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American Local Color Writing, 1880-1920
The era between the Civil War and the end of World War I, marked by increasing nation-building, immigration, internal migration, and racial tension in the United States, saw the rise of local color literature that described through "lived experiences" the peculiarities of regional life. This anthology brings together works from every part of the country, written by men and women of many cultures, ethnicities, ideologies, and literary styles.Organized geographically, American Local Color Writing features such familiar writers as Joel Chandler Harris, Kate Chopin, Hamlin Garland, and Sarah Orne Jewett, and introduces less well-known voices like Sui Sin Far, Abraham Cahan, and Zitkala-Sa. The writings sheds light on varying concepts of "the American identity": Charles Chesnutt, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Pauline Hopkins, and others present a distinct African-American experience; shifting notions of gender and sexuality come to light not only in pieces by women but also in nostalgic renditions of frontier life as the embodiment of masculine virtues and values; and racial, class, and ethnic stereotypes are reproduced and challenged in many of the stories.
480 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 5, 2017
Such a rich collection which introduced me to so many writers I'd never read before.
April 16, 2017
I’ll have to confess up front that I have not read all of the short stories in American Local Color Writing, 1890-1920, and I don’t want to right away, just for the sake of this review. I have a policy of always having something on my bookshelf that I haven’t read just in case I ever run out of new material. I haven’t had a good short story collection for a while, so I’m saving this one for reading emergencies.
Organization
Though not as cumbersome as my anthologies of British and American literature, this volume has over 450 pages, nearly 30 of which are explanatory notes for the texts of the short stories. The editors arranged the book in four sections based on regions of the United States, presumably the region that particular authors wrote about: South, Midwest, Northeast, and West.
The stories address various issues ranging from race in post-slavery America to gender and sexuality to immigrant, American-Indian, and nationalism dilemmas. I will summarize a few from each section below. A short biography precedes each author’s story by way of introduction and the editors, Elizabeth Ammons and Valerie Rohy, include a 24-page introduction that gives an overview of what constitutes “local color writing” and a small summary of the historical context in which the stories were written.
Plot Summaries
Just a few of my favorites…
Dave’s Neckliss by Charles Chesnutt – In this story a former slave, Uncle Julius, tells the white narrator the story of Dave, a slave wrongly accused of stealing a ham who had to wear it in a wire net chained around his neck as punishment. Uncle Julius’s memories, told in dialect, have a poignancy to them that sadden and anger me at the same time. I shan’t give away the ending, but I am left wondering if, in the frame of the story, Uncle Julius outwits the white, and supposedly superior (in his own mind), narrator.
The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin – A woman with a weak heart receives news that her husband was killed in a train accident. She goes upstairs to her bedroom to grieve alone and is somewhat surprised, as is the reader, by her feelings of freedom. This story offers commentary on the ways that marriage limits 19th century women and does not disappoint with a punchy surprise ending as well.
Up the Coolly by Hamlin Garland – A man returns from his life among the glitterati of New York City theatre to the farm on which he was raised. He’s rather taken aback by his brother’s resentment of him, the younger brother who never got the chance for an education and is tied to the family farm by their ailing mother.
A New England Nun by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman – In this story of a couple who remained engaged for 14 years while the man went off to Australia to make his fortune, the theme that emerges is one of solitude. This theme, of women creating their own spaces and patches of peace, emerges in Sarah Orne Jewett’s The Queen’s Twin as well.
Talma Gordon by Pauline Hopkins – Like much of Hopkins other work, this story addresses miscegenation and the costs of “passing” as white, themes explored in Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s Stones of the Village and Chesnutt’s The Sheriff’s Children, also included in the anthology. In Talma Gordon, a doctor at a men’s club meeting discusses a multi-murder case that took place many years ago and argues that miscegenation is necessary for the United States to survive culturally.
The Apostate of Chego-Chegg by Abraham Cahan – Cahan addresses the adjustment of immigrants to a new culture, particularly of Jewish immigrants and their intermarriage with gentiles as a Jewish woman, disowned by her family for marrying a Catholic, considers leaving her husband.
Its Wavering Image by Sui Sin Far (Edith Eaton) – This story looks at a biracial woman raised by her Chinese father in San Francisco’s China Town and her conflict with the white man with whom she falls in love. Far also addresses issues of Chinese immigration in The Wisdom of the New that reminded me greatly of a scene from Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, published nearly a century later.
General Grousing
As I’ve complained about for other texts, the explanatory notes are in the back of the book. I really don’t like flipping back and forth when I’m reading and would much prefer footnotes on the same page as the annotated item.
