Martinez,Isaiah-ENGL350-W19D2-TimelineContinued by Isaiah Martinez (Student)

Realism (1850-1900): Period Characteristics

imartinez295 — 2025-07-24 16:08:43 UTC

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).

Realism: Authors and Works

imartinez295 — 2025-07-24 16:09:20 UTC

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

Realism: Fact #1 (1835-1910)

imartinez295 — 2025-07-24 16:09:36 UTC

Mark Twain was the first major author from the interior of the United States. His unique realistic style reflected the average American life by using the common words of the time, something that differed from the previous, Romantic era of literature.

Realism: Fact #2

imartinez295 — 2025-07-24 16:09:50 UTC

The Ashcan school captured the reality of New York City at that time rather than focusing on the upper and upper-middle class areas of Americans. A lot of what they painted were areas that were considered slums and many with many immigrants.

Present Day

imartinez295 — 2025-07-24 16:10:14 UTC

Civil War (1861-1865)

imartinez295 — 2025-07-24 16:12:31 UTC

Reconstruction Era (1865-1877)

imartinez295 — 2025-07-24 16:12:56 UTC

Author Study: Ambrose Pierce (1842-1914)

imartinez295 — 2025-07-25 18:26:07 UTC

He was raised in an area just 4 counties away from the one I was born and raised in. He is widely considered one of the most influential figures in American literature is often compared to some world class authors. He is also considered an influence of other major American authors. He also excelled in his journalism and military careers, with journalism being his main focus. He was involved in politics, though not heavily or officially for the most part. He mysteriously disappeared after traveling with Pancho Villa's army for journalism on the Mexican Revolution.

Modernism (1900-1950):

imartinez295 — 2025-07-26 17:55:42 UTC

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).

Modernism: Authors and Works

imartinez295 — 2025-07-26 17:56:56 UTC

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

World War I (1914-1918)

imartinez295 — 2025-07-26 17:57:32 UTC

The Great Depression (1929-1939)

imartinez295 — 2025-07-26 17:57:57 UTC

World War II (1939-1945)

imartinez295 — 2025-07-26 17:58:21 UTC

Modernism Fact #1 (1936-1939)

imartinez295 — 2025-07-26 17:58:39 UTC

A large reason for the change during the period of Modernism had to do with World War I, The Interwar Period, and World War II. The Great War was marked by a particular brutality, a brutality that would only worse during the Interwar Period and World War II. The setting of the stage for World War II was the Spanish Civil War which highlighted the polarization, increasing militarism, and war coming to Europe. It was a new type of war marked by more brutality than World War I, which moved into World War II becoming even worse than the Spanish Civil War.

Modernism: Fact #2 (1844-1900)

imartinez295 — 2025-07-26 17:58:54 UTC

Friedreich Nietzche was a precursor and catalysts to modernism. He rejected absolutes, critiqued Christianity, critiqued morality, and wrote in a unique style and form which was poetic. He is another piece the long chain that goes back a few hundred years of liberalism. This is what led to modernism.

Roaring 20's Fact #1: Economy (1920-1940)

imartinez295 — 2025-07-28 18:49:09 UTC

Here is a graph of the US GDP from 1920-1940. It is clear that the 20's saw a huge increase in GDP and a large crash in the 30's.

Roaring 20's Fact #2: Women's Suffrage (1920)

imartinez295 — 2025-07-28 18:49:39 UTC

Although many states and many women could vote, the passing of the 19th Amendment allowed for all women to have the ability to vote.

Harlem Renaissance/The Jazz Age/The Roaring '20s (1920-1940): Period Characteristics

imartinez295 — 2025-08-01 18:16:40 UTC

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

Harlem Renaissance/The Jazz Age/The Roaring '20s (1920-1940): Famous Authors and Works

imartinez295 — 2025-08-01 18:18:10 UTC

James Weldon Johnson

Claude McKay

Countee Cullen

Langston Hughes (poetry)

Zora Neale Hurston

"The New Negro Movement" (1919-1925)

imartinez295 — 2025-08-01 18:18:36 UTC

Prohibition (1920-1933)

imartinez295 — 2025-08-01 18:19:01 UTC

Harlem Renaissance/The Jazz Age/The Roaring '20s Fact #1 (1920-1933)

imartinez295 — 2025-08-01 18:20:17 UTC

From 1920 to 1923 speakeasies became popular hubs of Jazz and alcohol. They blatantly defied Prohibition and fueled the popularity of jazz music.

Harlem Renaissance/The Jazz Age/The Roaring '20s Fact #2 (1918-1937)

imartinez295 — 2025-08-01 18:20:38 UTC

The Harlem Rennaissance was a surge of black and progressive culture centered in Harlem, New York where most black migrants to New York settled. It included music, paintings, literature, and other forms of art. It began the true movement of a more unified and separate wider black culture in the United States, specifically in urban areas.

American Dream in the 30's and 40's Fact #1 (1929-1939)

imartinez295 — 2025-08-06 21:10:07 UTC

The Great Depression was a decade long economic downturn stemming from the immediate cause of the 1929 stock market crash.

American Dream in the 30's and 40's Fact #2 (1939-1945)

imartinez295 — 2025-08-09 17:33:51 UTC

World War 2 redefined the American economy and the idea of the American Dream. The loss of trade partners, heavy exportation, rationing, and a full war economy were key to this. Soon after the war, the US transitioned to a partial war economy in which many weapons were still being mass produced. Furthermore, the previous trickle of immigrants became tidal waves of immigrants from post-war Europe. This brought the American Dream back to a dream of moving to America, getting a job, buying a home, raising a family, and being able to afford the middle-class life.

