1. Division, Reconciliation, and Expansion 1850-1914
Literature of the Civil War and the Frontier

2. Snapshot of the Period These years saw great transformation.
We went from an agricultural nation to a modern industrial power.
This happened in the years leading up to the Civil War.
The North and South fought for power.
Each had notable strengths.
When it was all over the North had won, the Union was held, and slavery was abolished.
It was a DEVASTATING cost!

3. Historical Background (1850-1914)
Prelude to War
Brother Against Brother
Americans Go West
The Frontier Disappears
The Electric Society

4. Painful Growth and Electric Change
The Civil War left the nation physically, economically, and emotionally devastated.
Riding the railroad, Americans moved West and annihilated the frontier.
The Age of Electricity transformed every day life. Cities, with all their pleasures and problems, expanded rapidly.

5. Fiction and Journalism
What Literary Forms Did Writers Use to Discuss Social and Political Issues During This Period?
Spirituals
Life Stories
Fiction and Journalism

6. Rags to Riches Twists and Turns The West and the Wizard
How Did Popular Literature Reflect the Era’s Social and Political Issues?
Rags to Riches
Twists and Turns
The West and the Wizard

7. How Did Social and Political Issues Lead to Realism and Naturalism?
The Common Life
Naturalism
Writers focused on creating portrayals of real life ordinary people.
They showed characters in a honest and factual way.
The belief that forces far more powerful than any individual shaped individuals.
Nature, blind fate, heredity and chance determined lives.
Theme: Human endurance in the face of overwhelming natural forces pervades.

8. What Elements of Physical Environment Affected Northern Writers’ Attitudes?
Industry
Urban Life

9. How Did Expressions of Place Show Up in Literature?
Local Color
Urban Sophistication

10. What Literary Elements Contributed to an American Style?
Settings and Plots
Dialogue and Style
Humor

11. What Roles Did Writers Play in Shaping American Identity?
Writer as a Realist
Writer as a Naturalist
In the first half of the century Romanticism dominated.
After the horrors of the Civil War there was a rise in a more objective attitude toward the world and human affairs.
Hard fact took more of a role.
These writers were detached.
They were influenced by Darwin, Marx, and Zola.
They believed that heredity, environment, and social conditions determined people’s actions.

12. At the Dawn of the Twentieth Century, What Did Literature Reveal About American Attitudes?
Pragmatism
Loss of Idealism
Democracy
Science