A History of American Literature Since 1870

In Short

This comprehensive critical study traces the transformation of American writing from the end of the Civil War to the turn of the twentieth century. It tracks how a nation shattered by war and altered by rapid expansion abandoned the stately New England tradition to create an entirely original national literature. Across its narrative, the old guard yields to a wave of Western humorists, Southern dialect writers, regionalists, and urban realists who record the actual speech and daily struggles of a changing people. The work has endured because it captures the precise moment when American literature stopped imitating European models and turned directly to its own soil, logging both the brilliant bursts of raw democratic art and the journalistic flaws of a hurried, modernizing culture.

The Story

The narrative begins in the early 1870s, as a war-weary nation recovers from a decade where people read little besides newspapers. The old New England circle—Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson, and Holmes—reaches its twilight. Their final works arrive as solemn swan songs, and their late years are spent largely on translations and echoes of past music. Only Lowell seems reawakened by the conflict, but the true creative energy of the continent has already migrated. Railroads, telegraphs, and massive industrial corporations stitch the country into a single giant neighborhood, demanding a new expression rooted in the present.

The first major shock wave arrives from the West. Humorists like David Ross Locke, creator of the satirical "Petroleum V. Nasby" letters, have already demonstrated the power of rough, unrefined satire during the war. Then Mark Twain arrives like a Goth entering Rome. With The Innocents Abroad, he shatters the prevailing sentimentality, declaring that Americans must see with their own eyes and measure worth by intrinsic value rather than European tradition. Alongside him, Bret Harte captures the brief, dramatic moments of California mining camps. Though Harte's later career stalls in repetition and self-imposed exile in Europe, his early success unleashes a nationwide demand for local color.

In the Midwest, Edward Eggleston applies Taine's theories of art to early Indiana in The Hoosier Schoolmaster, proving that rude characters and dialect perversions belong in serious fiction. In the Sierras, Joaquin Miller crafts a wild, mystic poetry that treats nature with pagan worship, living as a solitary hermit high above San Francisco Bay. In contrast, Eastern poets like Thomas Bailey Aldrich retreat into classicism, arguing that exquisite form outlasts topical noise. Meanwhile, naturalists like John Burroughs bring a disciplined, joyful observation to the woods, keeping their prose fresh through decades of official bank-inspecting labor.

At the center of the era stands Walt Whitman, the baffling Broadway rough whose unrhymed, hexametric chants break every formal rule to voice the savage, fluent energy of a democratic continent. As the New England tradition wanes, a remarkable group of women writers takes up the pen. Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary E. Wilkins, and others record the grim, quiet decline of New England villages, while Helen Hunt Jackson turns her emotional energy to the plight of Native Americans in Ramona.

In the South, poets like Henry Timrod break under the brutal strain of war, while Irwin Russell and his contemporaries introduce the dialect and spirit of the post-war South. Local color reaches maturity in the Tennessee mountains with Mary Noailles Murfree and in the rich Louisiana tales of Kate Chopin and Grace King.

As the nineteenth century draws to a close, the short story becomes America's supreme artistic form, tailored to a diverse, un-unified land. Yet the rise of aggressive journalism brings new dangers. Writers like Frank Norris bring shuddering power to novels like The Octopus, picturing the ruthless forces of industrialization, but their work often lacks the restraint, balance, and inner depth needed for permanent art. Historians and biographers accumulate vast mountains of facts, yet often sacrifice literary distinction in their haste for raw data.

How It Unfolds

The twilight of the Brahmins The Civil War leaves American letters temporarily paralyzed, forcing the older New England authors into translating foreign classics and issuing their final collections. A decade of silence ends as nation-wide expansion, transcontinental railroads, and industrial growth forge a vast, connected country ready for a new voice.

The Western invasion Mark Twain and Bret Harte reject mid-century mawkishness, using unvarnished observation and frontier humor to challenge traditional literary authority. Twain demands an absolute reverence for truth over established reputation, while Harte's tales of California gold camps spark a permanent demand for American local color.

The rise of dialect and realistic background Edward Eggleston paints the harsh, authentic life of early Indiana, proving that regional dialect can carry genuine human truth. In the West, Joaquin Miller brings an uninhibited, pantheistic worship of nature to poetry, contrasting sharply with the refined formal craftsmanship of Eastern classicists.

The democratic chant of Whitman Walt Whitman emerges as the central, unavoidable titan of the era, discarding conventional meter for a sweeping time-beat that matches the rhythm of the continent. His raw realism and insistence on absolute fidelity to the immediate present fundamentally alter the trajectory of national verse.

