Encyclopedia of the Chicago Literary Renaissance: The Essential Guide to the Lives and Works of the Chicago Renaissance Writers (Literary Movements)

433 Pages·2004·2.61 MB·English

by  Jan Pinkerton, Randolph H. Hudson

Encyclopedia of the
Chicago Literary
Renaissance
JAN PINKERTON
and
RANDOLPH H. HUDSON
Encyclopedia of the Chicago Literary Renaissance
Copyright © 2004 by Jan Pinkerton
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pinkerton, Jan, 1934–
Encyclopedia of the Chicago Literary Renaissance / Jan Pinkerton and Randolph H. Hudson
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-8160-4898-3
1. American literature—Illinois—Chicago—Encyclopedias. 2. Authors, American—Homes and haunts—
Illinois—Chicago—Encyclopedias. 3. Chicago (Ill.)—Intellectual life—20th century—Encyclopedias.
4. Authors, American—20th century—Biography—Encyclopedias. 5. American literature—
20th century—Encyclopedias. 6. Chicago (Ill.)—In literature—Encyclopedias. I. Title.
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2003063114
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CONTENTS
Introduction iv
Entries 1
Major Authors and Works Discussed 392
Chronology 394
Bibliography 410
Index 413
INTRODUCTION
hicago is the “Literary Capital of the United The Chicago Renaissance was a creative out-
CStates,” announced H. L. Mencken in the burst of fiction and poetry in a midwestern, or
London Nation. The year was 1920; the previous “western,” city in the early decades of the 20th
decade in the Windy City had offered a startling century. The western locale was crucial because
outburst of poetry and fiction, ranging from cele- Chicago was far from Boston or New York—far
brations of vital, if grimy, city landscapes to from the 19th-century world of letters, far from an
exposés of small-town dysfunction—exposés soon American establishment that still looked to
to be labeled “the revolt from the village.” The England for precedent and validation. In fiction,
decade also saw an entrepreneurial spirit, giving Chicago writers rejected what they considered
the English-speaking world two internationally timid East Coast realism; in poetry, they rejected
influential avant-garde periodicals. Originality conventional versifying and its pervasive, lingering
and freshness in American literature, Mencken Victorianism. They embraced instead the radical
concluded, comes now from “under the shadow of theories of literary naturalism and the radical poet-
the stockyards.” ic techniques of free verse and imagism. They
Carl Sandburg’s poem “Chicago” appeared in found also a new subject matter—tales of the farm-
the March 1914 issue of Poetry magazine, alarming lands they left behind, no longer seen as pastoral or
readers with its unconventional opening line— picturesque; tales of the city to which they fled,
“Hog-Butcher for the World”—as well as its work- now seen as squalid and amoral. The term
ing-class subject matter and its “unpoetic” free Renaissance was soon applied to their work,
verse. Two months later, Theodore Dreiser pub- although the creative outburst was a birth, not a
lished the second of his epic volumes on the proto- rebirth; Chicago was a new city, built on swamp-
typical Chicago tycoon, a man ruthlessly exploiting land, without a past.
his way to fortune and power. In the next year, The major writers of the Chicago Renaissance
1915, Edgar Lee Masters, a partner in Clarence came from the rural Midwest—Dreiser from
Darrow’s Chicago law firm, published his free-verse Indiana, Anderson from Ohio, Sandburg, Masters,
Spoon River Anthology, a collection of bitter grave- and Vachel Lindsay from downstate Illinois. Willa
yard monologues exposing the often sordid lives of Cather, a figure not always identified with
small-town dwellers. In 1919, Sherwood Anderson, Chicago—who nevertheless placed three of her
another rural refugee, produced his Winesburg, novels in the city—came from Nebraska; Edna
Ohio, a collection of stories describing yet another Ferber arrived in Chicago from Wisconsin. These
set of repressed, damaged lives. The two new liter- writers escaped their small-town roots, seeking
ary journals, Poetry and Little Review, presented urban freedom, although they spent the next por-
local authors to the world, as well as soon-to-be- tion of their lives dwelling on those roots, dissecting
hailed figures of international modernism. them, exorcising them. Poets Masters and Lindsay
iv
Introduction v
rarely went further than their village pasts, rarely in factories, slaughtered animals in the stockyards;
turning to the city for subject matter; Sandburg they helped the owners of those enterprises to build
actively celebrated his new urban landscape. Fiction vast fortunes. The literarily oriented small-towners,
writers Dreiser, Anderson, Cather, and Ferber por- turning to journalism, law, and advertising for
trayed both village and city, and they were joined by financial support, began to reflect in their writing
two other novelists who focused on the city in one the rawness and dynamism they saw around them,
specific work—Frank Norris, whose The Pit depict- as well as the narrowness and oppression of the
ed the economic forces behind the worldwide distri- rural existence from which they had come.