American Dream in the 50's Fact #1 (1950s)

imartinez295 — 2025-08-09 18:08:00 UTC

By the mid-1950s half of American households had a television set. The TV and other luxury items became a part of the American Dream for middle-class America.

American Dream in the 50's Fact #2 (1950s)

imartinez295 — 2025-08-09 18:08:12 UTC

In the 1950s the American Dream had reached its peak. Almost half of brides were teenagers marrying men just a few years older who had stable jobs and could provide. These families could sustain themselves on one middle-class job and still be able to purchase a home. A baby boom also occurred during the economic boom. Furthermore, higher education became a part of the American Dream as more men went to get a diploma as it was found out that you could make more money that way, many wives worked for few years while their husbands went to school.

American Dream in the 60's and 70's Fact #1 (1963)

imartinez295 — 2025-08-09 18:10:32 UTC

The Civil Rights March was a defining moment in the history of the Civil Rights Movement. Overall the Civil Rights Movement challenged the idea of the American Dream by claiming that not everyone had equal access to it. This including blacks, Hispanics, and women for the most part. But in more radical strands it included the gays.

American Dream in the 60's and 70's Fact #2 (1960s)

imartinez295 — 2025-08-09 18:10:45 UTC

By the 1970s the American Dream had evolved to something different. No longer was the 1950s American Dream available. Economic hardships hit hard under President Jimmy Carter, soon pushed out by Nixon who is most known for the Watergate Scandal. Also, the previous cultural revolutions hit an all time high with anti-war sentiment being widely popular and progressive culture forming its more modern roots.

American Dream in the 80's Fact #1 (1981)

imartinez295 — 2025-08-09 18:11:18 UTC

In 1981 the release of the IBM PC was phenomenal in success as it became the dominant computer in the professional side of users. Computers as a whole began to become engrained into the American Dream as a part of growing technology which allows for less work and more comfort, a trend that gradually increased throughout time.

American Dream in the 80's Fact #2

imartinez295 — 2025-08-09 18:11:30 UTC

A dangerous aspect to the American economy was introduced when multinational companies, many of which were based in the US, began to move their factories out of the US and into countries like Mexico, China, Thailand, South Korea, and Taiwan. This ultimately led to the American Dream becoming less about a middle-class job that could sustain a family and buy a home but more so on getting into higher education, an office job, and/or the service sector.

American Dream in the 90's and Early 2000's Fact #1 (1994-2004)

imartinez295 — 2025-08-09 18:12:21 UTC

The introduction of the 'dot com" revolutionized the stock market, technology, and of the American economy as a whole. The newest tech such as computers and telephones were now cemented as a part of the American Dream.

American Dream in the 90's and Early 2000's Fact #2

imartinez295 — 2025-08-09 18:12:33 UTC

Now technology had become a part of daily life, a crucial aspect to almost every job. Big Tech dominated and America was all for it. A part of the American Dream became the comfort that these new technologies, which constantly spit out new models, afforded them.

Contemporary/ "Postmodernism" (1950-Present): Period Characteristics

imartinez295 — 2025-08-09 18:14:13 UTC

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.

Contemporary/ Postmodernism (1950-Present): Famous Authors and Works

imartinez295 — 2025-08-09 18:15:08 UTC

Alice Walker

Wallace Stevens

E.E. Cummings

Maya Angelou

Anne Sexton

James Baldwin

Richard Wright

Sandra Cisneros

Amy Tan

Korean War (1950-1953)

imartinez295 — 2025-08-09 18:15:30 UTC

Vietnam War (1954-1975)

imartinez295 — 2025-08-09 18:15:48 UTC

Contemporary/ "Postmodernism" Fact #1 (1924-1998)

imartinez295 — 2025-08-09 18:16:33 UTC

Lyotard is one of the philosophical founders of Postmodern thought. Postmodern philosophy stands upon the idea of pluralism. Lyotard believed that there is no uniform human experience and that each view is just that. Reality itself is not discovered and interpreted but created in the individual human mind based upon their experiences. He rejected all universal "meta-narratives" and thus truth itself.

Contemporary/ "Postmodernism" Fact #2 (1969-Present)

imartinez295 — 2025-08-09 18:16:47 UTC

The internet...a crucial part of life in the contemporary world. Pictured here is just a part of the paths one can take on the internet. An astounding map which hints at the reality of the use of the internet by billions of people all over the world.

To the Test of Time (2024)

imartinez295 — 2025-08-09 18:18:34 UTC

Unhumans: The Secret History of Communists Revolutions (And How to Crush Them) by Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec

(I own this book and thus require no link for information.)

This book argues that communist movements, and other far-left movements, are not driven but an actual ideology but by a group of individuals consumed with resentment and cruelty, known as unhuman. They are called unhuman for their inherent anti-civilizational beliefs which go against basic morals and human nature. The book highlights how the unhuman far-left exploits through propaganda and infiltration into key institutions, which will ultimately lead to a bloody revolution with constant purges, as seen in most communist countries. It exposes their strategies and offers counterstrategies which prove themselves to be the only actual way to stop a revolution once one is already in play, and in fact the reason they keep happening is because it is a recurring pattern of human civlizationists and unhuman anticivlizationists.

Timeline Reflection

imartinez295 — 2025-08-09 18:19:25 UTC

Literature often reflects the common thought of a period, mirroring the evolving identity and struggles of the United States across centuries. From Realism’s gritty portrayals of industrialization and post-Civil War disillusionment to Modernism’s existential questioning shaped by world wars and economic collapse, each literary movement reflects the nation's historical turning points. The Harlem Renaissance celebrated Black cultural identity amid racial injustice, while Postmodernism and contemporary works grapple with media saturation, pluralism, and the shifting meaning of the American Dream in a globalized, tech-driven society—making literature a living archive of America’s transformation.