America Breaks and Grows
1865-1939
Reconstruction: 1865-1877
Gilded Age: 1877-1890
Progressive Era: 1890-1914
WWI: 1914-1919
Roaring 20’s: 1920-1929
Great Depression: 1929-1939
How Did We Get Here?



1863 – Emancipation
Proclamation
1864 – Nathaniel
Hawthorne died. Opened
the doors, so to speak.
1865 – Twain hits his
stride. “The Celebrated
Jumping Frog of
Calaveras County"
1835-1910
End of Civil War
April 12, 1861 to April 9, 1865



Walt Whitman (18191892) saw Lincoln
often, but the two
never met face to face.
Wrote much about
Lincoln.
“When Lilacs Last in
the Dooryard Bloom’d”
“O Captain, My
Captain”
Lincoln Assassinated on April 14
Whitman’s Themes





Transcendent power of love,
brotherhood, and comradeship
Imaginative projection into
others’ lives
Optimistic faith in democracy and
equality
Belief in regenerative and
illustrative powers of nature and
its value as a teacher
Equivalence of body and soul
and the unabashed exaltation of
the body and sexuality
Reconstruction: 1865-1877







Carpetbaggers
Copperheads
14th amendment – Minorities born in USA get
citizenship (not Native Americans)
15th Amendment – Black men get right to vote
Military rule over South
1866 – Freedmen’s Bureau
1870- Grant’s Ku Klux Klan Act designed to
curtail the KKK using federal troops
1876: 100 Year Anniversary





Grown from 2.5 M to 46 M people
Exports exceeded imports for first time
Rights of Women movement starts
NYC: Children’s Aid Society contains
11,000 homeless boys; 3000 more
abandoned babies on its doorstep
Vanderbilt Family spends $200,000 on a
party. Wealth gap increases.
Gilded Age: 1877-1893







Twain, William Dean Howells, Louisa
May Alcott, Bret Harte, Henry James
Blue collar worker expansion
Rural to urban migration
1870-1900: 12 million immigrants
70% through New York
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
German, English, Irish, Chinese
William Dean Howells: 1837-1920
• Campaign Manager for Lincoln
• U.S. Consul to Italy (1861-1865)
• Editor of Atlantic Monthly (18711881)
• Realism author. Rise of Silas
Lapham (1885)
• Dean of American Letters
• Wrote a hundred books in
various genres, including
novels, poems, literary
criticism, plays, memoirs, and
travel narratives
• Social Issues subject of his
books: women’s rights, workers
rights, and rights for minorities.
• 1887 – execution of Haymarket
radicals
Louisa May Alcott
(1832-1888)




1868 – Little Women
1871 – Little Men
1873 – Work
Promoted
interracial
marriage and
racial blurring.
Alcott’s novels emphasize the growth their heroines must
undergo to become intellectually and emotionally
independent. In Alcott's vision of womanhood, only when
a woman can stand alone and is not dependent on a man
for fulfillment is she capable of finding happiness, whether
married or not. By 1882, she was famous and wealthy.
Emily Dickinson: 1830-1886


Throughout her life, she
seldom left her house and
visitors were scarce.
Her poems are typically
marked by the intimate
recollection of inspirational
moments, which are
decidedly life-giving and
suggest the possibility of
happiness.
Wrote about 800 good
poems
Bret Harte: 1836-1902





Short stories of the West
1867 – The Lost Galleon
1869 – Outcasts of Poker Flat
1876 – Gabriel Conroy
Romanticist thwarted by
Realism. Stock characters.
Twain and Harte broke off friendship in
1877, after the flop of a co-written
play.
Twain said, “"Well, Bret came down to
Hartford and we talked it over, and
then Bret wrote it while I played
billiards, but of course I had to go over
it to get the dialect right. Bret never did
know anything about dialect."