bution of grain, and Upton Sinclair, whose The In the political and economic arena, Chicago
Jungle exposed the criminally negligent and had become the most radical city in America, cap-
exploitative meatpacking industry. ital of the nation’s anarchism and scene of ran-
The greatest years of the Chicago Renaissance corous and deadly labor strife. The first bomb ever
lay between 1912, when Poetry magazine was thrown in a labor dispute detonated in Haymarket
founded, and 1919, when Winesburg, Ohio Square in 1886; four anarchists were subsequently
appeared—although Dreiser’s Sister Carrie had hanged. The radical trade union, the Industrial
appeared earlier and many of the great Anderson Workers of the World, or “Wobblies,” was born in
stories were to appear later. Some critics cite the Chicago in 1905; its leader, William “Big Bill”
starting point as 1890, since by that time a body of Haywood, convicted of sedition in 1917 by Chicago
fiction, including the work of native-born Henry judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis—soon to become
Blake Fuller and Wisconsin-born Hamlin Garland, baseball commissioner—jumped bail while awaiting
as well as pioneering journalism, had been appear- retrial and escaped to the Soviet Union.
ing in the aftermath of the devastating Great Fire of The school for writers was the newspapers;
1871. Other critics choose 1900 as the starting higher education was generally irrelevant. Dreiser,
point, claiming that literary expression up to that Sandburg, Ring Lardner, and Ben Hecht—who later
time had maintained its gentility, its conventional became Hollywood’s highest-paid screenwriter—
ethos; Sister Carrie appeared precisely at the centu- began as Chicago journalists. The second tier of
ry mark. Yet by 1930, historians agree, the Great Chicago Renaissance writers, many of them achiev-
Depression brought the original flourishing to an ing national popularity through syndicated daily
end. Dreiser and Anderson continued to produce columns, remained journalists most of their lives—
important work—and a new group of writers, Eugene Field, popular versifier and commentator on
Richard Wright, Nelson Algren, Saul Bellow, were the ways of the elite; Finley Peter Dunne, sardonic
on the horizon—but the original creative break- observer of politicians through his persona, Irish
through, as epitomized by Sandburg’s “Chicago,” bartender Mr. Dooley; George Ade, recorder of
had long subsided. human foibles in the “Stories of the Streets and of
Behind the Chicago Renaissance is the history the Town” column, illustrated by line drawings from
of a suddenly burgeoning metropolis, driven by cartoonist John T. McCutcheon.
access to the Great Lakes and potential access to For one brief moment during the first decades
the Mississippi River. The new settlement grew of the 20th century, Chicago was a motion picture
from 50 adventurers in 1830 to a million and a half capital, introducing to the world Gloria Swanson,
residents in 1890; during that time, a “vast ruck of Ben Turpin, Wallace Beery, and Francis X.
life,” as Dreiser wrote, sprang up on “the dark Bushman—cinema’s first matinee idol—before the
marshes of a lake shore.” Chicago is said to have industry moved westward to the sunny weather of
been the fastest-growing city in the world between California; Charlie Chaplin made an early film in
1860 and 1900; along with the rural dwellers Chicago. Carl Laemmle and Adolph Zukor,
swarming in from the countryside, immigrants— Chicago nickelodeon owners, began seeking an
close to 70 percent of the population in 1890— increased volume of product for their showcases;
were pouring in from overseas. The new arrivals they started to make and distribute films on their
dug canals and tunnels, laid railroad tracks, toiled own, eventually founding Universal Pictures and
vi Encyclopedia of the Chicago Literary Renaissance
Paramount Pictures. Chicagoan Edgar Rice together in mutual benefit. Veblen, scorning
Burroughs began to write his popular Tarzan stories Addams and her fellow upper-middle-class do-
in 1912, later to make a film star of Chicago gooders, called Hull-House a propaganda tool.
Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller. When Writers of the Chicago Renaissance helped
Prohibition and its accompanying criminal under- make possible a modern national literature.
world came to the city in the 1920s, Chicago pulp- Theodore Dreiser led the way out of repressive
fiction writer W. R. Burnett created the gangster moral strictures; in the process, his novels presented
novel, starting with Little Caesar; Ben Hecht soon a cross section of American lives, ranging from the
wrote the screenplay for Scarface, invoking the life poverty-stricken to the wealthy and powerful.
of mobster Al Capone, and the early seeds of film Sherwood Anderson revolutionized the short story,
noir were sown. The phrase public enemies was ridding it of the “poison plot,” capturing moments of
coined in Chicago. intensity that helped shape the tales of writers to
For another brief moment, the city was the follow. Carl Sandburg turned once-radical poetic
nation’s jazz capital; Jelly Roll Morton, Joe “King” techniques into accepted and everyday practices.
Oliver, and Louis Armstrong came north from New Edgar Lee Masters fathered the revolt-from-the-
Orleans in the early 1920s, inspiring local talent village movement that inspired writers for the next
such as Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, and Lionel several decades, including Sinclair Lewis, the first
Hampton. Chicago-born theatrical impresario American to win the Nobel Prize in literature. Little
Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. staged his first presentation at Review, which gave early publication to Anderson—
his father’s theater in 1893, featuring Eugen and, like Dreiser, fought censorship battles—folded
Sandow, the European strongman. The Marx in 1929, but Poetry magazine persists valiantly to the
brothers, touring the Midwest vaudeville circuit, present, its future newly assured in 2002 by the gift
lived in Chicago for 10 years, between 1910 and of $100 million from the midwestern Lilly pharma-
1920. In a more elite theater world, what became ceutical fortune.
known as the “little theater” movement began at Entries in The Encyclopedia of the Chicago
the Little Theater in Chicago’s Fine Arts Building, Renaissance cover all significant Chicago-connect-
founded in 1912, presenting experimental drama, ed writers of the period from 1880 to 1930, as well
rejecting the popular commercial stage. as writers of other locales and periods relevant in
From the august new University of Chicago, terms of influence or contacts. Included also are
established in 1892 by funds from industrialist John their works, summarized at a length appropriate to
D. Rockefeller, fresh intellectual voices were soon their importance, and descriptions of major charac-
heard. The first sociology department in the nation ters in these works. Other references describe
found a home in the campus’s faux-gothic build- places, buildings, historical events, historical fig-
ings; philosopher John Dewey formulated his ideals ures, terms, and phrases—matters of primary or
of progressive education in the university’s ancillary importance to students of the Chicago
Laboratory School; maverick economist Thorstein Renaissance. Cross-references are indicated by
Veblen fulminated against the businessman’s greed small capital letters; in the biographical entry for
and irresponsibility, establishing the concept of Masters, for example, a reference to Clarence DAR-
“conspicuous consumption.” At the same time, ROW indicates an entry on Darrow in the D section.
reformer Jane Addams, founding her “settlement Photographs of significant figures, historic scenes,
house,” Hull-House, in 1889, sought to improve and buildings of interest are scattered throughout
the lives of the poor—not by charity, but by bring- the text. The chronology section provides a time
ing educated women into the neighborhood, and by line for the city’s history, as well as dates of literary
demonstrating that diverse social classes can live significance through the year 1930.
A
Abbott, Robert S. parents, “Workers on the Illinois Prairie.” Giving
(1870–1940) publisher, founder of the the poet his first financial success, the biography
Chicago Defender was followed by the four-volume Abraham Lincoln:
The War Years, completed in 1939, winning the
Born on St. Simon’s Island, Georgia, growing up Pulitzer Prize for history the next year.
in Savannah, Abbott graduated from Hampton Sandburg’s work serves as a milestone in the
Institute in Virginia in 1896. Moving to Chicago, he 20th-century mythologizing of Lincoln—beginning
received a degree from KENT COLLEGE OF LAW; in with the president’s log cabin origins, culminating
May 1905, he returned to the printing-trade knowl- in his becoming the embodiment of all virtues, in-
edge gained at Hampton, launching the CHICAGO cluding honesty and sympathy for the underdog.
