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Literature

Big Idea Overview and Resources

Big Idea 1: Return to Regionalism

Big Idea 2: Life in the City

Big Idea 3: The United States and the World

Big Idea 1: Return to Regionalism

Overview

As Americans suffered through the Great Depression, they lost faith in the federal government. During this time writers returned to the literary style known as Regionalism, which focuses on the traditions and cultures of a particular geographic area. Unlike the Regionalists of the 1800s, who emphasized characteristics such as manner of speech or style of dress, the new Regionalists concentrated on the impact of setting on character.

One of the most famous writers to emerge from this literary period was Californian John Steinbeck. Steinbeck wrote of the Dust Bowl migrants, who left the Great Plains to seek a new life in the West. Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath, one of the best-known novels from this era, depicts the struggles of Dust Bowl farmers trying to rebuild their lives by seeking work in California.

The South, where racial strife and conflict continued, produced a large number of Regionalist writers, including William Faulkner. Faulkner created the fictional "Yoknapatawpha County," where characters representing Southerners from all walks of life interacted. He is perhaps best known for his novel The Sound and the Fury , which depicts a Southern, aristocratic family struggling with the changing times in the South.

Another literary form that emerged during this period was Southern Gothic. Influenced by writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, this style often featured characters who were strange or alienated from society. The works of Southern Gothic writer Flannery O'Connor, which featured characters who experienced life-altering events and shocking discoveries, were considered "grotesque" by some critics.

Web Resources

The California Novels of John Steinbeck
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Steinbeck/
Find chapter summaries of Steinbeck's works, along with background information and links to the California regions in which Steinbeck's novels took place.

William Faulkner, American Writer: 1897–1962
http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/faulkner.html
This site features links to a complete history of Faulkner, including a timeline of his life, biographies, a family tree, and information on his adopted hometown, Oxford, Mississippi.

America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935–1945
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html
This site features more than 160,000 photographs from of the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Collection (FSA-OWI).

Farming in the 1930s
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/water_02.html
Read more about the Dust Bowl and its impact on Great Plains farmers during the 1930s. This site also features additional links to information about the New Deal.

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Big Idea 2: Life in the City

Overview

The twentieth century saw the rapid growth of cities in the United States. Major cities like Chicago and New York became magnets for industry and culture, attracting both migrants and immigrants alike. Museums, opera houses, and theaters flourished, and the explosive growth of U.S. cities brought with it crime and poverty, giving writers an opportunity to explore the best and worst of times.

Author E. B. White worked for the New Yorker magazine in the 1920s. He was known for his essays and sketches on current events and urban living.

Even though cities attracted diverse populations, discrimination and segregation still existed. Author Ralph Ellison characterized the African American man as an "invisible man," one marginalized by white society. In Ellison's novel Invisible Man, the protagonist struggles to overcome racial and social stereotypes.

Bernard Malamud wrote of lives torn by discrimination and poverty. Malamud's Russian Jewish parents settled in Brooklyn, where they experienced isolation and suffering. His work captured these emotions and also incorporated humor, pain, fantasy, and realism.

Between World War I and the 1960s, more than 6 million African Americans moved to northern cities from the South. African American writer Gwendolyn Brooks grew up in what is now known as Bronzeville, a largely African American community on Chicago's South Side. Bronzeville became the setting for much of her work. Her poetry and fiction exposed the anguish of America's black urban poor

Web Resources

Audio Clip of Gwendolyn Brooks Reading "The Pool Players. Seven at the Golden Shovel"
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15433
Hear an audio clip of Gwendolyn Brooks reciting "We Real Cool" and explaining how she came to write it. This page also includes external links and a biography of Brooks.

American Masters: Ralph Ellison
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/ellison_r.html
Ralph Ellison was one of the leading black novelists of the mid-1900s. On this companion Web site to PBS's "American Masters" series, find Ellison's career timeline, his biography, and a link to "Joe Morton reads from The Invisible Man."

Fly Away—The Great Migration: The Movement of African Americans from the Mississippi Delta to Chicago
http://northbysouth.kenyon.edu/1999/index.htm
Trace the migration of African Americans from the Mississippi Delta to Chicago during two main periods between 1916 and 1950.

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Big Idea 3: The United States and the World

Overview

Despite the characterization of World War II as the "good war," most Americans initially opposed military involvement in the effort. However, the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 served to unify Americans' resolve to defeat what were known as the Axis Powers: Japan, Germany, and Italy.

World War II required weaponry, materials, and supplies for U.S. troops. This increase in production revitalized America's economy during the 1940s. Along with burgeoning prosperity, however, came an increase in racism. After Pearl Harbor, Japanese American citizens were placed in internment camps. A renewed migration of African Americans from the South continued northward, resulting in race-related tensions and riots around the country.

World War II also has become synonymous with the Holocaust, which began shortly after the Nazis seized power in the 1930s. All across Europe, millions of Jews, Poles, Russians, Gypsies, and non-Aryans were systematically exterminated. It remains one of the largest atrocities against man in the history of the world.

After World War II, other countries struggled to rebuild while the United States became an industrial giant. However, at the same time Americans continued to enjoy economic security, the threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union loomed. Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union erupted over the conflict between capitalism and communism. Although the two countries did not go to war, they raced to stockpile a reserve of nuclear weapons, bringing Americans into the atomic age.

Web Resources

Remembering Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941
http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/pearlharbor/
Here you will find a collection of stories from survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor, in addition to a World War II timeline, maps, videos, and narration.

Children of the Camps: The Documentary
http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/
This companion Web site to the PBS documentary, "Children of the Camps," explores the experiences of six people of Japanese ancestry who were confined to internment camps.

World War II Poster Collection from Northwestern University Library
http://www.library.northwestern.edu/govpub/collections/wwii-posters/
Find images and descriptions of more than 300 posters created during World War II. The collection has been preserved by Northwestern University's Government and Geographic Information and Data Services Department.

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