Slide 1

Literature in America

During Industrialization,
Urbanization, & Immigration


Slide 2

Emma Lazarus
• (1886) Statue of Liberty
erected in New York
Harbor
• Authored the words on
the base of the Statue of
Liberty
“Give me your tired, your
poor/ Your huddled
masses yearning to
breathe free,/ The
wretched refuse of your
teeming shore.”


Slide 3

Charles Darwin
• “On the Origin of
Species” (1859)
• Humans evolved from
lower forms of life
• Theory of Evolution
casts doubt on literal
interpretation of the
Bible
• Created debates and
controversies in
churches & colleges


Slide 4

Other works of Literature
• Books = major source
of education &
enjoyment
• Bestsellers: “David
Copperfield” &
“Ivanhoe”
• Public libraries
• Magazines also interested the
public
• “Harper’s”
• “Atlantic Monthly”
• “Scribner’s Monthly”

– Boston & New York

• Library of Congress
(1897)
• Andrew Carnegie
donated $ for public
libraries


Slide 5

William James
• One of America’s most
brilliant intellectuals
• “Principles of
Psychology”
– est. Modern discipline
of behavioral psychology

• “The Will to Believe” &
“Varieties of Religious
Experience”
– Explored philosophy and
psychology of religion

• “Pragmatism”
– Description of Am.’s
greatest contribution to
the history of philosophy


Slide 6

Joseph Pulitzer & William R. Hearst
Pulitzer
• “New York World”
• Use of the “yellow kid”
& colored comic
supplements
– Yellow journalism

Hearst
• Built a powerful chain
of newspapers
– “San Francisco
Examiner” (1887)
Their flair for the scandalous was
offset when the Associated Press
emerged in the 1840s.

• Drastic means in order
to increase circulation
• Scandal & rumors


Slide 7

Edwin L. Godkin & Henry George
• (1865) New York
“Nation”
– Read by liberals and
high intellectuals

• Crusaded for civilservice reform, honesty
in gov’t., a moderate
tariff

• rich in idealism and in

human kindness
• “Progress and
Poverty”
• the pressure of growing
population on a fixed
supply of land
unjustifiably increased
property values

• giving unearned profits
on land owners


Slide 8

Edward Bellamy
• (1888) socialist novel
– “Looking Backward”
• Looks back from 2000

• Find the soc. and eco.
injustices of 1987 have
disappeared under an
idyllic gov’t
(nationalized big
business to serve the
public interest)


Slide 9

Post War Writing
Post-Civil War Americans devoured millions of “dime
novels,” usually depicting the wilds of the West.
•

•

•

Harlan F. Halsey
– King of Dime novels
– About 650 novels/day
Lewis Wallace
– (1880) “Ben Hur: A Tale
of the Christ”
– The “UTC” of AntiDarwinists
Horatio Alger a.k.a. “Holy
Horatio”
– More than 100 vols. of
juvenile fiction
– Formula: virtue, honesty,
& industry are rewarded by
success, wealth, & honor
• Survival of the purest

•

•

Walt Whitman
– Brought out revision of
“Leaves of Grass”
– Assassination of Lincoln:
• “O Captain! My
Captain!” & “When
Lilacs Last in the
Dooryard Bloom’d”
Emily Dickinson
– (1886) Died – her poems
discovered and published
– Wrote over a thousand
short lyrics