6
LISl
Realism and Regionalism
pn
Pr)
rrr:
Donna Campbell
qw
wh
cha
ltlm
dec
Gar
and
else
nor
Jose
l n 1915, as he rook Stdck of his long career, William Dean H owells wrote to his
friend H enry James, " I am com paradvely a dead cult wirb my statues cast down and
the grass g rowing over t hem in the pale moonlight'' (1983: 3 l). The "dead cult" was,
as Howells recognized, rhe cult of realism char he had championed as critic and
novelist for nearly fi fty years. I:eamred in a host of li terary journals after the Civil
War, amon1:: rhem the Atltmtic Monthly, Harpet·'s Nell' Mor1thly lvlagazine, and The
Cemury, works by Howells, Henry James, Mark Twain, and others exposed rhe
educated, urban, m iddle-class audience of these periodicals ro the principles of realism. Focusing on ordinary characters and siruations with which t he audience could
iclcnrify rather chan emphasizi ng extraordinary evems and exotic locales, realism
sought co posi tion idenriliably flawed human beings within the complex webs of
economic forces and American social class. As ninereenrh-c.:enrury audjences saw it,
realistic fiction placed less emphasis "upon the extraordinary, the mysterious, the
imaginary" than did the romance; it is "rhar which does nor shri nk from the commonplac.:t• (althoug h arr d reads the commonplace) or from t he unp leasanr (although
rhc aim of art is ro give pleasure) in its effort ro depict things as they are, life as ir
is," and is used "in opposition co convenrionalisro, ro idealism, to the imaginative,
and ro senri menralism" accord ing ro Bliss Perry, ed iror of che Atlamir i\1011thly from
1899 ro l909 (B. Perry 1903:269, 229, 222). As Howells defined it more simply in
his November 1889 "Editor's Swd.y" column for Hflrpe,.'.r New Monthly Magr1Zi1Je,
"Realism is nothing more and nothjng Jess rhan lhe t ruthfu l treatment of material"
(Howells 1B89: 966), and for a time the idea or crud1ful crearmenr held sway as
realism dominated American licer~ry fictio n during the 1880s. Despite irs seeming
simplicity, however, that definicion and others l ike it actually came ro be amm unition for whar was callec.J on borh sides or the Atlantic rhe "realism war," in which
proponents of the romance and those of the realistic novel waged a fierce batcle
through essays and reviews in t he Dial, the Fomm, l-lttljter'.r, and cl1e Nm'tb Amlff;c-au
Review.
gui~
tern
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<Jam
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regiot
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embn
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what ·
the sr
charac
bearer
man fc
-----
RealiSm and Regionalism
his
md
•as,
tnd
IVil
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of
it,
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ich
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93
Equally significant is rhe parallel growth of regional or local color ficti on, terms
usually used imerchangeably in the nineteenth century, with "local color" being
predominant before "regionalism" was redefined by Judith Ferterley and Marjorie
Pryse in cbe rwenrierh century as a more serious, more sympathetic, and less stereotypical way of writing about region. An important literary force during the last
quarter of the nineteenth century, local color stories focused on che unique locales of
what rhe auchors saw as a vanishing American pasc whose customs, dialect, and
characters rhe authors of che movement sought co describe and preserve. In Cmmbling
Idols, arguing for a new kind of realism char he called "veritism," Hamlin Garland
declared char "Local color .in ficti on is demonstrably the life of ficri on" (1960: 49).
Garland added chat "Local color in a novel means that ir has such quality of cexruce
and back-ground that it could not have been written in any other place or by any one
else chao a nacive'' (1960: 53-4), emphasizing char "(i) c cannor be done from above
nor from the ours ide" (1960: 6 1). Garland thus g rants himself authority ro write- as
Joseph Kirkland cells him, he is the "first actual farmer in literature" -and distinguishes authentic regional writers from the "literary rourists," to use Amy Kaplan's
term, charmed by a village's eccenrricicies or appalled by che squalor of a slum.
Making local color aurhenric (written by a native) and regional in focus, as Garland
suggests, would ensure irs fidelity ro real life and fasci nate readers eager co learn
about other regions. ln his essay "On rhe Theory and Practice of Local Color," W . P.
James confirms the attraction: Local color "has been used on the one hand to signify
the magic of the unfamiliar, tbe romance of the unknown regions 'over the hills and
far away'; it is used, on the ocher band, co signify rhe intimate touch of familiarity,
the harvest of the q lliet eye and loving spirit in their own Little corner of earth "
(James 1897: 748). An emphasis on the local, an inreresr io rhe exotic or unusual
features of a reg ion, derailed descriptions of sercing, the use of rualecr, and the use of
a shorter form for fiction - usually sketches or scories as opposed ro novels - ruscinguish local color or regional fict ion from mainstream realism , although Eric Sundquist
suggesrs a more subtle distinction in char "economic or political power can itself be
seen co be definitive of a realise aesthetic, in char chose in power (say, white urban
males) have more often been judged ·realises,' while those removed fro m rhe sears of
power (say, Midwesterners, blacks, immigrants, or women) have been categorized as
regionalists" (Sundquist 1988: 503). Later case by its detractors as a lighcer, more
comforting version of realism , one in which descriptive detail and the humorous
depiction of quainc customs painred over irs lack of serious themes, local color or
regional fi ction faced a different sort of struggle for acceptance as the public fine
embraced the genre and chen djsmissed it as irrelevant.
The story of the complex relationship between realism and regionalism is exactly
what was lose in the generations afcer H owells, when chose iconoclasts who case down
the sracues of his "dead cult" smoothed ovt:r the difficulties and dissensions char
characterized realism and regionalism in the nineteenth cenrury. Once the standardbearer for the brave new movement of realism, by 191 5 Howells had become a straw
man for the attacks of H. L. Mencken and ocher rwencieth-cencury writers opposed
94
Dmwa Cam{Jball
to what they charged were realism 's flaws. According to che new generat ion, rhese
1ncluded realism 's seJf-censocsrup, pracriced ro avoid bringing a blush co a young
~ irl 's d 1eek; irs worshi p of New England as a literary cencer; irs sty listic rim iclicy;
and irs willingness co follow H owells' much-misunderstood admonition for American writers ro write of "rhe smiling aspects of life, w hich are rhe more American"
(Howells 1886: 64 1). D amning him with fain t p raise, Mencken wrore rhar as nn
official represencarive of American li rc rarure Howells "looked well in funeral garmen ts" and "made a near and caressing speech" ( 1955: 1238), but "(h]is psychology
is superficial, amateurish, ofren nonsensical" ( 19 19: 54) and his later prose "simpering, coguet tish, overcorseced Eng lish" 0968: 179). For M encken, Heming way, Sinclair
Lewis, and rhe rest , genteel H owellsian re-al ism was d1e repressive force char ruined
courageous literary rough necks like Mark Twain and earned vigorous regionalists Like
Hamli n Garland . This reaction against H owel ls resembled a similar reaction agai nst
local color fi ction. In wJ1ar Cad Van D oren d escribed in 1922 as "the revoir from rhe
v illage," wri ters such ns Carl Sandburg, Edwin Arl ington Robinson, Zona Gale, and,
most famously, Sinclair Lewis in Main St1'eet (1920) rebelled agamsr an idealized
version. of small-town life. The ideal ized vision arose nor from the spare and often
g rim works of local colo r writers like Mary E. Wilkins Freeman but from bestsdlers
char senrimenralized rural life, such as E. N . Westcott's David Hamm (1898) and
Irving Bacheller's Eben Holde11 (1900), yer the scigma of unreality arcached irself ro
both. ln clearing the path for a new American lircra rure, one m odern in sub jecrmarcer bur not necessaril.y mod ernisr in style, M enckeo, Lewis. and the resc p romoted
their characcerizacions of insip id, repressive realism and irrelcvam , senrimenralized
local color so effectively char rhese judgments held sway for much of the twentieth
centu ry.