Recorders of regional decline and identity Women writers across New England document the quiet decay of old towns with bare, economical prose, while Southern authors capture local landscapes and dialects. Writers like Helen Hunt Jackson turn romantic fiction into urgent social criticism, though the rich local atmosphere often overshadows the political tract.

The journalistic rush and the modern limit The century closes with the triumph of the short story as the ideal American art form, even as novel writing leans heavily toward high-strung journalism. Realistic authors like Frank Norris achieve massive dynamic force, yet fail to attain lasting artistic balance due to their obsession with the sensational present.

The People

• Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) wants to strip away conventional sentimentality, academic snobbery, and European tradition in favor of direct observation and intrinsic worth. Stood in opposition by a reading public that initially views him as a mere fun-maker, he ends up recognized as the foundational democratic voice of the era.
• Bret Harte seeks the startling, picturesque details of California camp life, careful to elaborate striking external scenes. Limited by a public that demands endless repetitions of his early successes, he spends his later years in European exile, estranged from his home and frozen in his early manner.
• Edward Eggleston wants to depict the unvarnished life he knows, using Dutch painting methods to justify writing about rude characters and strange dialects. Raised strictly without novels, he uses Greek tragedy to construct plots, ending up as one of the most reliable recorders of Midwestern background.
• Joaquin Miller wants to live from within, seeking peace away from civic pride to listen to nature and express fundamental spiritual truths. Opposed by critics who condemn his lack of formal polish, he ends up a solitary mystic living in a cabin above San Francisco Bay.
• Thomas Bailey Aldrich seeks artistic perfection, striving to carve exquisitely finished classical verse that will endure beyond temporary political noise. Hindered by critics who accuse him of making light trifles, he remains convinced that form alone guarantees immortality.
• Walt Whitman wants to strike up a new song for a new world, acting as an unconstrained, self-content voice for democratic America. Undeterred by standard critical rules, he ends up as the central, indispensable figure of the late-nineteenth-century literary landscape.
• Frank Norris wants to capture the massive, terrifying forces of modern industry and steam with absolute directness. Hindered by his lack of historical perspective and personal balance, he ends up producing high-voltage narrative art that remains caught in the fleeting habits of journalism.

In Its Own Voice

"The central figure of the later period, the voice in the wilderness that hailed its dim morning and the strong singer of its high noon."

— Evaluating the profound, shaping influence of Walt Whitman upon modern American writing.

"There is a primitiveness about the style, its gasping shortness of sentence, its repetitions like the story told by a child, its freedom from all straining for effect, its bareness and grimness, that stamps it as a genuine human document; not art but life itself."

— Describing the stark, unadorned prose used by Mary E. Wilkins to picture New England life.

"He lacked a sense of the past, personal background, inner life, power to weigh and balance and compare, and, lacking these, he lacked the elements that make for the literature of permanence."

— Critiquing the sensational, journalistic limits of Frank Norris's industrial novels.

What It's Really About

Underneath its detailed survey of poets, humorists, and novelists, the work explores how a expanding nation creates a culture distinct from its European roots. The central argument is that true literature must spring directly from the soil, speech, and lived experience of the people rather than from inherited academic models. The narrative constantly weighs raw authenticity against artistic restraint, asking whether a hurry-scurry, industrial society can produce works of lasting beauty without losing its democratic energy.

It examines the tension between local variety and national unity. By charting how short fiction and regional sketches flourished in the isolated corners of the West, South, and Midwest, the book highlights a nation processing its vast geographic differences through print. Ultimately, the work asks what makes art permanent, debating whether the immediate, noisy passions of a modern moment can yield the quiet, perfect form that endures across generations.

Why Read It Today

This volume is ideal for readers curious about the roots of modern American writing and those who want an unvarnished look at how a nation's literature rebuilt itself after devastating civil conflict. Reading it feels like walking through an expansive, illuminated gallery guided by a seasoned critic who values honest craftsmanship over high-sounding pretension. The prose carries a clear, rhythmic authority that brings long-neglected nineteenth-century figures vividly back to life.

What stays with you is the sheer variety of the American landscape recorded here—the muddy roads of Indiana, the mining camps of the Sierras, the solitary woods of the naturalists, and the quiet, decaying kitchens of New England. The book does not hide the real difficulties of its period. Readers must navigate historical shortcomings, including crude dialect renderings, period prejudices, and forgotten literary debates. Yet these roughnesses reflect the actual growth of a young country struggling to find its voice. It remains a deeply rewarding read for anyone who wants to understand how American storytelling earned its independence.