Henry James: 1843-1916







1877 – The American
1878 – Daisy Miller
1881 – Portrait of a Lady
1886 – Bostonians
1897 – What Maisie Knew
1898 – Turn of the Screw
W.D.H. on James: “[It is his] realism of
Daudet rather than the realism of Zola
that prevails [in his work], and it has a
soul of its own…” (A compliment)
Westward Ho!







1849 Gold Rush
1876 Dakota Gold Rush
1896 Klondike Gold Rush
Manifest Destiny
Explorers, Outlaws, Lawmen
Land Grant states
Indian Wars
American Gold Rushes



1848 – California: Before the discovery of gold,
California contained 12,000 Mexicans, 20,000 Native
Americans and 2,000 Yankees. By 1850, there were
more than 100,000 immigrants.
1874 – South Dakota: 1,000 men, led by General
Custer patrolled the Black Hills area, a large region
held sacred by the Sioux. A couple miners attached to
his party discovered gold. The mines produced 10
percent of the world’s gold supply over the next 125
years.
1896 – Klondike, Alaska: Gold discovered in the White
and Chilkoot passes, each inhumanly forbidding highaltitude areas. Of the 100,000 people who set out for
the Klondike, 30-40 thousand got there, and only 1520 thousand prospected. Possibly 4,000 found some
gold.
Explorers, Outlaws, and Lawmen
▪ Cochise, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, and Custer
▪ "Buffalo Bill" Cody
▪ Theodore Roosevelt
▪ Butch Cassidy and "The
Sundance Kid"
▪ John Fremont
▪ Billy the Kid
▪ Earp Brothers and Doc
Holliday
▪ Jesse James Gang
▪ Calamity Jane
The dead men after the OK
Corral Shootout
Manifest Destiny
From 1845-1890, this meant Westward
expansion. From 1890-1929, it meant
expansion outside of North America.
Lady Columbia, a
personification of
America, leads
settlers westward,
stringing telegraph
wire as she travels,
while holding a
schoolbook. The
Indians and wild
animals flee. Notice
the different socioeconomic
backgrounds
represented.
“Indian” Wars: 1872-1890

Battle of the Little Big Horn (1876): General
Custer’s force of just over 200 engaged the
Lakota and Cheyenne Indian force of about 750.
Custer and his entire force were killed in about 3
hours.
Massacre
at
Wounded Knee
(1890): fighting
lasted less than an
hour; over 150
Lakota were killed
and 50 wounded.
The U.S. Army
casualties numbered
25 dead and 39
wounded.
Oklahoma Land Rush

1889-1895: In 1893 alone, more than 100,000 white
settlers rush into Oklahoma's Cherokee Outlet to
claim seven million acres of former Cherokee land.
1892 World’s Fair,
Edison’s Telephone,
Chicago Riot
Depression (Panic) of 1893






Why? Gold standard changed
New building construction
Agrarian factors – limited economic influence
and increased competition
High debt (especially to England)
1870-1890 number of farms rose 80%, to 4.5
Million
1870-1890 price of farmed goods dropped 60%
Unemployment Rates
1890-1900
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900
Rise of Business, Unions, and
Socialism: 1890-1910





1890 – Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1 901, 1911)
1890 – Jane Addams’ Hull House founded
1891 – Populist Party formed
1891 – Edison’s Kinetoscope is invented
Hamlin Garland, Sara Orne Jewitt, Stephen
Crane, Kate Chopin, Emily Dickinson, Frank
Norris, Theodore Dreiser
Naturalism relies on these conditions
Hamlin Garland: 1860-1940



A novelist, short-story writer,
poet, essayist, and memoirist,
Garland lectured widely on
American literature and writers
for over 40 years.
1891 – Main-Traveled Roads
“Under the Lion’s Paw” is most
famous short story.
Sara Orne Jewitt: 1849-1909


1890 – Tales of New
England
Her fiction is
characterized by intimate
views of characters' lives,
the growth and trials of
friendship, and a good
deal of humor, both broad
and subtle.
Stephen Crane: 1871-1900
Realist
 1893 – Maggie, Girl
of the Streets
 1895 – Red Badge
of Courage
 1897 – “The Open
Boat”