T o see real ism and regionalism as the powerful forces they were for rhe1 r
nineceenrh-cenrury audiences, chen, we need tO set aside Mencken 's p rejudices an·d
look at them from the Jual perspective of literary documenrs of the ri me and recent
work o n rhe deeper significance of regionalism and realism . T o begi n with, rea lism
and regionalism were nor necessarily or exclusively l iterary palliatives to soothe a
nation's fractured psyche after the Civil W ar, alrhough chcy did serve chis purpose.
In the 1970s and 19HOs, as women's regional writing began co be studied, one
branch of inrerpre rarion char g ained credence t hroug h rht works of Marjorie Prysc,
J udith Ferrerley, J osephine D onovan , Elizabeth Ammons, Sarah Way herman, and
others was chc analysis of the genre's sopbisticart:d narrative strategies and rhe vision
of women 's community that ex ists in local color fictio n. especially as char community
suggests a t imdess or healing realm. O chers, such as June Howard, Richard Brodhead,
Am y Kaplan, and Sandra Zagarell, have shown char realistic and regional fiction
functioned in parr as narrarive spaces in which ideological conflicts about immigration, indusrna lizatiou, urbanization, race, and above aU national idenricy could be
negotiated, if nor resolved . Brodhead and Kaplan emphasize rhe relat ions becweeo
cu i rural tourist and regional spectacle, and Zagarell and Kaplan examine local color's
rac ially conservative, nanvisr vis1on of community. Regional licerarure defines itself
,-
Realism and Regionalirm
as necessarily disrincr from rhe whole, a lireramre of margins, as many critics have
nored. lc exists in tension with mainstream works even when , as in the lace ninereenrh cenrury, American regional fiction became hig hly visible through the sheer
number of stories published. As the tangible site of an imagined national past,
regional 6crion provided a temporary respire from che incursions of modern icy represented by an increasingly industrialized and mban nacional landscape. By representing itself as a sire of exclusion from and, implicitly, opposition ro the dominant national
culture, the region as ir is constructed in local color fiction paradoxically resisted
integration into mainstream American life even as it represented itself as unjquely
and purely American, a bastion of unadulterated American lineage and perfectly
preserved rituals. As June Howard points our, however, "the clain1 co cultural aurbotiry
based on deep roors in d1e past is itself a discincrively modern one" (1996: 368),
based on an awareness of rhe inherent facriciousness of a regionally constructed past.
Jc is within these paradoxes and chis space between ''region" and "America" that the
"cultural work" of regionalism, co use Jane Tompkins's term, is accomplished. from
rhe emergence of a regional sensibility and rhe rise of realism after the Civil War,
through the "realism war" of the 1880s and the retmn co romance in the 1890s, tbe
"genteel" movemenrs of realism and regionalism served as rhe staging ground for a
heated debate about what American licerarure could or should be.
.
ation, these
to a young
ic cimidicy;
1 for AmerAmerican"
· that as an
funeral garpsychology
1se "simpervay, Sinclair
char ruined
:maliscs like
cion against
~lc from rhe
~Gale, and,
~n idealized
e and often
1 besrsellers
(1898) and
1ed icself co
in subjectIt promoted
imemalized
~ cwenciech
The Beginnings of Regionalism
The traditional point of departure for local color lireracure is the end of rhe Civil
War, bur inrerest in regions as a subject for wridng began much earlier. From rhe
earliest days of the republjc, American writers had called for a truly American
liceracure, a call typically combined wicb arJ admonition co avoid imiradon of foreign
models. The 6rsr problem was ro define nor only rbe nature of American (jreracme
but also the nature of irs audience. In rbe January 1820 issue of the Edinb~trgh Review,
Sydney Smith, a frequent contributor, bad posed a rherorical question rbar, ac; Margaret
Fuller Iacer commemed, spucred "pardocic vanity" (Fuller 1999: 42) and srung American authors into response, namely: "In rhe four quarters of rbe globe, who reads an
American book?" Criticism of America's fai lme co produce authencit:ally American
and auchencically excellent literary works was nor confined to British commencarors,
however. In the same year, James Kirke Paulding, a friend of Washington Irving and
already a defender of American frontier culcure in such works as The Dtverting History
ofj ohn Bull and Brother jonathan (1812) and The Backwoodsma11 (1818), charged char
"(w)e have imicared where we aught often have excelled; we have overlooked our
own rich resources, and sponged upon the exhausted treasury of our impoverished
neighbors" (Paulding 1999: 24). Paulding's complaint is echoed later in writings by
Poe and, most famously, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who in "The American Scholar··
complained tl1ar "We have listened coo long co che courtly muses of Europe" and
challenged his lisreners to "walk on [their] own feet" and ''speak [their] own minds"
: for their
udices and
and recenr
th, realism
:o soothe a
is purpose.
udied, one
jorie Pryse,
erman, and
.l che vision
:ommunicy
I Brodhead,
Jnal ficc1on
r imiTUgra:y could be
ns becween
local color's
efines itself
J.
95
...
96
Donna Campbell
(Emerson 1998a: 1113-14). I n speaki ng of archirecmre in "Self-re liance," Emerson
proposed a method equally applicable co che nation's literature: "If the American
artist will srudy with hope and love che precise thing to be done by him, considering
rhe climate, the soil, the lengch of day, t he wants of the people, che habit and form
of che government, he will create a house in which aiJ of d1ese wi ll find t hemselves
fitted. nod caste and sentiment will be satisfied also" (Emerson L998b: 1141). The
growing consensus in the fitness of a nation's building irs own litemrure, like Thoreau's
argument for rbe fimess of a man's building his own bouse, increased with the
g rowt h of national consciousness, a consciousness that even ar an early dare retained
a sense of distinct regions.
