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Period Special Dates:

Civil War (1861-1865)

Reconstruction Era (1865-1877)

Period Characteristics:

1. Feelings of disillusionment.

2. Common subjects: slums of rapidly growing cities, factories replacing farmlands, poor factory workers, corrupt politicians.

3. Represented the manner and environment of everyday life and ordinary people as realistically as possible (Regionalism).

4. Sought to explain behavior (psychologically/socially).

Famous Authors and Works:

Mark Twain

Huckleberry Finn

Jack London

Call of the Wild

"To Build a Fire"

Stephen Crane

"The Open Boat"

Ambrose Bierce

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"

Kate Chopin

"Story of an Hour"

The Awakening

Interesting facts:

Realism was not consciously adopted as an aesthetic program until the mid-19th century in France.

Realism was stimulated by several intellectual developments in the first half of the 19th century. Among these were the anti-Romantic movement in Germany, with its emphasis on the common man as an artistic subject; Auguste Comte’s Positivist philosophy, in which sociology’s importance as the scientific study of society was emphasized.

Works Cited
"Realism." Britannica, 6 October 2022, https://bit.ly/3ghE3NF

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Interesting facts:

He was saved from drowning in the Mississippi River nine times.  Interestingly, his family had 19 cats at one time during Twain’s childhood.

The death of his father meant that his education was cut short. He took up a job as a printer’s apprentice at the Hannibal Journal. This did not cut his dream of getting an education. He spent most of his free time at the library in the evening self-educating.

As a pilot, the term twain is used instead of two. When a leadsman would call “by the mark twain” they would mean the river depth was safe for the steamboat. Twain had always dreamt of becoming a steamboat pilot since he was a young boy. It was one of the most prestigious jobs at that time. He got his licence after two years of training. As his writing career was taking off, he opted to use an alias. After trying out several names such as Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass and Sergeant Fathom, he settled on Mark Twain.

Works Cited:

"Top 15 Facts about Mark Twain." Discover Walk Blogs, 15 August 2022, https://bit.ly/3Djp4fq

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Period Special Dates:

World War I (1914-1918)

The Great Depression (1929-1939)

World War II (1939-1945)

Period Characteristics:

1. Sense of disillusionment and loss of faith in the "American Dream": the independent, self-reliant, individual will triumph.

2. Emphasis on bold experimentation in style and form over the traditional.

3. Interest in the inner workings of the human mind (ex. Stream of consciousness).

Famous Authors and Works:

Lorraine Hansberry

A Raisin in the Sun

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby

William Faulkner

"A Rose for Emily"

Eudora Welty

"A Worn Path"

Robert Frost

poetry

T. S. Eliot

The Waste Land

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men

The Grapes of Wrath

Interesting facts:

Modern art replaced classical art. It included abstract art, cubism, pop art, minimalism, and Dadaism. It affected sculpture quite strongly, though at the beginning sculptors like Rodin and Epstein made both traditional and modernist works. Henry Moore is one of the most famous modernist sculptors.

Composers such as Stravinsky, George Antheil and Schoenberg are modernists. Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du Printemps) is a landmark work.

Works Cited
"Modernism facts for kids." Kiddle, 18 August 2022, https://bit.ly/3Sn6XcG

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Interesting facts:

During the 1920s, the perception of the American Dream was that an individual can achieve success in life regardless of family history or social status if they only work hard enough. In the book titled “Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity”, the author Roland Marchand describes a figure that he feels represents the quintessential 1920s man who is living the American Dream.

The culture of the wealthy Americans represented in "The Great Gatsby" was defined mainly by consumerism and excessive material wealth. Wherever given the opportunity, Jay Gatsby is inclined to ostentation as shown in his flamboyant style of dress, what Tom refers to as his “circus wagon” car.

Works Cited
"The Demise of the 1920s American Dream in The Great Gatsby." InfoRefuge, 7 November 2011, https://bit.ly/3VM3tmR

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Harlem Renaissance "The Jazz Age" "The Roaring 20s" (1920–1940)

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Harlem Renaissance "The Jazz Age" "The Roaring 20s" (1920–1940)

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Period Special Dates:

"The New Negro Movement" (1919-1925)

Prohibition (1920-1933)

Period Characteristics:

1. Black cultural movement in Harlem, New York

2. Some poetry rhythms based on spirituals and jazz, lyrics on the blues, and diction from the street talk of the ghettos

3. Other poetry used conventional lyrical forms

Famous Authors and Works:

James Weldon Johnson

Claude McKay

Countee Cullen

Langston Hughes (poetry)

Zora Neale Hurston

Interesting facts:

In the early 1900s, a few middle-class Black families from another neighborhood known as Black Bohemia moved to Harlem, and other Black families followed. Some white residents initially fought to keep African Americans out of the area, but failing that many whites eventually fled.

In 1915 and 1916, natural disasters in the south put Black workers and sharecroppers out of work. Additionally, during and after World War I, immigration to the United States fell, and northern recruiters headed south to entice Black workers to their companies.

Works Cited
"Harlem Renaissance." History, 12 January2022, https://bit.ly/2ENtfDJ

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Interesting facts:

In the 1930s, the American Dream meant freedom, mutual respect and equality of opportunity. It had more to do with morality than material success.

In the 1930s and ’40s, the term appeared occasionally in advertisements for intellectual products: plays, books and church sermons, book reviews and high-minded articles. During these years, it rarely, if ever, referred to business success or homeownership.