DEFENDER, destined to become a major African- The biography has been called an “Illinois pas-
American newspaper. Charging two cents a copy, toral,” in which an idealized figure is presented as
printing and distributing the paper himself, he hired growing out of an idealized natural environment;
his first full-time employee five years later. During Sandburg, identifying with Lincoln, is said to have
WORLD WAR I, Abbott began to tout job opportuni- been writing his own personal pastoral as well.
ties for Southern blacks in the North, helping to fos- Sherwood ANDERSON declared the work “too full of
ter the GREAT MIGRATION of African Americans to horse collars,” replete with a tiresome “earthy
Chicago and other northern cities; the Defender was earthiness.” The critic Edmund Wilson, calling the
the first black newspaper to claim wide national book “insufferable,” quotes descriptions of Lincoln’s
readership. Abbott, who died at the age of 71, is said mother and his legendary love Ann RUTLEDGE—
to have been Chicago’s first black millionaire. both women about whom little is known—and de-
clares that the author is not compiling Lincoln
folklore, but rather actively contributing to it.
Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years
Carl Sandburg
“Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight”
(1926)
See THE CONGO AND OTHER POEMS.
Originally planned as a one-volume biography for
children, the work grew to become a two-volume Adams, Franklin P.
popular biography for adults; it traces Abraham (1881–1960) writer, journalist
LINCOLN’s life up to his leaving SPRINGFIELD, Illi-
nois, for the presidential inauguration in Washing- Born in Chicago, graduating from the ARMOUR
ton. The volumes were dedicated to Sandburg’s INSTITUTE, Adams worked as a reporter for the
1
2 Addams, Jane
Chicago Journal in 1903–04. Moving to New York, She is credited with turning Addams toward a more
he became the well-known F. P. A., author of the outspoken role in broadly based political matters.
“Conning Tower” column in the New York Evening Although Addams had independent means,
Mail. In 1910, assuming the New York Giants’ she constantly sought further funding; among her
point of view, Adams wrote his famous rhyme talents was an ability to befriend the wealthy and
about the CHICAGO CUBS’ infield, lamenting that gain financial support from them. One young
the three infielders—shortstop Joe Tinker, second woman, Mary Rozet Smith, the daughter of a pros-
baseman Johnny Evers, and first baseman Frank perous manufacturer, became not only a major
Chance—were destroying the opposition with contributor to Hull-House, but also a close com-
their double plays. The “saddest of possible words,” panion of Addams; from 1890, when Smith first ar-
he concludes—in what becomes the poem’s re- rived at Hull-House, until her death in 1934, the
frain—are “Tinker to Evers to Chance.” women spent many years together.
Addams was meanwhile gaining national
prominence, touring and lecturing, writing for pub-
Addams, Jane lications such as the Atlantic Monthly and the new
(1860–1935) social reformer and activist
Founder of HULL-HOUSE in Chicago, Addams was
a pioneer in the SETTLEMENT HOUSE movement in
the United States. Born to a prosperous farmer and
businessman whose ancestors, wishing to avoid
family mix-ups, had long ago added an extra d to
the name, Addams grew up in Cedarville, a small
town in northwestern Illinois. Childhood spinal tu-
berculosis left her with back problems that trou-
bled her throughout her life. Attending Rockford
Female Seminary, she once vied in an intercollege
debate with her contemporary William Jennings
BRYAN, a student at downstate Illinois College.
Traveling in Europe in 1888, Addams toured
Toynbee Hall, a settlement house in the slums of
London; the visit inspired her and a college friend,
Ellen Gates Starr, to establish a similar institution
in Chicago. The guiding concept at Toynbee Hall,
where Oxford University graduates lived alongside
the poor, was to provide, instead of charity, a mu-
tual uplift for all involved. In 1889, Addams and
Starr, seeking quarters in Chicago, found a once-
grand mansion, owned by a family named Hull, in
an area of run-down housing, crowded with Ger-
man, Italian, Irish, and Bohemian immigrants.