By the 1840s American writers were already evaluating the work of earUer generations and proposing the shape of regional literatures m come. In the early decades of
the century, Washington Irving had won fume abroad and at home for works such as
The Sketch Book (1819- 20), which included "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow," both adaptations of German folk tales transposed into an American
setting. As literary hisrorian 11-Ienry A. Beers wrote in his pioneering survey of
American literature, Initial Swdies in American Letten (1895), "Washington Irving
(1783-1859) was the first American author whose books, as books, obtained recognition abroad" (Beers L895: 74 ). With the publicat ion of The Prorreers (1823), the first
in rhe Leacherstocking series, James Fenimore Cooper had defined what reviewers
hailed as a genuinely American character and iconic figure of the fronrier, Narry
Bumppo. Cooper's success encouraged other reg ional writers, such as William Gilmore
Simms of Souch Caro lina, who woo the title "the James Fenimore Cooper of the
Soucb'' with his hisrorical romances, including Gtty Rh;ers (1834) and The Yema.rsee: A
RmiJauce of Carolina (I 844). In his 1844 Phi Beta Kappa address ac the Universiry of
Georgia, Simms said that he "rejoiced co behold symptoms of [ . .. ) independent
incelieccual working, simultaneously, in remote regions of the country" and bad a
"vision of a generous growth jn art and letters, of which tokens begin to make
themselves felc from che Arooscook co che R io Brave" (Simms 1999: 28). As more of
the regional writers Simms envisioned were heard from, the reverence chat an earlier
generation had felt fo r Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper as supreme
interpreters of che American experience began co wear chin. For example::, in assessing
past and current American writers, Margaret Fuller dispatched Washingron Irving
with left-handed compliments - he is "just what he ought to be" and has a "niche"
that no one else could occupy - before dispensing wirh Cooper's hitherto inflated
reputation: Cooper's acruevemeor in preserving cbe "noble romance of rhe hunterpioneer's life" alm ost makes one forger "rhe baldness of his plocs, shallowness of
thought, and poverty in rhe presenrarion of character" (1999: 41). S1milarly, in A
Fable for Crttm ( 1848) James R ussell Lowell echoed Fuller's general assessment of
Cooper's characrerizacion, complaining rhat, having created une new character in
Narcy Bumppo, Cooper "has clone naug ht bur copy it ill ever since" (Lowell 1867b:
57). Bur Lowell heartily approved of Cooper's use of American materials and advised
ocher America n writers co follow the same course:
f ror
buil
fas h
corr
alth
The
gen
inrr
rhe
resr
inc
of~
bas'
irre
son
est~
por
nne
SUI
fe:ar
nne
on
Cn
Ld
All
"M
Realmn tmd Regionalism
' Emerson
American
>nsidering
and form
hemselves
141). The
Thoreau's
with cbe
~ retained
Though you brag of your new W orld, you doo'c half believe in ic;
And as much of che Old as is possible weavt in ic;
generaaecades of
.:s such as
'. egend of
American
mrvey of
m Irving
recogmrhe first
reviewers
•r, Natty
Gilmore
~r of che
•t~aiSee: A
·ersiry of
pendent
d had a
o make
more of
1 earlier
.upreme
ssessing
1 Irving
"niche"
in Raced
lmncerrness of
y, in A
nenc of
tcter in
l867b:
advised
0 my friends , thank your god , if you have one, chat he
~r
97
You sceaJ Englishmen's books and think Englishmen's thought,
With their salt on her tail your wild eagle is caught;
Your literature sui ts its each whisper and motion
To what will be thought of it over the ocean;
Forger Europe wholly, your veins throb with blood,
To which the dull current in hers is bur mud
'Twixt the Old World and you set the gulf of a sea;
Be srrong-backed, brown-handed, upright as your pines
By the scale of a hemisphere shape your desig ns.
(Lowell 1867b: 59-60)
From Emerson co Lowell and Simms, and, Iacer, Walt Whitman, the consensus was
building: The American bard would be vigorous, tanned, and red-blooded; be would
fashion literature with his bare bands from the soil of his region and noc from
corrupt European traditions.
Indeed, several wciters had already taken up the challenge of regional writing,
although most were far from the romanticized American bard chat Lowell bad pictured.
The regional fict ion of the era was typically humorous and unofficially d ivided along
gender lines. The mosr conspicuous g roup of writers, rhe Souchwescern humorisrs,
introduced two elements rhar remained a consistent presence in local color literature:
the convention of the frame story, often with an educated listener or narraror who
responds to lower-class local characters; and the use of dialect ro represent differences
in class as well as differences in region. Along with the stories of ocher regions, chose
of Southwestern humor were published primarily in William T. Porter's New Yorkbased sporting weekly rhe Spil·it of the Times as well as in local newspapers; they were
irreverent and decidedly not genteel enough for general consumption. Noti ng t hat
some Southwestern humor exTols traditional virtues b ur chat much of ir was anci establishrneoc, Walter Blair and Hamlin Hill explain char such "subversive humor
portrayed indelibly drawn characters whose code of behavior affirmed disorder, violence,
and amorality" (1978: 163). In this way, the stories served as an antidote to rbe
strictures of civilization for their largely white male aud ience. M any of t he tales
feature crude humor, prankster or trickster behavior, conservative political views,
and cruelty ranging from eye-g oug ing co mutilation and death. Some authors drew
on the call-tale tradition that transformed real fig ures inco fo lk heroes: thus Davy
Crockecc not only encouraged his larger-than-life scacus in his own Narrative of the
Life of David Crockett (1834) bur also was myt hologized as che hero of the Crockett
Almanacs; and braggart keelboatman Mike Fink boasted his way into legend as the
"M ississippi roarer. " Ocher norable characters include che " ring-railed roarer" Ransy
98
Donna Campbell
Sniffle of Augustus Baldwin Longstreet's Georgia Scenes (1835) and George Washingcon H arris's cruel prankster, the T ennessee front ieLsman Sur Lovingood, of Stu
Lovi1zgood: Yams Spun by a "Nat'ral Bom Dum'd PooL" (pub lished in the Spirit of the
Times and local papers; collected in 1867). Among the characters char influenced Iacer
authors is Johnson Jones Hooper's confidence man Simon Suggs of Some Advemures of
Simon Sttggs, Late of the Tallapoosa Volunteer.r ( l845), whose experiences in "The Captain
Attends a Camp-meeting" prefigure those of che King at che revival meeting in The
Adventtms of Hucklebmy Finn. Another figure, the "mighcy hunter·· Joe Doggerr, of
Thomas Bangs Thorpe's "The Big Bear of Arkansas" (1841), cells of an impossibly
fruitful "creation scare" of Arkansas where beers grow ro chc size of cedar stumps and
an "un buncable bar" cannor be kiJied bu r only dies "w hen his r ime come," a comic
q uest Iacer g iven mythic resonance in William Faulkner's "The Bear" (Go Down.
Moses, 1942).
R egional humor from other areas appeared as well in che years before che Civil
War, some of it employing dialect traditions and a satiric wic less crude bur no less
poinred chan that of Southwestern humor. As in Southwestern humor, even chose tales
that lacked an overt political purpose praised , poked fun ac, or deplored the incursions of democracy and the peculiarities of the region. I n che Norrheast, for example,
tb~ humorist Seba Smith comme nced on the workings of the Main e legislature
through the clialecr Jeerers of his alter ego, the innocent bumpkin J ack D owning, in
The Life and \flritmgs of /vlajor j ack Dowwng of Doumingville. away Down East in the
State of Maine, \fl1'1tter1 by Himself (J 83 3). Other cales poked fun at the character of che
sharp, wily Yankee peddler such as Thomas Halliburton's Sam Slick, of The Clockmak~·:
or. The Sayings and Doings of Sam11el Slick (1836), whose sharp dealings cause one of
his victims ro call h im "a yankee pedlar, a cheatin vagabond, a wooden nucmeg"
(Halliburton l836: 117), the last from the scereorypical Yankee peddler's supposed
habit of selling wooden rather t han real nurmegs co unsuspecting farm wives on his
ro ute. M()re significanr for later regionalists is J ames R ussell Lowell's firsr series of
dialect poems in The Big/()zu Papm (l848), which criticized the M exican War throu~h
che blunt speech of New England counrryman H osea Biglow and the sruffy, pedantic
commentary of his ostensible edicor, d1e Reverend Ho mer Wilbur. Lowell resurrected rhe characters to comment on the Civil War in The Biglow Papers, Second Serres
(1867), a volume that Howells p raised as expressing "the g enuine vernacular, che
crue feeling, the racy humor, and the m ocher-wic of Yankee-land" (1993: 69). In his
inrroducrion tO the second series, Lowell defends his use of clialecr on ling uistic
grounds, seeking co rescue rhe racy naturaJ idiom from both the schoolmaster who
has been "busy starching our language and sm ooching ir flar'' and the newspaper
reporter w ho puffs our che lang uage wich grandiose circumlocutions (l R67a: xi).
