1. Realism
Window to a New World

2. Setting in motion Guilded Age: First millionaires
Growth of leisure class
Class distinctions more clear (lower vs. upper class)
Increased development of cities (urbanization)
African Americans move North
Frontier (West) to be developed
Immigration huge
Railroad
Everything based on development of Railroad
Nation-wide transportation

3. Setting in motion… Sociology becomes a scientific study Progressivism:
Sociology: study of society as scientific thing
Apply Darwin “Survival of the Fittest” in society
Social Darwinism says strong survive in society
Not actual Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
Justifies the government being laissez-faire (hands off)
Horatio Alger: example of self-made man so anyone can do it
Progressivism:
Society can be manipulated scientifically

4. Setting in motion… Journalism develops as a trade: journalistic method
Development of realist credo: hold window to the world
Verisimilitude: Something appears true, and is true, and everyone sees the same thing.
Hegelian Dialectic:
Thesis butts against antithesis gets to synthesis
Synthesis butts against antisynthesis gets better synthesis etc.

5. Authors Kate Chopin: Notice Leisure Class
She tries to just let you see how things are, not make judgments

6. Walt Whitman Born May 31, 1819, Left school at 11
in Huntington, Long Island,
the 2nd of 9 children.
Left school at 11
Read books from the library
Got very wrapped up in the Civil War
Worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but Leaves of Grass was too controversial

7. Walt Whitman Inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson (Transcendentalist)
Creates Free Verse
No set rhyme
Poetry matched spoken rhythm of lyrical opera
Published the first edition of Leaves of Grass on his own
Rejected by others
He didn’t put a name- just a picture
Worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but Leaves of Grass was too controversial so he was fired
Scandal?
Wrote about American’s every day lives
Wrote about sex
Wrote about same-sex relations
Always ask ourselves: Does it matter? No.

8. Emily Dickenson Born 1830, died 1886 2nd child of 3
Her sister stays unmarried like Emily
Her brother marries her best friend
Goes away to school
Hates it.
Moves back home with sister and parents
Brother and best friend live next door.
All she wants to do is write

9. Emily Dickenson Failed at Female Seminary Tries writing for a living
She contemplates Christianity sometimes as of course and sometimes as maybe not
Influenced by secular (non church) novels just like the Bible
Tries writing for a living
Original Emo
Enjambment: use of weird line endings (not where punctuation is)
Publishes using fascicles
Grouped poems by theme
Sewn together in little folders
No one likes her variations on standard form
People try to edit her work, very little of it gets published
Her brother’s mistress wants it published
Only after her death does it become famous

10. Edith Wharton Wharton family around since Colonial Times
Wharton family moved to Europe for 6 years after Civil War
Return at age 10
Unsupportive Family
Read all the time
Depressed
Married
Very unhappy
Had affair with friend of a friend
First woman to get honorary doctorate from Yale
Wharton writes during World War I as she helps organize people.