1. American Realism 1850-1900 The Civil War and Post-War Period Thomas Charles Farrer (1839-1891), Mount Tom, 1865

2. Realists sought to accurately portray real life, without filtering it through personal feelings, romanticism, or idealism. Elements of Literature, 6 th ed (419)

3. Response to Start of the Civil War Rapidly growing cities and slums Factories replacing farms Corruption in politics (slavery, civil rights for women, immigrants) Children in Mullen’s Alley, photograph, Jacob Riis, 1888photograph

4. American Realism The world is what it is, and that can be awful and frightening verisimilitude accepting reality as reality rejection of the sensational sentimental with focus on the ordinary man loss of optimism; no rose-colored glasses relied on facts and events opened eyes to the fact that slavery undermined American values

5. New Voices, New Subjects regionalism: added extreme detail to the setting; the setting was a character symbolically naturalism: even more real; extremely detailed; pointed out darkness in our world satire: a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn satirists like Mark Twain and poets like Walt Whitman tried to ~keep it real.~