1. The Age of Realism 1880 - 1914 “What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?” ~Henry James “A man said to the universe: ‘Sir, I exist!’ ‘However,’ replied the universe, ‘the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.’” ~Stephen Crane

2. Overview  After the Civil War, the US was revitalized by a wave of immigration and westward expansion. Rapid industrial development brought the country wealth and new status as a world power but produced unsettling social problems. The Progressive Movement emerged in an attempt to improve American politics, business, and community life by embracing social and political reform. In literature, writers turned from Romanticism to Realism, emphasizing ordinary characters and events and seeking to reflect life as it really was.

3. New Settlers Go West  Lured by an expanding rail system, available land, and the potential of farms, ranches, and mines hundreds of thousands of Americans moved west after the Civil War.  Census bureau declared the frontier closed in 1890.  Post-frontier US people realized the dreams of opportunity by building cities and forging industrial empires.  Although the frontier had closed, the doors of America remained open. Immigrants continued to pour into the US, adding momentum to westward expansion and filling cities and factories in the East.  US population in 1880: 50 million  US population in 1914: 76 million

4. Unfortunate Consequences for Native Americans  December 1890: army soldiers surrounded a band of Sioux near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota.  More than 200 Sioux men, women, and children were killed.  This massacre at Wounded Knee was the last “battle” of the American Indian Wars and marked the end of an era for Native Americans.  Life and culture for most Native Americans existed within the confines of reservations hereafter.

5. Literature of the Times  After the Civil War, authors deemed Romanticism inadequate in describing the horrors of the war.  A new generation of writers focused their attention on everyday life and ordinary human behavior. Regionalism and local color writing were a result of this.

6. Characteristics of Regionalism  Desire to record, celebrate and mythologize the vast diversity of the United States’ different geographical regions.  Strict attention to recording accurately the speech, mannerisms, behavior, and beliefs of people in specific locales.  Local-color writing that “paints” the local scenes and tends toward the humorous and sentimental.

7. America’s Diverse Regions Regionalism Local Color  Embraces not the universal but the particular, focusing on what specifically characterizes a geographical area and its people.  Writers strive to capture speech, dress, common beliefs, and social interactions of a given locale.  Mark Twain and Bret Harte  Regionalist writers attempt to re- create in careful detail both the relevant physical features of landscapes and towns and the colorful characters who inhabit them.  The shift toward interest in particular regions led to the movement known as local color.  Writers of local color use writing to “paint” local scenes.  Many works in this style contain interesting, eccentric characters and whimsical humor.  Tend towards the romantic and sometimes the sentimental.  The use of the vernacular is crucial to local-color writing.

8. The Perils of Prosperity  After the Civil War the US economy experienced unparalleled industrial growth.  Anchored by the established coal, steel, and railroad industries, new technologies based on electricity, oil, and internal combustion occurred.  New inventions such as automobiles, airplanes, skyscrapers, and motion pictures changed American life.  Industry was fueled by a seemingly endless supply of raw materials and cheap labor.  New business strategies mirrored technological developments.  Free of regulation, corporations merged into giant trusts, or monopolies, to control wages, fix prices, wipe out competition, and concentrate power in the hands of an elite few.  Captains of industry included Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, Jay Gould, and John D. Rockefeller.  Gap between rich and poor became a canyon: Carnegie earned more than 23 million in 1900; a steel worker in one of his plants earned about $500.

9. Expansion  Eager to translate its industrial might into a larger role in the world stage, the US quickly acquired Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to its territories.  Theodore Roosevelt used American vision and vigor to complete the Panama Canal.  Though the US dominated the Western Hemisphere and was an important presence in the Pacific, it was completely unprepared to deal with war looming in Europe in 1914.

10. Realism emerges from regional writing  Although American Realists did not take direct inspiration from Europe, they were aware of the established European tradition of realism.  William Dean Howells (editor of The Atlantic Monthly) became a promoter of a distinctively American strain of realism.  “Smiling realism”- portrays an America where people may act foolishly, but their good qualities eventually win out

11. James and Crane  Realistic novelists often relied on the emerging sciences of biology, psychology, and sociology  Also relied on their own observations and insights.  Henry James: his novels reveal his interest in complex social and psychological situations (typical novel a straightforward American confronts the complexities of European society and either defeats or is defeated by them)  Stephen Crane: deep interest in human psychology especially when a character is under great stress. His dramas play out not in the gentle predicaments of Howells or the posh drawing rooms of James but on a battlefield, in a tossing lifeboat, or in the gutter of a slum.

12. The Progressive Era (c. 1900 – 1914)  The excesses of uncontrolled industrialism, the squalor of overcrowded cities, and deep social inequalities sparked reform.  Politics: Pres. Theodore Roosevelt declared himself a trustbuster and campaigned against the powerful corporate structures that strangled commercial competition. Pres. Taft and Pres. Wilson proposed laws and created agencies to regulate banking, improve business competition, and protect the public interest.

13. Progressive Era Con’t  Labor Movement: workers organized locally and across industries to protect wages, reduce working hours, and improve working conditions.  Labor strikes sometimes had violent and even deadly outcomes.  1894 Pullman railroad car factory strike. Other unions honored this strike by freezing all rail traffic west of Chicago. 2000 US soldiers were called in to break the strike. Violence and riots erupted; thirteen workers were killed.  Niagra Movement: (W.E.B DuBois) quest to end segregation and achieve equal rights for African Americans  Female Suffrage: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony  Urban Reform: Jane Adams founded Hull House, which became a model for community settlement houses across the country  Conservation: John Muir led a conservation movement to protect landscapes and wildlife by creating national parks

14. A Different Take on Realism: Naturalism  Some writers during the Progressive Era deemed realism’s efforts to depict life accurately was insufficient.  Naturalists, under the influence of the French novelist Emile Zola, relied on new scientific understandings to dissect human behavior.  Charles Darwin: human beings are wholly subject to the natural laws of the universe  Sigmund Freud: people are driven by subconscious motives they do not understand  Metaphor:  A mirror symbolizes realism’s effort to reflect the human condition  A microscope symbolizes naturalism’s effort to expose the deep biological and environmental forces that determine human fate

15. Naturalist Writers  Frank Norris: The Octopus: A Story of California (1901) describes the strangling effects of the railroad on California farmers  Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie (1900) and Jack London’s The Call of the Wild (1903) and Sea-Wolf (1904) are models of naturalism  Edwin Arlington Robinson’s memorable New England characters worked to sustain an earlier version of America, NOT naturalism, even though he wrote his poetry during the naturalist time period