Boch in rbe perceived accu racy of his use of dialecc and in his defense of irs use,
LoweU was a significant figure for later realist writers such as H owells, Hamlin
Garland , and Edward Eggleston. ln "Folk-spet::ch in America," Egglescon quoces
from one of Lowe!l 's letters empbas izing the importance of cl ialecc for the American
language: "I hope you will persevere [in collecting dialect) ... R emem ber char ic
w ill soon
su ic of sec
soon have
(E gglesto:
R egion
sion. As
th read is
and the I
whelm in!
Benjamin
Saying.r oj
Whirche1
Linda A.
periodica
posehum•
independ
author, :to
1873 W I
hugely J=
Samanth
womanh
the cradi
common
cemperat
G ilded 1
rions (St
Altho
Follo-w?
in what
bur mor
Prairie L
of the A
Mrs. Kt
Sucker.
irs hide
creasure
rinually
whose c
borrowi
rhe narJ
the pip
ous ro
one of
Realism and Regionalism
3eorge Washingovingood, of Sut
n t he Spirit of rhe
It influenced later
Some Advemttre.r of
• in "The Captain
u meeting in The
·Joe Doggett, of
of an impossibly
cedar stumps and
:-come," a comic
Bear" (Go Doum,
before the Civil
crude but no less
·,even chose rales
:>lored the incur~ast, for example,
.1aine legislature
ack Downing, in
Down Ec11t i11 the
e character of rhe
Jf T/;e Clockmak.er;
ngs cause one of
vooden nurmeg"
:ldler"s supposed
rm wives on his
1l's firsr series of
an War through
stuffy. pedantic
r. Lowell resur~um,
Second Set·ies
· vernacular, the
.993: 69). In his
'Ct on linguistic
:hoolmasrer who
i the newspaper
ons (l867a: xi).
tfensc of irs use,
[owells, Hamlin
.ggleston quores
or the American
~member that it
99
will soon be too lace .. . When the lumberer comes our of the woods he buys him a
suit of store-clothes and flings his picruresque red shin: into the bush. Alas! we shall
soon have norhing but srore-clothes to dress our thoughts in, if we don't look sharp"
(Eggleston 1894: 875).
Regional humor focusing on women, although less evident, added another dimension. As in Southwestern humor and most ocher local color fiction, the common
thread is the use of oral tradition: srorytelling as action and as voice predorrunares,
and rhe liberal use of dialecr ensures the illusion of orality even at the risk of overwhelming the reader with unorthodox and unpronounceable spellings. In 1854,
Benjamin P. ShiUaber introduced Mrs. Partingron and her malapropisms in Life and
Sayh1gs of Mrs. Partington, and Others of the Fami!J•. Earlier, however, Frances Miriam
Whitcher, the "first significant woman prose humorist of rhe narion" accordi ng ro
Linda A. Morris (1992: 10), had published sketches in Godey's Lady's Book and ocher
periodicals char featured the outspoken Widow Bedore and Aunr Maguire (published
posthumously as The \Yiidow Bedott Papers, 1855). Whjccher's porrrayal of this
independent and wryly unseorimenral woman influenced anorher upstate New York
author, Marietta Holley, som eti mes called "the female Mark Twain.'' Beginning in
1873 wirb My Opinions and Ber.ry Bobbet's, Holley would go on co write her own
hugely popular series of dialect-based novels centered on a strong female character,
Samantha Allen or "Josiah Allen's wife." H olley pies the sentimenral ideals of pure
womanhood and the sacredness of marriage spouted by the spinscer Betsy Bobber and
the traditional pronouncemencs on woman's place of]osiah Allen against Samantha's
commonsense real ism, managing in the process to comment on everyrhing from
temperance and women's suffrage to religion (St1111anthn am011g t/Je Brethren, 1890),
Gilded Age conspicuous consumption (Sama11tha at Saratoga, 1887), and race relations (Samantha 011 the Race p,,ohlem, 1892).
Although nor smctly regional humor, Caroline Kirkland's A New Home- Who'll
Follow? or, Glimp.res of Western Li;fe (1839) interfuses vivid character rypes and ht;tnlor
in what is essentially a women's frontier narrative in novel form, one comparable w
but more realistic than Mary Austin Holley's Texas (1833) or Eliza Farnham's Life in
Prairie Land, as Annette Kolodny notes in The umd Before He1·: Fantasy and ExfJerience
of the Ame1'ican Frontim, 1630- 1860 (1984). Praising the "spiri ted delineations of
Mrs. Kirkland," Margaret Fuller had commenced that "[r)he feamres of Hoosier,
Sucker, and Wolverine life are worth fixing; they are pecuUar to the soil and indicate
irs bidden treasures" (1999: 41). Seen from a woman's perspecrive, these hidden
treasures of the froncier adventure consist of mud, rain, and a cramped house continually invaded by every kind of pest, from flies to the borde of inquisitive neighbors
whose criticism of the narrator's furniture and way of life does noc prevent rhem from
borrowing everything she owns. The humor consists in the ironic contrast berween
the narraror's ideal vision of democracy and her confrontation with irs grubby reality:
the pipe-smoking, robacco-spirring women and hard-drinking men who are oblivious co her genteel hints about privacy and class distinctions. When she has coaxed
one of these exceedingly independent villagers into being her servant for a rime,
100
D onna Campbell
Kirkland's narracor comments, "Gram:ing rhe correctness of che opinion which may
be read in their counrenances chat they are 'as good as you are,' I muse insist, char a
greasy cook-maid, or a redolent srable-boy, can never be. ro my chinking, an agreeable cable companion" (Kirkland 1990: 53). Kirkland heightens cbe class dispariry
and consequencly the humor through coocrascing characters whose social pretensions
render chem ridiculous; she also com:ras(S cbe local characters' dialect wi th her own
standard English and extravagaoc use of classical allusion and literary quotations. She
ridicules the romantic vision and pascoral tradition of simplicity and genti lity as cbe
nacural scare of human beings by besrowiog classical names on her neighbors: "My
rosy-haired Phillida[,] who rejoiced in the euphonius [sic] appellation of Angeline,
made herself enti rely ar home, looking inro my trunks, &c., and asking cbe price of
various pares of my dress" (Kirkland 1990: 45). Like Sarah Orne J ewett, Kirkland
emphasizes communiry, bur her view of irs power is more acerbic chan reverent. In
Moncacuce, the front ier rown, comm unal feeling and democratic manners are born of
necessity rather chan of similar values and sympathy, for "[w}bac can be more absurd
chan a feeling of proud distinction, wh ere a stray spark of fire, a sudden illness, or a
day's concre-remps, may throw you entirely on the kindness of your humblest
neighbor?" (K irkland 1990: 65). A Necw Home- Who'll Follow? is, as Sandra Zagarell
argues in her inrroduccion, a highly original work char does nor resemble ocher contemporary work by American women writers, but ic does anticipate later local color
fiction in irs episodic strucrure, detailed descriptions, and inceresr in rhe dynamics of
communities.