My real complaint about this text is that I feel it perpetuates the marginalization of minority and women writers by categorizing them as “local color writers” or “regional writers,” as though they are second class hacks whose work couldn’t stand on its own. Most pieces of literature are regionalized and arise from the author’s culture in some way, even if that culture is the dominant, white, upper-middle class, American culture. The editors rationalize the label on their anthology as creating a “contact zone” for the oppressed subjects to engage with and destabilize the narrative of the dominant culture. I hardly think that Joel Chandler Harris and Jack London, white men writing as something they are not would fall under the auspices of this “contact zone.” While I could rant on indefinitely about discourse communities, suffice it to say that I do not like the title of this book, which I think is demeaning, nor do I agree with the editorial inclusion of certain authors given the editors’ stated intentions.
Overall
Despite my problems with the editorial choices in American Local Color Writing, I am glad that this volume preserves short stories by lesser-known and culturally marginalized authors for another generation of readers. This anthology is an excellent introduction to American Realism and the issues that defined the era in US history.
Organization
Though not as cumbersome as my anthologies of British and American literature, this volume has over 450 pages, nearly 30 of which are explanatory notes for the texts of the short stories. The editors arranged the book in four sections based on regions of the United States, presumably the region that particular authors wrote about: South, Midwest, Northeast, and West.
The stories address various issues ranging from race in post-slavery America to gender and sexuality to immigrant, American-Indian, and nationalism dilemmas. I will summarize a few from each section below. A short biography precedes each author’s story by way of introduction and the editors, Elizabeth Ammons and Valerie Rohy, include a 24-page introduction that gives an overview of what constitutes “local color writing” and a small summary of the historical context in which the stories were written.
Plot Summaries
Just a few of my favorites…
Dave’s Neckliss by Charles Chesnutt – In this story a former slave, Uncle Julius, tells the white narrator the story of Dave, a slave wrongly accused of stealing a ham who had to wear it in a wire net chained around his neck as punishment. Uncle Julius’s memories, told in dialect, have a poignancy to them that sadden and anger me at the same time. I shan’t give away the ending, but I am left wondering if, in the frame of the story, Uncle Julius outwits the white, and supposedly superior (in his own mind), narrator.
The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin – A woman with a weak heart receives news that her husband was killed in a train accident. She goes upstairs to her bedroom to grieve alone and is somewhat surprised, as is the reader, by her feelings of freedom. This story offers commentary on the ways that marriage limits 19th century women and does not disappoint with a punchy surprise ending as well.
Up the Coolly by Hamlin Garland – A man returns from his life among the glitterati of New York City theatre to the farm on which he was raised. He’s rather taken aback by his brother’s resentment of him, the younger brother who never got the chance for an education and is tied to the family farm by their ailing mother.
A New England Nun by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman – In this story of a couple who remained engaged for 14 years while the man went off to Australia to make his fortune, the theme that emerges is one of solitude. This theme, of women creating their own spaces and patches of peace, emerges in Sarah Orne Jewett’s The Queen’s Twin as well.
Talma Gordon by Pauline Hopkins – Like much of Hopkins other work, this story addresses miscegenation and the costs of “passing” as white, themes explored in Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s Stones of the Village and Chesnutt’s The Sheriff’s Children, also included in the anthology. In Talma Gordon, a doctor at a men’s club meeting discusses a multi-murder case that took place many years ago and argues that miscegenation is necessary for the United States to survive culturally.
The Apostate of Chego-Chegg by Abraham Cahan – Cahan addresses the adjustment of immigrants to a new culture, particularly of Jewish immigrants and their intermarriage with gentiles as a Jewish woman, disowned by her family for marrying a Catholic, considers leaving her husband.
Its Wavering Image by Sui Sin Far (Edith Eaton) – This story looks at a biracial woman raised by her Chinese father in San Francisco’s China Town and her conflict with the white man with whom she falls in love. Far also addresses issues of Chinese immigration in The Wisdom of the New that reminded me greatly of a scene from Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, published nearly a century later.
General Grousing
As I’ve complained about for other texts, the explanatory notes are in the back of the book. I really don’t like flipping back and forth when I’m reading and would much prefer footnotes on the same page as the annotated item.
My real complaint about this text is that I feel it perpetuates the marginalization of minority and women writers by categorizing them as “local color writers” or “regional writers,” as though they are second class hacks whose work couldn’t stand on its own. Most pieces of literature are regionalized and arise from the author’s culture in some way, even if that culture is the dominant, white, upper-middle class, American culture. The editors rationalize the label on their anthology as creating a “contact zone” for the oppressed subjects to engage with and destabilize the narrative of the dominant culture. I hardly think that Joel Chandler Harris and Jack London, white men writing as something they are not would fall under the auspices of this “contact zone.” While I could rant on indefinitely about discourse communities, suffice it to say that I do not like the title of this book, which I think is demeaning, nor do I agree with the editorial inclusion of certain authors given the editors’ stated intentions.
Overall
Despite my problems with the editorial choices in American Local Color Writing, I am glad that this volume preserves short stories by lesser-known and culturally marginalized authors for another generation of readers. This anthology is an excellent introduction to American Realism and the issues that defined the era in US history.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews