Overview

Notes

• The second half of the nineteenth century in the United States saw many changes. The Civil War transformed the nation—politically, economically, and socially.
• The population of the United States also dramatically increased, largely due to immigration.
• Before the Civil War and industrialization, workers, the poor, vagrants, and unheroic soldiers were rarely the subjects of fiction.
• As American writers began to grapple with the particularities of their nation, from the 1830s to the end of the century, realism became an important aspect of the American literary aesthetic.
• An intensification of realism, naturalism, particularly that practiced by Ambrose Bierce, Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, and Jack London, was informed by philosophical and scientific developments in Europe and North America.
• Regionalism and the desire to preserve expressions of modes of life before industrialization became an important impulse in American writing.
• Nonfictional realist works were also written to speak of the unsolved social problems of the time.
• Changing social, economic, and political realities in the period following industrialization was dealt with in imaginative and distinctive ways by authors of the period.

Full Text

The second half of the nineteenth century in the United States saw many changes. The Civil War transformed the nation - politically, economically, and socially - devastating many parts of the South. The war effort, however, also stimulated technological innovations, ushering in a new period of industrialization. A significant feat of the era was the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, enabled in large part by the labor of immigrants, especially Chinese Americans. With the discovery of mineral deposits, increased agricultural productivity, and cheap labor the nation was able to propel its own development. As it ceased to be politically or economically dependent on other powers, the United States began its own imperialist expansion policy overseas following the Spanish-American War of 1898.

The population of the United States also dramatically increased, largely due to immigration. Many immigrants settled in cities such as Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia and contributed in vital ways to the economic rise of the United States. Immigration from 1865–1924 altered the ethnic composition of the nation such that New Englanders ceased to be the most populous group by the turn of the century. Native-born white people and white European immigrants viewed one another with hostility and suspicion resulting in unprecedented levels of social unrest. But rampant industrialization and urbanization, which benefited a few capitalists and entrepreneurs, also resulted in harsh living conditions for many, especially farmers who were pushed off their lands by the workings of monopolistic economic practices, whereby a few businessmen such as Carnegie, Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and Vanderbilt, who controlled profitable industries, were able to become “captains of industry.” These industrialists were able to accumulate high amounts of wealth and social, economic, and political power because of low wages (due to labor oversupply), but also because laborers were not organized and hence had little political power. Following the establishment of the American Federation of Labor in the 1880s, laborers were able to agitate for more equitable treatment. Writers such as Upton Sinclair were critical about urban life, comparing cities to jungles where only the strong and lucky survive.

Before the Civil War and industrialization, workers, the poor, vagrants, and unheroic soldiers were rarely the subjects of fiction. But changes in the marketplace, most notably in the publishing industry, altered that. Newspapers became important spaces to disseminate political, social, and cultural ideas. Many writers including Ambrose Bierce, Sui Sin Far, Abraham Cahan, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Mark Twain, Theodore Dreiser, and William Dean Howells began their careers as journalists. By the mid-eighteenth century, monthly magazines showcasing a “distinctively” American culture emerged as an important forum for writers.

As American writers began to grapple with the particularities of their nation, from the 1830s to the end of the century, realism became an important aspect of the American literary aesthetic. Many writers grappled with the “crisis of representation”—the notion that a gap exists between the literary representation and that which is being represented. Edith Wharton combined particularities with satire, reflecting more on human consciousness than on the settings or furnishings. Henry James and Mark Twain understood language as an interpretation of the real, rather than the real thing itself.

An intensification of realism, naturalism, particularly that practiced by Ambrose Bierce, Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, and Jack London, was informed by philosophical and scientific developments in Europe and North America. Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, proposed the idea of human evolution and some of his ideas were extended to account for human behavior in literary works. While industrialists such as Andrew Carnegie extended this argument to explain why only a few individuals would ever be able to be at the top of the “economic” ladder, few writers unquestioningly adopted a vulgarly deterministic view of human behavior. Stephen Crane, for instance, hinted that biology, psychology, and environment shaped, but did not wholly determine, human behavior.

Regionalism and the desire to preserve expressions of modes of life before industrialization became an important impulse in American writing. Focusing on specific regions within the nation, writers such as Bret Harte, Hamlin Garland, Mark Twain, and Kate Chopin captured the sensibilities of particular places. Women writers such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sarah Orne Jewett, Sui Sin Far, and Constance Fenimore Woolson offered the additional perspective of women’s experiences. Instead of merely lamenting the postwar economic and spiritual devastation of the nation, this new group of women explored issues of relevance to women’s political, economic, and social conditions.

Nonfictional realist works were also written to speak of the unsolved social problems of the time. Women’s rights, the devastation of nature, exploitation of labor, racial inequality, and corruption among political and business leaders became important topics for nonfictional prose. Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery and W. E. B. Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folk became important works that focused on racial inequality in the United States.

Many authors of the era did not separate aesthetics from politics. Changing social, economic, and political realities in the period following industrialization was dealt with in imaginative and distinctive ways by authors of the period. In sum, the enduring forms of fictional realism and nonfictional prose of the era created a space for literature to reflect on the radical transformation of life.