By the 1850s, chen, rhe necessary elernenrs of regional or local color lireratrne
were in place: a sense of regional differences as an interesting and sufficienrly exotic
subject-matter co arouse readers' inreresr; a rrnal or frontier secring rhar plausibly
explains the inhabitants' lack of sophistication and rheir colorful behavior; an estabLished dialect rradicion char had boch popular and scholarly support; well-established
character rypes through which writers could evoke Laughter; and the device of rhe
frame story and sroryce! ling as an important element of the srruccure. lr was lively
and interesting in its language and plots, and it was decidedly American. What it
did not have was access co publication in culcural ly elite journals and critical respectability; bur that would change during the age of realism and regionalism.
Regional Realism or Local Color Fiction
Regional realism emerged as a dominant literary force in the last quarter of the
ninereenrh cenrury, alrhough ficcion by regional authors bad appeared earlier. The
cwo writers cradirionally crecliced wirh establishing local color as a genre were Brer
H arre and H arrier Beecher Srowe. Parr of a new breed of Wesrern humorists whose
ranks included Mark Twain, Charles F~srer Brown or "Artemus Ward," and Dan De
Quille, H arre conrribured sketches co the Golden Era and rhe Californian before
assuming editorship of rhe newly established Ove1·land i\1ontbly and publishing his
most famous !
Poker Flat," <
Other Stories (
eschewed the
western hum•
derails and u1
sometimes set
realm of pass
was at once a
Mosr famo
wrote of regie
of Oldtow11 F1
On·'.r Island ('
rhe tradition
Stowe's regie
(1834), in w
capable of cc
parr, argues .
In the cradi1
cheir ability
quotidian ro
cion if nor
through sro1
The Cormtry
The popt
fo rces. First
regions, esp
flier height(
made t he c
about the S
the sire of
country fro
those adve1
down the is
icacion corr
the cootine
rravel be~
of fasrer pr
a more raJ
telegraph <
berweeo turbanizatJ<
oral landsc
R11aiism and Regionalism
1ion which may
1St insist , chat a
1king, an agree~ class disparity
•cia! pretensions
;t wich her own
quotations. She
gentility as the
neighbors: "My
on of Angeline,
jog the price of
~wert , Kirkland
ilan reverent. In
mers are born of
be more absurd
den illness, or a
your humblest
Sandra Zagarell
mble ocher conlarer local color
the dynamics of
101
mosc famous stories there, includ ing "The Luck of Roaring Camp,·' "The Ouccasts of
Poker Flat, .. and "Tennessee's Parmer." Collected in The L11ck of Roaring Camp atzd
Othe1· Stones (1870), Harre's tales caught rhe public's attention and, because they
eschewed cl1e more overt violence and crudity of the earlie r generation of Sourhwesrero humorists, they could be read by a broader audience. By mixing realistic
derails and unusual characters from the mining camps with a morally conventional ,
sometimes sentimental, vision of human narure and communiry, Harre expanded the
real m of possibilities for local color writers and sparked public interest in a form that
was at once alien and familiar.
Mosr famous as rhe author of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), H arrier Beecher Stowe also
wrote of regional character types such as the drawling Yankee sroryreller Sam Lawson
of Oldloum Folks (1869) and Sam Lawson·s Oldtown Fireside Stories (1872); her P11arl of
orr·s Isln.ud (1862) inspired Sarah Orne Jewetr and is often cired as the beginning of
che trad ition of women's local color fiction . As Marjorie Pryse poincs out, however,
Stowe's regionalism began wi rh her fuse published srory, "A New England Sketch"
(1834), in which she created "rhe possibility of regionalism irself as a literary form
capable of conferring literary authority on American women" (Pryse 1997: 20) - in
parr, argues Pryse, co counter the male-dominated traditions of Southwestern humor.
In the tradition of women's local color ficcion, stories focus on women's Lives and
their ability co endure hardship throug h tbe bonds of friendship and community; the
quotidian round of activities rbac com prise women's work becomes a kind of meditation if noc a means ro transcendence, as pasr meers present and is passed down
chrougb storytelling and ritual feasrs such as rhe Bowden family reunion in Jewen's
The C01mtry of the Pointed Firs.
The popularity of local color arose from a complex series of social a nd Literary
forces. First , in part because of the rerurni ng veterans who had traveled ro other
reg ions, especially the South, d uring their campaigns, and in part because t he conflier heightened awareness of sectional differences more generally, rhe Civil War had
made the country conscious of itself as a land full of disparate regions. Curiosity
about the South as rhe sire of rhe conflicr was followed by interest in rhe Midwest as
rhe sire of farmers, homesteaders, and "free land," and in the West as a half-tamed
country from which unimaginable wealth from mining could Bow into rhe hands of
chose adventurous enough co seek it. Advances in transportation helped co break
down rht isolation of communities, whether for good or ill , and advances in communication completed rhe process. The railroad during chis era extended nor only across
the continent (1869) bur also into iocerurban and suburban branch lines chat made
rravel berween small communities and cities easier than ever before. The adoption
of fascer presses, cheaper paper , and the Mergenthaler typesetting machine ensured
a more rapid d isseminacion of printed informacion, facilitated by the ubiquity of
telegraph offices and even, after 1883, the realiry of long-distance telephone service
between N ew York and Chicago. Also, increasing industrialization and creeping
urbanization bred a middle-clnss population nostalgic for an imagined past, a pasroral landscape where traditional country folk plied their trades and provided a living
color literature
ificiencly exotic
: tl1ac ~lausibly
avior; an estabvell-escablished
e device of the
·e. It was lively
!rican. What it
critical respecra!ism.
quarter of the
rep earlier. Tht
genre were Bret
1umorisrs whose
d," and Dan De
Jlifomian before
publishing his
..
1
102
Dotma Campbell
link co national history and mem ory. As Richard B rodhead poinrs ou r in Cultures of
Letters ( 1993), the rise in cult ural to urism at chis ri m e also added co t he populari ty of
local color, for although upper-class courisrs had always been able co travel abroad
and co visit fashionable sp as, even middle-class city-dwellers now had it with in rheir
power co visir cbe sires abour which chey read. Since local color fiction could cooscrucc in p rim the rural villages of N ew England or che ruined plantations of rhe
South as Sites of spectacle and living rropes of the past, the middle-class rouris r could
now visit rhe past and enjoy an "authentic" rather ch an v1carious experience of a place
at once exot ic and noo-rhreaten ing.