1900 Census



76.2 Million
People
45 states
1800 Census:
5.3 Million
People
New York’s Metropolitan Museum excluded the working class, as it was
closed on Sunday, the only day workers were free. That changed in
1891 as an early “Progressive” move.
Kate Chopin: 1851-1904






1894 – Bayou Folk
“A Pair of Silk Stockings”
“Desiree’s Baby”
“The Story of an Hour”
1899 – The Awakening
Realist. Distinctly unsentimental
in her approach, she often relied
on popular period motifs, such as
the conflict of the Yankee
businessman and the Creole.
Progressive Era: 1893-1914
Congress chartered the National Child Labor Committee in
1907. However, it took until 1938 before Congress
disallowed kids under 16 to work in dangerous jobs.
Congress also enacted the 40 hour work week in 1938.
Frank Norris: 1870-1902
Naturalist who takes on
Big Business
 1899 – McTeague
 1900 – A Man’s Woman
 1900 – Blix
 1902 – The Pit


Most of his works include
realistic descriptions of
violence, squalor, and
determinism.
Theodore Dreiser: 1871-1945





1900 – Sister Carrie
1912 – The Financier
Naturalist – Social inequality
1925 – An American Tragedy
From An American Tragedy:
"Well, here is one who,
whatever her defects, probably
does what she believes as
nearly as possible."
Early American Imperialism






Panama Canal (1904-1914)
Spanish American War
(1898)
 Puerto Rico, Philippines,
Cuba, Guam
Lending issues with Europe
Chinese ports for trade
Oil contracts
Edith Wharton, Jack
London, Robert Frost,
Gertrude Stein, Sinclair
Lewis, Hamlin Garland, T.S.
Eliot, Sherwood Anderson
Edith Wharton: 1862-1937






1905 – House of Mirth
1911 – Ethan Frome
1920 – The Age of Innocence
Wharton made fun of the
narrow-minded and ignorant
upper class through irony
Crossed the Atlantic 66 times
Won France’s highest civilian
award
Jack London (1876-1916)











Highest paid, most popular writer in America in
early 20th Century.
Man vs. Nature
An illegitimate child from California
At 15 became an oyster pirate
At 17 joined a sealing ship for 3 months
30 day imprisonment; after, went to Cal Berkeley
Gained information for stories from his time in the
Klondike searching for gold
Call of the Wild (1903), Sea-Wolf (1904), White
Fang (1906)
Died a millionaire at 40 of various diseases and
treatments
First real “scientific farmer” – Darwinist
stockbreeder
Built his own ship, The Snark, and cruised the
South Pacific for 27 months.
Robert Frost (1874-1963)







4 Pulitzer Prizes
Called the “American Bard”
“Road Not Taken,” “Mending
Wall,” “Stopping By Woods on a
Snowy Evening”
Born in California; named for
Robert E. Lee
New England settings; moved
there at 11
Study of contrasts – dark and
depressed/beauty of nature
Traditional form and meter
Gertrude Stein (1874-1946)
Coined the term “Lost
Generation”
 Openly lesbian and feminist
(Alice B. Toklas)
 Volunteered to drive supply
vehicles in WWI in France
 Spent most of her life abroad,
especially in France
 Anti-FDR; opposed New Deal
 Elitist poet and author
 Three Lives (1909); Tender
Buttons (1914)
 Picasso (1938); Patriarchal
Poetry (1953)

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)

Nobel Prize in 1930 (first
American winner)
 22 novels and 3 plays
 Main Street (1920); Babbitt
(1922)
 Socialist (typical of many
authors of his time)
 Awarded Pulitzer Prize in 1926,
but rejected it, saying prizes
were silly. He had lost the
Pulitzer twice as a runner-up.
He accepted the Nobel in 1930.
Hamlin Garland (1860-1940)








Midwestern guy (Wisconsin)
Main-Traveled Roads (1891):
“Under the Lion’s Paw”
Realist – can we argue Naturalist,
too?
1922 Pulitzer Prize
Wrote biographies and much about
the Wild West and issues
concerning the Midwest
The Book of the American Indian
(1923)
Forty Years of Psychic Research
(1936)
The Mystery of the Buried Crosses
(1939)
T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)








1948 Nobel Prize
Literary Critic, poet, essayist,
dramatist
“Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
(1917)
Wasteland (1922)
Born in USA; became British citizen in
1927
Modernist – Ezra Pound’s “Make it
New!”
Ash Wednesday (1930) – Conversion
Poem
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats
(1939) – became the basis for
Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical Cats.
A book for children.
Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941)






Winesburg, Ohio – short story
collection (1919)
Fought in Spanish American War
(1899)
American Grotesque
Epitaph: “Life, Not Death, is the
Great Adventure”
"Everyone in the world is Christ and
they are all crucified."
Friends with famous authors of his
time: William Faulkner, F. Scott
Fitzgerald, Carl Sandburg, and
scrapped with Hemingway.
Black America




Jim Crow Laws
(1876-1968)
1896 – Plessy vs
Ferguson
Harlem
Renaissance (19191934)
KKK (1866-1873;
1925-present)
Jim Crow Laws (18761954, 1964, 1968)




Enacted in Southern States as
Reconstruction ended (1876).
Basically overruled 14th and 15th
Amendments (1870)
Horrific laws imposed on Blacks
Examples: voting disfranchisement, public
accommodations, living quarters, athletics,
separate libraries, advertisements marked
“colored” or “white,” etc.
Plessy vs. Ferguson
(1896)





Upheld the Constitutionality of Racial Segregation
(Separate IS Equal)
June 7, 1892, in a planned act, Homer Plessy
boarded a whites-only train car. He was an
octoroon, and could often “pass.” He did not this
time. He refused to leave and was arrested. Lost
his case in local, district, and federal courts.
Destroyed most of 1875 Civil Rights Laws
Upheld most of 1890 Louisiana State mandatory
separation laws.
Overturned in 1954 Brown vs. Topeka Board of Ed.
Harlem Renaissance
(1919-1934)
The Harlem Renaissance was more than just
a literary movement: it included racial
consciousness, "the Back to Africa"
movement led by Marcus Garvey, racial
integration, the explosion of music
particularly jazz, spirituals and blues,
painting, dramatic revues, and others.
Langston Hughes, WEB DuBois (The Talented
Tenth), Booker T. Washington (D. 1915, but
impact greatly felt), Jean Toomer, Zora Neale
Hurston, Claude McKay, Arna Bontemps,
Nella Larsen.
William H. Johnson - artist
KKK (1866-1873; 1915-present)






Birth of a Nation (1915)
Founded by Confederate
Soldiers after Civil War
Destroyed by Pres. Grant
with 1870-1871 Civil Rights
Acts (Federal Troops)
In 1925, 15% of all white
men (4.7 million) were in
KKK
Anti: Catholic, Black, Jew,
Communist
Today: 70,000 members
nationwide, in numerous
small “cells” or “chapters”
WWI (1914-1919)










The Great War
Trench Warfare
Almost 10 million killed
Germany lost, and several European nations earned
independence.
Britain lost imperialistic ground
Unresolved issues led to European theatre in WWII
America emerged from limited involvement as world
power
Battle of the Somme – 450,000 British Dead
U-Boats and the Lusitania
Zimmerman Telegram (from British Room 40)
Trenches, Machine Guns,
and Poison Gas
Jingoism/Nationalism




“Extreme chauvinism” and Nativism
Imperialism and heavy military influence
Teddy Roosevelt – 1893
Suppression of rights for immigrants
Modernism: 1917-1939



Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Wallace
Stevens, Ernest Hemingway, William
Carlos Williams, Edna St. Vincent Millay,
John Steinbeck, William Faulkner
Political, artistic and cultural movement
that is positive and powerful, advocating
the use of all scientific and human means
of determining a better environment and
living it. “Make it new!”
Roughly encompasses 1890-1940
Roaring 20’s (1919-1929)




Intolerance, isolation, cynicism
$5 workday, incredible economic
power, first Transatlantic flight, Jazz
Age
Gangsters, KKK, harsh immigration
laws, Volstead Act (Prohibition)
Flappers, parties, wealth acquisition,
automobile, aircraft, radio, telephone
Stock Market Crash (1929)





Buying stock on margin – for each dollar of
stock, purchased $9 of stock
DOW increased from 60 to 400 from 1921 to
1929. Did not reach 400 again until 1955.
Economics - banks had invested customer
money in stock (on margin). 10,000 banks
failed, and $140 Billion in customer money
disappeared. Also the Fed had raised interest
rates too high to stifle inflation.
Did not learn lessons from the first depression
in 1893
Market lost $16 Billion in capitalization
Great Depression
1929-1939






Migration
War machine
CCC
New Deal
Patriotism (against communism)
Stats: 32% of Americans were below
poverty line.
Ezra Pound (1885-1972)









Most important player in Modernist movements in
literature and the arts
Left U.S. for China and Europe in 1908
“invented” imagism in art, sculpture, and poetry
Detested WWI – felt betrayed by Europe and U.S.
Cathay (1915)
The Cantos (1915-1972) – an epic spanning
his entire life. Portions of it won major awards
In 1924, Pound moved to Italy. Not a wise choice
overall. Worked for Axis powers during WWII as
propagandist. Nervous breakdown in 1945 in prison.
Arrested and tried for treason by U.S. Government.
Found unfit for trial because of insanity.
Institutionalized from 1946-1958. Released in 1958,
moved to Italy, and stayed until death.
Vicious opponent of federal banking systems.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)







“Inventor” of “Lost Generation” novel
Named after his relative, Francis Scott
Key. Married Zelda Sayre in 1920.
The Romantic Egotist (1920)
The Great Gatsby (1923)
Tender is the Night (1934)
Friends with Hemingway, until a fight
split them forever. (Zelda hated
Hemingway anyway).
Zelda was inspiration for much of his
partying, “lost” characters. He quoted
her directly in some characters. She had
a more powerful personality than
Fitzgerald.
Wallace Stevens
(1879-1955)








Major Modernist poet
Fun fact: His wife Elsie’s face was used
on the Mercury Dime (1916-1945)
Lawyer and eventual V.P. of insurance
company (The Hartford)
Pulitzer Prize in 1955
His best work was written after he turned
50, an amazing accomplishment.
Harmonium (1923)
National Book Awards (1951, 1955)
Believed old religion was dead, and life
must be lived differently now.
Ernest Hemingway
(1899-1961)









A part of ex-pat community in Paris.
Many canonical works:
In Our Time (1925)
Sun Also Rises (1926)
A Farewell to Arms (1929)
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
The Old Man and the Sea (1952) –
won Pulitzer for this in 1953. Won
Nobel in 1954.
Notorious exaggerator; great athlete.
Drove ambulance in WWI.
William Carlos Williams
(1883-1963)


Imagist poetry
“The Red Wheelbarrow”
Edna St. Vincent Millay
(1892-1950)


Sonnets (see course pack)
Bohemian
John Steinbeck
(1902-1968)

Modernist. Accent novellas first
William Faulkner
(1897-1962)





Time, identity, Southern Gothic
Absalom! Absalom!
Sound and the Fury
Snopes Trilogy
Yoknapatapha Xounty
Then What Happens?







German invasion of Poland, in 1939
End of Colonialism (1946-1950)
Atomic Bomb (1945)
WW II (1939-1945)
Korean War (1950-1953)
Cold War (1945-1989)
Vietnam (1964-1975)