MRS. CRANDALLAMERICAN LITERATURE

American Realism1850-1914

What is realism

Response to the Civil WarRejection of RomanticismPortrays “real life” as ordinary people

livedAttempted to show characters and events

in an honest, objective and factual wayPsychological stories: focus on character

motivationRegionalismNaturalism

Realism

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 Act1859 Harpers Ferry West Virginia- slave

revolt led by John Brown (later hanged for treason)

Literary Connection

Uncle Tom’s CabinHarriet Beecher Stowe

1852Became a powerful antislavery weaponMore than 300,000 copies soldVividly depicted the cruelty of slavery

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

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)

Soldiers

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 openedBy 1890, virtually all Native Americans in the

West had been forced from their land

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 powerInventions: electric lights, telephone,

automobiles, motion picture, and phonographsLed to a boost in consumer goods, advertising,

skyscrapers, department storesAlso led to pollution, crimes, slums, traffic jams

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!

Literary Connections

How the Other Half LivesJacob Riis

1890First expose documentaryPowerful photographyExposed the living conditions of the poor

working class citizens

How the Other Half Lives

How the Other Half Lives

How the Other Half Lives

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

Stories were told through slave quilts and slave spirituals

Regionalism

Focus on specific geographical setting, dialects, landscapes, mannerisms, and cultural customs of a region

Also called Local Color FictionMark Twain

How’r y’all doin’ down yonder?

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 DeterminismKate ChopinJack London