Auchenrici cy was the key note; an d ir became a soug h t-after trait in och er fields as
w ell as in the realise and regionalist fiction of the time. The lace nineteenth century
and eady rwenrieth century saw a g rowing interest in the a rtifacts of American
h iscory and cultu re: for example, an interest in antiques and handcrafts as tang ible
evidence of an A m erican past increased until w riters like R ollin Lynde H arre comp lained of t he plunder.ing of New Eng land villages for t heir anciques. D ri ven indirectl y by the evo lutionary theories of Charles D arwin and the scientific ap plication
of chose theories to social laws by Herbert Spencer and ochers, t he era a lso saw an
increasing in terest in family heritag e as "nacive·· American fami lies soug h t ro differencJate themselves from rhe hordes of im m igrants pouring th rough Ca.c;rle Garden
and, after 1892, Ellis lsland . G enealogical societies chat req ui red m em bers ro prove
rheir American roors sprang up at this rime: che Sons of the American Revolution
was founded in 1889, gaining, among other m embers, the otherwise iconoclast ic
writer Step hen Crane in Ap r il 1896. T he national organization of che Daug hters of
the Amencan R evolucion was fou nded in 1890, followed by the incrementally more
restrictive Colonial D ames of A mer ica (1 891) and che Mayflower Society (1897); nor
to be ou tdone, the Uni ted D aught ers of the Confederacy organized their national
group in 1894. A urhenriciry io heritage called for auchenriciry in language as well,
as "narive·· American rural dialects and phrases in literature impl icirly becam e a
means fo r shutting our the Irish, Y iddis h , l ralian, and ease European dialects char
could be heard everywhere in th e great cities. ln reviews of realistic fict ion, aurhenric iry of character, situation, and motive became a couchsronc against which works
were judged; in reviews of local color nct ion , the add it ional cri te ria of aut henticity
in diaJect and setti ng were added . As Gavin jones notes, the use of d ialect was a
double-ed ged sword; insufficient dialect in a work rend ered d ialogue inauthentic
and inexpressive o( the region, b ut coo m uch djalecr risked not on ly vulgari ty bur
the m ore long-term possibility "cha r rhe encouragement of dialect wou ld p rod uce a
situation in wh1ch speak ers 'of the same race .. . can communicate on ly th roug h an
Lnterprecer' ··(Jones 1999: 49). As a child d uring chjs era, for example, Edith W harcon
recalled rc::a<.ling rhe dialect stories of Mark T wain and M r. D ooley with her parents'
approval, bu r with a dear understanding of the lim its: ··we spoke naturally, instinctively good English, bur m y parenrs always wanted ic co be berrer, char is, easier, m ore
flexible and idiomatic, .. more arruned co "racy in novations" - as long as "p ure English"' was preserved (Wharton 1990: 821). Jones notes char the quesr for amhcnricicy
in speed·
race, esp
However
ever g rea
dialect o
legirimiz
cern wid
national
standing
inhabitec
The sl
irs popuJ
called tl1
orbers, c
Nl rmth/.y .
J\11onthiy •
1939),
v.
peri odic~
Realism,
bellerrisr
by defin
aspirant~
high cul
had a se
York or.
(excepr I
1-1a rjm•'s
and rhei
Separati
like Pra
and muc
a rds fo r
t ilt cart:
and hig
roloriscs
news par
now gra
fact. pul
inau,Qur.
srory nr
lirerarur
readers I
ever, a.<.
Realism and Rcgionali.rm
103
in speech could mask or legitimize an attempt co naturalize differences in class and
race, especially in the arrempc m reprod uce black dialect for a white audience.
H owever scientifically minded rhe ethnographer or recorder of dialect may be, bowever great tbe degree of sympathy on the pare of the observer, the very face char rbe
dialect of a region is being transcribed as something ocher rban standard speech
l.egirimizes inequality. As Stephanie Foote poi nts om, regional writing's "formal concern with assigning co different kinds of people a place in relation co the scandard,
national culrure demonstrates chat regional writing was a powerful method of undersranding not just the 'place' where certain people lived bur also the 'place' they
inhabited in a social hierarchy" (2001: 11).
The showcase for this "authentic" American literature, and one of the reasons for
its popularity, was che group of monthly literary magazines that Nancy Glazener has
called the "Aclamic group," most of them owned by major pubUshing houses. Among
ochers, t he "Adancic group" included the Atlantic (founded 1857); Harper's New
Momhly lvlogazim (founded 1850); che Nqrth American Revhw (1815-1939); So·ibner's
lvfqnthly (1870- 1930), which became the Century in 1881; So·ibnet·'s Magazine (18871939), which was scarred after So·ibner's Monthly ceased publication; and rhe review
periodicals the Critic (1881-1906) and the Fomm (1886-1916). In Reading for
Realism, Glazener suggests that "high realism'' began as a collaboration between "the
belletristic branch of the publishing indusrry, which was·defining irs marker posicion
by defini ng an American Literary high culrure aimed at the bourgeoisie and irs
aspiranrs; and Boston's bourgeoisie, which used irs sponsorship and consumption of
high culture co justify irs privileged sratus" (1997: 24). The magazines of this group
had a self-defined role as cultural gatekeepers; in addjtion to emanating from New
York or, better sri ll , Bosron, they carefully g uardt:d their cone of high seriousness
(except for the light or humorous pieces that appeared in well-defined sections like
Harper's "Editor's Drawer"), their sense of setting a cone as well as setting a trend,
and their keen sense of an audience that wished co be enlightened bur never shocked.
Separating themselves early on from r:he sensational weeklies or popu lar publications
like Frank Leslie's ILlustrated Newspaper, and later from the cheaper popular magazines
and muckraking journals like !vlcCl11re's. the Adanric group guaranteed certain standards for a middle class willing co purchase the kind of literary taste that was formerly
the carefully cultivated and stren uously guarded aesthetic province of the leisured
and hjghly educated upper class. The imporrance of chis was clear for the local
colorists as well as for the realises: instead of publishing their work only in local
newspapers or specialty publications like the Spi?'it of the Timer, reg ional writers \Vere
now granted access co the most literary of rhe high-culture journals. The Atlantic, in
face, published a srory by Rose Terry Cooke, a prominent early local colorist, in irs
inaugural issue. Tht: standards of the g roup bred a kind of caurological reading: lf a
story appeared in d1e Atlantic or Hatp!.w's, the audience could be sure chat it was
literature; and if an unpublished srory deserved co be called literature, it wollld, d1e
readers felt, surely be selecred co appear in one of the Adantic g roup magazines. However, as the Cent11ry admitted in 1885, "(t)here is some truth" in the charge chat "our
j-
--- ------
104
Donmz Campbell
literature may lose in frankness and in force'' by catering co a hypersensitive audience, and "much of rhe world's most valuable literature ... could never reach che
public through the pages of the 'family magazine'" (Centt~ry L885: 164). As Kenneth
Warren argues in Black mul White Strangers (1994), these restrictions guaranreed a
level of moral protection for works with an edge, such as Howells's "divorce novel" A
Modern hzstance, which was serialized in the Century. H owever, the policy of avoiding revolutionary sentiments meant char touchy issues of racial equal ity COllld be
addressed only in cercain ways, if at all, co avoid alienating Southern readers; Charles
W . Chesnutt "The N egro's Answer to che Negro Qllesrion " could not be published
because it was "so partisan" char che magazine wollid nor prim it - a kind of
censorship char valued social order over" 'cmly' subversive political activity" (Warren
1994: 55, 53).
l
Once the doors co a truly national if sciU middle- and upper-class audience had
been opened by these journals, local color stories appeared alongside travel arcicles,
essays on politics, poerry, memoirs, and serial novels. The December 1885 issue of
Harper's, fo r example, contai ns a farce (The Garroter.r) by H owells; poems by C. P.
