1. The Rise of Realism

2. Historical Background
Population 42 million: Immigration now from eastern Europe, Russia, Scandinavian countries
Chicago ,000; 1910 – 2 million

3. Unresolved challenges: Civil War and growth of industry (slums and labor unrest) and farm problems
Reconstruction-readmit the Southern States to the union; farmland, factories destroyed
African Americans gain citizenship and equal protection and right to vote
These changes were captured in customs, characters and landscapes known as regionalism

4. Transportation: Key to settlement, shapes subject matter and attitudes of writers;

5. 1869 Transcontinental Railroad completed and brought a flood of new settlers west. By 1890 government closed the frontier.

6. The Trust Giant's Point of View
The Gilded Age
As the 1800s drew to an end, a very small group of men controlled the vast majority of industry, including steel, railroad, oil and meatpacking. Industry’s success created a better life for many Americans. For a few, it brought wealth,
but others suffered poverty & hardship.
The Gilded Age
The Have-Nots
Laissez Faire vs. Progressivism
The Trust Giant's Point of View

7. Palatial mansions
Wives and daughters draped in diamonds
sandbox filled with jewels
Now could go to a department store, order from a catalog and use the telephone

8. Social Darwinist-survival of the fittest-claim that those who rose to the top of society were fit, while those who suffered at the bottom were best left to die. Social Darwinists used these ideas to justify the huge gap between rich and poor and to push for laissez fair (allowed to do)

9. Populist Party-movement to make government more responsive to workers’ needs (union, farmers)
Progressive movement emerged, which aimed to restore economic opportunities and correct injustices in American life. They believed that social change was possible and necessary and it was the job of the government to make laws to protect people.

10. Failures of Reconstruction left many poor and powerless, held down by segregationist Jim Crow laws and forced to work as sharecroppers--Hope for a better life. .

11. Settling of land forced Native Americans off their land and onto reservations- took children and sent to Indian schools. Demanded forget their language.

12. and Naturalism in Literature
Realism, Regionalism,
and Naturalism in Literature
The country’s rapid growth and change was reflected in new area of writing-takes the place of Romanticism

13. Portrays ordinary life as real people live it.
Attempts to show characters and events in an objective, almost factual way.

14. Shows experiences of Civil War

15. Portrays
frontier
life.

16. Versions of life on frontier captured imagination of readers in more settled communities-mining camps, cattle ranches and frontier towns. New regionalist literature satisfied curiosity of portrayals of people and way of life in different areas of the country

17. Portrays problems with cities, slums, and labor
Portrays problems with cities, slums, and labor. Labor unions forming to help project people

18. Realism finds meaning in the commonplace-often working 16 hr days.

19. Realistic writers can deal honestly with characters that Romantic writers either avoided or glossed over such as factory workers, bosses, politicians and gunfighters; Circumstances influenced writers of the time to capture customs, characters, and landscapes of nation’s distinct regions-Regionalism.

20. Emphasis on specific geographic setting; can be sentimental/ unrealistic
Regional dialect (speech/ manners)

21. Portrays vivid descriptions of landscapes
Seeks to capture essence of life in various regions of growing nation
Bret Harte was a founder of “local color”

22. Naturalism
More than realism – naturalism shows the inescapable work through natural forces.

23. People have no control over events (writers tended to be pessimistic)
Naturalists saw humans as helpless from forces beyond their control.
Naturalist writer – Jack London captured arctic world outside of everyday experiences.

24. Naturalists popular and readers accepted the less than happy endings.
Others showed the rich and influential in an unflattering light.
Naturalism reflected time of rapid changes and sharp contrasts when wealth was concentrated in few hands.

25. Destiny is decided by:
1. heredity
2. environment
3. physical drives
4. economic
circumstances

26. Works of Women- Charlotte Perkins Gilman Kate Chopin Edith Wharton
Mary Wilkins Freeman
Works by women of this period often end tragically, in madness, ruin, scandal, and death. Reflection of naturalist leanings and through own experience in a culture that did not encourage women’s artistic goals. Reflected society’s limitations.
Broke barriers as roles shifted.
Women’s suffrage reemerged; university education became more available.

27. and psychological situations.
Psychological Novels
Henry James looks
at distinctions
in character
motivation.
Portrays social
and psychological situations.