The industrial revolution that took place at the end of the 19th
century changed U.S.A in remarkable ways. People left rural homes for
opportunities in urban cities. With the development of new machinery and
equipment, the U.S. economy became more focused on factory production;
Americans did not have to chiefly rely on farming and agriculture to support
their families. At the same time, immigrants from all over the world crowded
into tenements to take advantage of new urban opportunities. In the end, the
sweeping economic, social, and political changes that took place in post-war
life allowed American Realism to prevail.(“Realism Britannica”). The realism of the 1880s
featured the works of Mark Twain, William Dean Howells and Henry James among
other writers. American Realists concentrated their writing on select groups or
subjects. The first American realist author was William Dean Howells, who was
known for writing novels about middle-class life. Another early American
realist was Samuel Clemens (pen name Mark Twain), who was the first well-known
author to come from middle America. When he published The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn in 1884, it was the first time a novel captured the distinctive life and
voice of that part of the country. Similarly, Stephen Crane’s 1895 Civil War
novel The Red Badge of Courage told the real but previously untold stories of
life on the battlefield. These stories encouraged more American writers to use
their voices to speak truth to the real conditions of what life was really
like, whether at war or in poverty. Other well-known realist American authors
include John Steinbeck, Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Edith Wharton, and Henry
James.("Realism”). The writing during this
period was also very regional. The industrial revolution called for
standardization, mass production of goods and streamlined channels of
distribution. America was leaping into a new modern age and people feared that
local folkways and traditions would be soon forgotten. Responding to these
sentiments, realistic writers set their stories in specific American regions,
rushing to capture the "local color" before it was lost. They drew
upon the sometimes grim realities of everyday life, showing the breakdown of
traditional values and the growing plight of the new urban poor. American
realists built their plots and characters around people's ordinary, everyday
lives. Additionally, their works contained regional dialects and extensive
dialogue which connected well with the public. As a result, readers were
attracted to the realists because they saw their own struggles in print.
Conversely, the public had little patience for the slow paced narratives,
allegory and symbolism of the romantic writers. America was shifting into
higher gear and readers wanted writers who clearly communicated the
complexities of their human experiences. At its basic level, realism
was grounded in the faithful reporting of all facets of everyday American life.
The reading public's preference for realism parallels the changes that were
occurring at the end of the 19th and into the 20th century. For example, the
modern scientific revolution advocated that truth and knowledge be based on
empirical data. Reinforcing that notion, the industrial revolution proclaimed
that a better civil society could be built upon machinery and factory labor.
Given this atmosphere, several developments occurred around the same time:
(1)The growth of investigative journalism; (2) the rise of muckrakers; and (3)
the establishment of a new-found fascination with the camera as a means of
capturing the realities of a single instant, unvarnished by sentimentality.(“What is Literary
Realism”). Due to the
changes in class structure with the developments of the second half of the 19th
century, the novel became extremely popular. Literacy grew and written works
were more accessible. Realism also enhanced the prevalence of novels since
their subject matter often focused on characters and themes important and
relatable to the working class, middle class, and social mobility. Here are some examples of novels that helped to shape
this literary movement: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain) House of Mirth (Edith Wharton) The Jungle (Upton Sinclair) The Red Badge of Courage (Stephen Crane) Daisy Miller (Henry James) The Call of the Wild (Jack London) Middlemarch (George Eliot) Vanity Fair (William Makepeace Thackeray) The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) A significant offshoot of literary realism was Naturalism, a late 19th-
and early 20th-century movement that aimed at an even more faithful and
unselective representation of reality. The French novelist Émile Zola was the
leading exponent of Naturalism.
