the Russian Empire. Also the steep upward curve of the technology explosion began roughly 1900 - with machinery replacing humans in every type of physical work, electronics just over the horizon with Edison's AC/DC current running electricity to everyone. New weapons TNT, poison gas, machine guns, bombs, airplanes, warships, tanks thundering around. Corruption rampant in Europe and elsewhere (contributing to the chaos which brought the first global conflict).
The world was shrinking and insecurity abounded globally. People sensed that an older world was fading away rapidly (too rapidly) to be replaced by one that Sigmund Freud et al believed would be so distracted from human emotional health needs, it would drive everyone in it to madness eventually IN THE NAME OF "PROGRESS".
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