Works Cited
Shiller, R. "The Transformation of the ‘American Dream’." The New York Times, 4 August 2017, https://nyti.ms/3VMQRMk

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Interesting facts:

When she was eight years old, Walker was accidentally shot in the eye with her brother’s BB gun. Scar tissue proceeded to grow over her eye and Walker retreated to more solitary activities, such as writing. When she was 14 the scar tissue was removed, but Walker never regained function of her eye.

After reading Hurston's 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Walker set out to learn more about Hurston’s work. Though she discovered Hurston after she had already passed, Walker travelled to her hometown of Eatonville, Florida to understand the influence on her writing. She wrote of her journey in her 1975 piece Looking For Zora, which revived interest in Hurston’s work.

Ma Rainey was an influential African American Blues artist, born in the late 1800s. Also known as “The Mother of the Blues,” Alice Walker used her as inspiration when creating one of her most famous characters. Netflix also released a new movie this past October centered around Ma Rainey, titled Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

Works Cited:

"6 Fascinating Facts About Alice Walker." Early Bird Books, 25 February 2021, https://bit.ly/3gvsS4h

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Interesting facts:

By 1950, shortly after World War II and the triumph against fascism, the American Dream was still about freedom and equality.

In a book published in 1954, Peter Marshall, former chaplain of the United States Senate, defined the American Dream with spiritually resounding words: “Religious liberty to worship God according to the dictates of one’s own conscience and equal opportunity for all men,” he said, “are the twin pillars of the American Dream.”

Works Cited
Shiller, R. "The Transformation of the ‘American Dream’." The New York Times, 4 August 2017, https://nyti.ms/3VMQRMk

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Period Special Dates:

Korean War (1950-1953)

Vietnam War (1954-1975)

Period Characteristics:

1. Influenced by studies of media, language, and information technology.

2. Sense that little is unique; culture endlessly duplicates itself.

3. New literary forms and techniques: works composed of only dialogue, or combining fiction and nonfiction, experimenting with physical appearance of their work.

Famous Authors and Works:

Alice Walker

Wallace Stevens

e.e. cummings

Maya Angelou

Anne Sexton

James Baldwin

Richard Wright

Sandra Cisneros

Amy Tan

Interesting facts:

Postmodernism shares many of the features of Modernism. Both schools reject the rigid boundaries between high and low art. Postmodernism even goes a step further and deliberately mixes low art with high art, the past with the future, or one genre with another.

The Postmodernist disbelief in coherence and unity points to another basic distinction between Modernism and Postmodernism. Modernism believes that coherence and unity is possible, thus emphasizing the importance of rationality and order.

Works Cited
Mambrol, N. "Literary Theory and Criticism: Postmodernism." Literariness, 31 March 2016, https://bit.ly/3VLxnHX

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Interesting facts:

The term began to be used extensively in the 1960s. It may have owed its growing power to Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, in which he spoke of a vision that was “deeply rooted in the American Dream.” He said he dreamed of the disappearance of prejudice and a rise in community spirit, and certainly made no mention of deregulation or mortgage subsidies.

As the term became more commonplace, its connection with notions of equality and community weakened. In the 1970s and ’80s, home builders used it extensively in advertisements, perhaps to make conspicuous consumption seem patriotic.

Works Cited
Shiller, R. "The Transformation of the ‘American Dream’." The New York Times, 4 August 2017, https://nyti.ms/3VMQRMk

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Interesting facts:

During the 1980s, tax rates on the highest income earners were cut and deregulation of the economy began to occur. As people became extremely wealthy, the American Dream began to become about being rich, the most successful, number 1, etc.

The 1980s (the “decade of greed") brought a new and deeper understanding of the relevance of money to the American Dream.

Works Cited
Shiller, R. "The Transformation of the ‘American Dream’." The New York Times, 4 August 2017, https://nyti.ms/3VMQRMk

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Interesting facts:

Over the last 40 or so years, the real wages of most Americans have essentially stalled, with the exception of a brief period of prosperity in the late 1990s. For much of the 1980s and first half of the ’90s, the trend primarily affected middle- and lower-income American workers.

In fact, the economic boom of the late 1990s was the only time in recent history when Americans’ wages increased.

Works Cited
Shiller, R. "The Transformation of the ‘American Dream’." The New York Times, 4 August 2017, https://nyti.ms/3VMQRMk

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Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Author: Rick Riordan

Summary: The Lightning Thief is a light-hearted fantasy about a modern 12-year-old boy who learns that his true father is Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea. Percy sets out to become a hero by undertaking a quest across the United States to find the entrance to the Underworld and stop a war between the gods.

Themes the book emphasyzes: The book makes the reader experience loneliness, isolation, and what is like to live in a dysfunctional family, it teaches us about diversity, love, family, and memories. It also shows us a little about the importance between traditions, language, and communication. Sometimes, the book can be cruel and depict violent scenes.

Works Cited
"The Lightning Thief Rationale’." Rick Riordan, 4 August 2017, https://bit.ly/3gvZ6ft

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Throughout the creation of this timeline, I've learned so much about important events not only in U.S history but in the world! I also had the opportunity to see how the American Dream changed over the years, from a search for freedom to a search for good economic status. This is something important to learn since it lets us know how people's worldview has changed over the decades and why they changed so much.