1. Mrs. Crandall American Literature
American Realism
Mrs. Crandall
American Literature

2. What is realism Response to the Civil War Rejection of Romanticism
Portrays “real life” as ordinary people lived
Attempted to show characters and events in an honest, objective and factual way
Psychological stories: focus on character motivation
Regionalism
Naturalism

3. Realism

4. Historical Background
American North
Northern Industrial Revolution- advances in education, banking and science
Immigration- influx of Irish and German immigrants
Agriculture- slow pace plantations
Slavery- economy highly dependant on slave labor
1850 Fugitive Slave Act passed (mandated the return of fugitive slaves)
1854 Kansas- Nebraska Act
1859 Harpers Ferry West Virginia- slave revolt led by John Brown (later hanged for treason)

5. Literary Connection Uncle Tom’s Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe 1852
Became a powerful antislavery weapon
More than 300,000 copies sold
Vividly depicted the cruelty of slavery

6. Uncle Tom’s Cabin

7. Historical Timeline
1860- Abraham Lincoln elected as President of the United States
1861- Civil War begins
April 12- Confederate fired on Union troops holding fort Sumter- started the Civil War
1865- Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders
Just days later, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated (April 14, 1865)

8. Soldiers

9. Historical Timeline
1862- Homestead Act which encouraged westward expansion
Promised land (160 acres) to Americans willing to move westward to inhabit and develop land on the Great Plains
1869- Transcontinental Railroad opened
By 1890, virtually all Native Americans in the West had been forced from their land

10. Industrial Revolution
Began in the 1880’s after electricity was introduced
Population just over 50 million
By the turn of the century the population is about 76 million
A significant portion was due to more than 9 million immigrants who came during this period
Electricity replaced steam power
Inventions: electric lights, telephone, automobiles, motion picture, and phonographs
Led to a boost in consumer goods, advertising, skyscrapers, department stores
Also led to pollution, crimes, slums, traffic jams

11. Wealth and Poverty
The industrial boom of the late nineteenth century created new extremes in wealth and poverty
Wages of industrial workers were so low that a single worker, or even two, often could not support one family
Child labor became the norm among the poor and working class
Immigrant families often lived in small, dark, unventilated apartments without toilets
In these conditions, disease was rampant!

12. How the Other Half Lives
Literary Connections
How the Other Half Lives
Jacob Riis
1890
First expose documentary
Powerful photography
Exposed the living conditions of the poor working class citizens

13. How the Other Half Lives

14. How the Other Half Lives

15. How the Other Half Lives

16. Emergence of African American Literature
Sojourner Truth- “An Account of and Experience with Discrimination”
Fredrick Douglass- My Bondage and My Freedom
Charles Chestnutt- Marrow of Tradition

18. Stories were told through slave quilts and slave spirituals

19. Regionalism
Focus on specific geographical setting, dialects, landscapes, mannerisms, and cultural customs of a region
Also called Local Color Fiction
Mark Twain
How’r y’all doin’ down yonder?

20. Naturalism
Naturalist writers also depicted real people in real situations, but they believed in forces larger than the individual- nature, fate, heredity- shaped individual destiny
If the reality these writers depicted seemed to be a harsh one, it was because hardship influenced their artistic vision. It was a vision rooted in war, in the frontier, and increasingly, in America’s growing cities
Also called Determinism
Kate Chopin
Jack London