Gathering other educated, idealistic young women
to join them, they began reaching out to the sur-
rounding community. Among the recruits was Flo-
rence KELLEY, arriving in 1891 after fleeing an
abusive marriage; Kelley, one of the few married Jane Addams, by the time of this 1924 photograph, was
women associated with Hull-House, was actively devoting her efforts to international peace and relief
involved in women’s and children’s labor issues. activities. (Chicago Historical Society)
Ade, George 3
American Journal of Sociology, founded at the UNI- published her second volume of autobiography,
VERSITY OF CHICAGO. Her first best-selling book, The Second Twenty Years at Hull-House, a work
the 1902 DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL ETHICS, col- showing less optimism than her previous effort. In
lecting lectures and articles, declared that democ- 1931, she became the first American woman to
racy must have an ethical basis; the volume she win the Nobel Peace Prize; she died four years later
claimed as her favorite, the 1909 THE SPIRIT OF at the age of 74.
YOUTH AND THE CITY STREETS, dealt sympatheti- The criticism of Addams has been that she was
cally with the problems of urban young people. Her too middle-class in her outlook, that she was trying
most famous work is the autobiography of 1910, to inculcate the poor with her own bourgeois val-
Twenty Years at Hull-House. In 1912, at the na- ues. Moreover, as time passed, her model for social
tional convention of the newly founded PROGRES- activism became outdated; the problems of the
SIVE PARTY, held in Chicago, Addams seconded poor came to be seen as the government’s province,
Theodore ROOSEVELT’s presidential nomination, beyond the capacity of individual do-gooders—and
becoming the first woman to play such a role, at a her private fund-raising could never match govern-
time when women were unable to vote. Among ment resources. Yet as a national figure, as part of
the items in the Progressive Party’s platform were what has been called the PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT,
an eight-hour day, the abolition of child labor, and Addams set a personal example of high-mindedness
the vote for women. After Roosevelt’s defeat, she and selfless striving. The public sector took over
continued to campaign for women’s suffrage, be- the role that she herself had played, and yet
coming vice president of the NATIONAL AMERICAN through her efforts, a favorable climate for dedica-
WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION. In the same tion and service had been established.
year, A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil, a trea- The Jane Addams Memorial Park, housing a
tise deploring young women’s being coerced into sculpture featuring six black granite pillars, de-
prostitution, became a best-seller. signed by Louise Bourgeois, was dedicated in 1996.
When WORLD WAR I broke out in Europe in The pillars depict human hands in various configu-
1914, Addams opposed American involvement; rations, reflecting Addams’s statement that noth-
she traveled in 1915 to The Hague, Netherlands, ing is “so fraught with significance as the human
to chair the International Congress of Women, a hand.”
conference adopting the principles of the Woman’s
Peace Party, a group she had earlier helped to es-
tablish. She subsequently toured European capitals Ade, George
to urge an end to hostilities. Her pacifism contin- (1866–1944) journalist, humorist, playwright
ued as the United States entered the conflict in
1917, and she came under severe criticism for her Born in Kentland, Indiana, Ade arrived in Chicago
views; for the first time her status as a revered na- in 1890 after graduating from Purdue University.
tional figure began to wane, and fewer donors were Joining his college friend John T. MCCUTCHEON,
willing to support her institution on Chicago’s who was establishing himself as a political cartoon-
West Side. Racial tensions increased in the neigh- ist, Ade found a position on the morning edition of
borhood as well, spurred by the RACE RIOTS of July the CHICAGO DAILY NEWS, later named the Chicago
1919. By then Addams was spending less time at Record. In November 1893, he began a regular col-
Hull-House, devoting herself increasingly to peace umn, “STORIES OF THE STREETS AND OF THE
efforts, including the presidency of the WOMEN’S TOWN,” humorous pieces on topics ranging from
INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF PEACE AND FREEDOM, junk shops to boardinghouses; along with another
established in 1919. During the 1920s, despite feature writer, Eugene FIELD, Ade helped to make
health problems, her activities included meeting the Record a widely read and influential paper. Tak-
with pacifists internationally, supporting indepen- ing further advantage of his popularity, the paper
dence movements in Ireland and India, and advo- began publishing “Stories of the Streets and of the
cating worldwide relief endeavors. In 1930, she Town” in a series of paperbacks.