Cranch and R. P. Blackmore; essays in art criticism ; stories by Elizabeth Sruarr
Phelps and the local color writer Mary Noialles Mu.rfree (che real name of Charles
Egbert Craddock); serial fict ion from H owells (Indian Summer) and local color writer
Constance Fenimore Woolson (East Arlgels); and some travel and nature essays. As is
evident even from chis brief list, the "Atlantic group" magazines, despite their
reputation for high culture and Sllpposed timidity, were more welcoming co women
and writers of color during chis era chan were ocher mainstream periodicals. Beginrung with "The Goophered Grapevine" in the August 1887 issue, Charles W . 01esnurt
published fom stories in the Atlatllic by rhe rurn of the cenrury: the firsr AfricanAmerican fiction writer co p ubl ish in a high-culrure literary review. In addition co a
story in t he North American Reviet{), Paul Laurence Dunbar published several poems in
the Atlantic - nor m erely the papillar poems in dialect char had earned him praise
from H owells, bur sonnets on H arriet: Beecher Stowe and Robert Gould Shaw, che
latter of which concludes that Shaw and the ochers "(b)ave died, che Present reaches,
but in vain!" (Dunbar 1900: 488) because of rights denied co African Americans. The
A tlantic also pllblisbed the Sioux writer Zickala-Sa's amobiograpbical articles, scarring with "Impressions of an Ind ian Chil dhood" in January 1900.
Regional works helped both to confirm the posicion ofBosron and later New York
as cultural cemers and co dislodge them as che mosc appropriate literary subjects for
fiction. Although approximately 150 volllmes of collected local color stories had
appeared before 1900, magazines were the main publication outlet for the regionaJ
fiction char poured in from around rhe councry (Simpson 1960: 8). Local color
thrived in the context of a steady d iet of book r~views , critical essays, colloguy in
lecrers and notes columns, and occasionall y articles chat g rouped and assessed che
writers' work co guide the cam:: of the reading public. For example, Thomas Sargent
Perry warned equally against the vapid dialogue of H arrier Beecher Stowe's MJ' \Yiife
and I, the "weird visions of the Southern novelist," and the "innocently prattl ing
Realism tmd Regionalism
105
srories for which Harper's i\tfagazine is famous" (T. S. Perry 1872: 3 78), and George
Parsons Lathrop measured the reg ion's fiction and concluded that "New York writers
are nor actuated by any impulse in common; . . . and that rhey do nor concern
themselves about making a special New York literaru.re" (Lathrop 1886: 833). Charles
W. Coleman, Jr. (1887) gave extended treatment to Cable, King, Johnston, Harris,
Page, and especially Mary Noailles Murfree or "Charles Egbert Cr~ddock,"' author of
i11 the Tennessee Mountaim (1884) and The Prophet of the Grectt Smoky Ma11ntains (1885);
critically acclaimed in her rime, she is also the on ly female regional writer menrioned
in Beers's Initial St11dies in Amerifan Letters (1895).
From New England, the writers that followed the earljer g eneration of Harriet
Beecher Stowe and Rose T erry Cooke included Sarah Orne Jewett, whose Co11ntry of
the Poi11ted Firs, published in the Atlantic in 1896, was widely acknowledged then as
now w be a masterpiece of regional fiction; Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, of A Humhle
Romrmce and Other St()ries ( L887) and A New Engltmd Ntm aud Othe·r Stories (1891);
Alice Brown of New Hampshire (Tiverton Tale.r); Rowland E . Robinson ; and Celia
T ha.>..'ter. Further west and sourb were Phi lander Deming of New York (Adirondack
Stories, 1880) and Margaret D eland of Pennsylvania (Old Chester Tales, 1898). Mjdwestern writers produced a number of works debunking th e pioneer myth, among
them E. W. Howe's Su;ry of a Country Town (1883) and Edward Egglesron's The
Hoosier Schoolmaster (1871). Joseph Kirkland, rhe son of Caroline Kirkland, carefully
reproduced authentic ilialect in his concribution ro Midwestern literanue, Z~try: The
Meanest Man iu Sp1·i11g Co11nty (1887). A few years Iacer, Hamlin Garland wrore of
farms crushed under mortgages and debt in Main-Traveled R0t.1ds (189 1), later raking
up t he cause of local color fiction JO Cmmbli11g Idols (1894). Constance Fenimore
Woolson, who also wrote of rhe South in For the Major (1883) and Rodman the Keeper:
Southern Sketches (1886), recorded the life of rhe Michigan lake country in Castle
Nowhere: Lake Colfl1try Sketche.r (1875). The Far West could, and clid, boast of Bret
Harte and Mark Twain, whose works soon rran.~cended the tradition of reg ional,
frontier humor represenred b y rhe early pieces collected in The Celebrated Jumping
Frog of Calar~era.s Co1111ty and Other Sketches ( 1867); another larger-than-life figure was
rhe self-promoting poet Joaquin Miller (Cincinnatus Heine Mjller), whose Song.r ofthe
Sierras (187 1) won praise from the Bricjsh press. Mary Hallock Foote contributed
novels such as The Led-Horse Claim: A Romance of the Silver Mi11es (1882) and srories of
the northern Idaho mining d.istrict to the CentW)'• where stOries of Mormon women
and other Western subject s by Helen Hunr Jackson, best known for her California
romance Ramo11a (1884), also appeared. In addirion ro Zirkala-Sa's memoirs and her
retellings of Native American myths, the Atlamic published stories about Native
Americans by Mary Austin , whose sketches of che Southwest appeared in The Land of
Little Raitl (1903 ).
In the South, several traditions of regional fiction developed , some based on the
memories, real and imagined, of rimes before the war and the romantic idea of che
"Lost Cause," ochers addressi ng current issues in a region destabilized by impoverishment, industriali.zarion, reinregrarion wirh the nation, and conllicrs over race. Among
'
l
- -
106
Do-11na Campbell
the early works m this trad it ion were J ohn W . DeForesr's Mis.1 Raveml'.r C01we~·.rio 11
f mm Sece.r.rion to Loyalty(] H67) and Albion T ourgee's A Fool '.r Crrand. by Om of tbe Fools
(1879), a scory of Reconstruction. As J ames Herbert Mo rse summccl them up fo r rhe
Cmtmy, "). W . D e Forese, in his Sourhern stories, arrempred the bloody side of
society there; T ourgee, che darkly passionate and political" (Morse 1883: 367). George
W ashingtOn Cable's unflinching look ar the tangled racial in heritance of the sourh in
Old Creole Da)IS 0 879) and Th, Grtmdisshnes (1880) b roug h t protests from another
non-C reole Louisianan, G race K ing, who, when lnmeming Cahle's perspecrive on the
region, was challenged by editor Richard W arson G ilde r to write stories of the
region as she: saw ic. H er response included t\1omimr Motte ( 1888), Balcony Stm•ieJ
(I 893), and works of Louisiana biscory. A d ifferenr perspective is char of Alice Moore
D unbar-Nelson, who p u rposefuUy sidestepped mcjal issues in Viole1.r and Other Tales
(L895) and The Goodnes.1 of St. Rocque and Othr:r Stories (1899), a lthoug h she: ad d ressed
them ar leng th in later works and unpub lished stories like "The Srones of the
Village." O cher Louisiana writers included Sherwood Bonner (Oialect Tale.r, I 883),
and Iacer K ate C hopin, who published Boyo11 Folk (1894) and A Nigbt in Acadie
( 1897). among other works, before she abandoned wricing ficrion after Tbe Awakeni11g ( 1899). Thomas Nelson Page's scories, such as In Ole Vit-ginia ( 1887), exemplified
whar came ro be cal lc:d rht "plancarion rrarucion" that romanticized life before che
war; the U ncle Remu~ stories of J oel Chandler H arris (U11cle Rem11s: 1-f i.r Songs a11d
Sayh1g.r, 1880) are ofte n g rouped wi th Page's as parr of che crad icion despite the
conrenr of che tales th emselves, wh ich unc.lercu r che idealized view of masrer- slave
relations. A more overt challenge to t he p lantaLioo rradj cion is the work of Charles
W . Chesnurr, whose shore scory collections The Canj11re \'(loman ( 1899) and The \flije
of Hi.r }'onth and Other Toles of the Color Lim (1899) gathered wider accepcancc chan
more pointedl y political Iacer novds such as The Colvmt s Dt·cmll ( 1905).
The "Re alism War," the Retreat into Rornance,and che Decline of Local Color
As rhe n increenrh cenwry d rew ro a close, so Lou did che pu b lic's imeresr rn local
color fi ccion, driven by impatience with a scyle chat bad run irs course, a rerrea r inro
historical romance, and, incli rccdy, fall ouL from the "realism wa r." Sig nificancl y, the
cricica l discou rse surrou nding regionalism d id nor disp ure rb<.' catt:gory wid:lin wh1ch
a work was placed (realism or local color). evaluate works based on region, or, wirh
few exceptions, race regional wriring based on gender. l nsread, the pn ncipaJ cerms
for debare were aur henriciry, faithfulness w life. rruchfulness of 1nciclenrs, and realist ic representation of charHcwr, all te rms borrowed from rht: "realism war" o f rhc
1880s and I H90s.
T he realism war hef!an earl y. with a shot across rhe bow from Wi lliam Dean
H owells, who in an 1882 essay on Henry J ames for the Cen111ry Jedartd chat "lr]he
arc of fiction has, in face , become a finer art in our day than ir was w1rh Dickens and
ReaLism and Regionalism
107
Thackeray" (H owells 1882: 28), following it a few years la.rer with a strong srarernenc of realism in his first "Editor's Study" column for Harper's (January 1886). For
the oexc six years in chis column, H owells steadily promoted realise and local color
fiction , prodding his audience with analogies (learning co prefer a "real grasshopper"
over an ideal one, however beautiful), with examples (the sincerity of Mary E. Wi lkins
Freeman), and with sweeping pronouncements: "We must ask ourselves before we
ask anything else, Is it crue? ... In the whole range of fic tion we know of no tme
picture of life - char is, of human narure - which is not also a masterpiece of
liceracure, full of divine and natural beaucy .'" Bur the real battle began, as Edwin H.
Cady suggests, in che lace 1880s, with George Pellew's "The Bacrle of the Books"
(1888); among rhe responses back and forth was William Roscoe Thayer's "The N ew
Story-tellers and che D oom of Realism," which commenced acidly, "It cook forcirude,
until cuscom made us callous, co watch Mr. H owells, like anocher Tarquin, go up
and down che poppy-field of 1iceracure, lopping off bead after head which had brougbc
delight to millions" (Thayer 1894: 162). Thayer also blasted '' rhe dialect srory" or
local color fiction as "another produce ofEpidermism," or che obsession wirh externals
that Thayer believed charact erized realism (1894: 166). Ochers on the romance or
idealism side of the debate included authors from both sides of the Aclancic, such
as Robert Louis Stevenson, Andrew Lang, Maurice T hompson, H . C. Vedder, and,
more moderately, Horace Scudder, who wrote char "if our ancesrors could read some
of che microscopic fiction of the present day, we suspect they would cry our for
something more in mass, less in derail .... G rasshoppers do nor inceresr us, however
rruchfuJ. W e prefer leopards" (Scudder 1891: 568). Those defendjng H owells and
realism included formidable critics and writers such as Hjalmar Horch Boyesen,
Henry James, Hamlin Garland, Joseph Kirkland, R ichard W arson Gilder, Brander
Mat thews, and W. P. Trenr; bur che realism war nonetheless "raged wirh deadly fury
for eight years [1886-1894)," according co Garland, who dared irs origins ro Howells'
first "Edjror's Study" column in 1886 (wrlaod 1930: 248).
By the lace 1890s rhe tide bad already turned coward adventure fiction or historical romance and away from realism and local color, wirh even local color writers like
Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary E. W ilkins Freeman, H amlin Garland, and Mary Harrwell
Catherwood writing historical romances. "A large number of readers, who have
wearied of min ute descriptions of rhe commonplace, are eo-day often found condemning an author who does nor keep his hero in imminent danger of death through
ac lease sevency-five percent of his pages." wroce John Kendrick Bangs. "Realism and
romance both have their champions, and doughty ones, and a watching world ... must
decide char the supremacy of rhe one over the other can never be established as a
serried fact . . .'' (Bangs 1898: J. ). Another measw·e of local color's decline appears in
essays by Charles Dud ley Warner of Harper's, who succeeded Howells as writer of the
"Editor's Srudy." In the J une 1892 column he briefly derides local color as "something you could buy, like paine," bur praises Grace King's Tales of a Time and PLace
for nor using "local color as a varnish" (Warner 1892: 155, 156). Four years Iacer, he
extended the paine metaphor by saying that "so much color was produced char rhe
''
t
--
108
Dijmtff Camphe/1
marker broke down" bur added char "we do nor hear much now of ' local color'; that
has rather gone om" (Warner lt-196: 961). By 1893, even che realism-romanticism
debate had moved from che pages of rhe D~t~l, rhe f omm, Harper's, and ocher magazines ro become a kind of publicity srunr for Eugene Field's "Sharps and Flats"
column in the Chtcago News. Applauding M.ary H artwell Catherwood's romances,
Field began an exchange of lercers wirb H amlin Garland and Catherwood that led co
a public debate acme Chicago World's Fair in 1893. As Garland cells ir, he responded
ro Carherwood's asserrion char be "over-emphasized chc· dirr and roil and loneLness of
t:he farmer's life" by challenging her wirb "What do you know of rhe farm realities
1 describe? ... I have bound my half of eight acres of oars ... You ci ty folk can't
criticize my stories of farm Lie - l've lived them" (Garland 1930: 255). D espite his
tJnchallengeable aurhenriciry and his populist poli cies, in Iacer ye~lfS Garland, like
the rest, recreated into writing W estern historical romances. Although writers such
tiS Garland, Mary Wilkins Freeman, MaT)' Austin, G race King, and H owells himself,
among others, woul d cominue ro publisb ficcion wdl inco the first few decades of rhe
rwenrieth century, rbe e ra of local color's greatest popttlariry was over.
Thus, despite irs supposed position on the marg ins, reg ional ficrion kept pace in
irs various forms with the country's conrinued quesr fo r self-defini tion and national
idenriry. Like Thoreau 's multiple perspectives of Walden Pond, when viewed from
rhe Jecentered perspective of regional fiction the trajectory of nineteenth-century
lirerarure looks very different. What emerges is a series of partial views of region,
seen through rhe lenses of regional humor. romance, realism, and rhe rest umil chey
comprise nor a ''whole'' in American literature bur a series of partial portraits. As
Carrie Tirado Bmmen wrires, "It was precisely chis embrace of rhe parcial tbat made
local color such a popular genre for represeming che modern nacion" (2000: 128). In
spi re of irs quest for autheoriCJty, auchoriry, completion, and simplicity, regional
ficrion reveals irs modern root!> rnrough irs "embrace of the partial" - the disarticulated
language that constitutes irs representation of dialect, che skerches and stories from
disparate re&rions- that fina ll y suggests irs denial of t he myrh of wholeness and its
conrribucion w an American literamre char recognizes and celebrates, rather than
denying, ics imperfections.
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