The Genesis of the Chicago Renaissance

Theodore Dreiser, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and James T. Farrell

Mary Hricko

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415957922
• eBook ISBN: 9781136085468
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This study examines the genesis of Chicago's two identified literary renaissance periods (1890-1920 and 1930-1950) through the writings of Dreiser, Hughes, Wright, and Farrell. The relationship of these four writers demonstrates a continuity of thought between the two renaissance periods. By noting the affinities of these writers, patterns such as the rise of the city novel, the development of urban realism, and the shift to modernism are identified as significant connections between the two periods. Although Dreiser, Wright, and Farrell are more commonly thought of as Chicago writers, this study argues that Langston Hughes is a transitional, pivotal figure between the two periods. Through close readings and contextualization, the influence of Chicago writing on American literature--in such areas as realism and naturalism, as well as proletarian and ethnic fiction--becomes apparent.

1 Theodore Dreiser

The spirit of Chicago flowed into me and made me ecstatic. Its personality was different from anything I had ever known; it was a compound of hope and joy in existence, intense hope and intense joy.

Theodore Dreiser¹

I. THE LURE OF A GREAT CITY

In 1871, the very same year of the Great Chicago Fire, Theodore Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana. Dreiser grew up hearing numerous stories about the historic event and the process of the city's reconstruction.² The fire “caused almost 200 million dollars in damage, left homeless nearly 100 thousand people … and virtually leveled 2,100 acres” (Pauly 669). After the tragedy, Chicago's City Council issued numerous ordinances to hasten the immediate rebuilding of structures that were destroyed. From all over the world, financial aid and social support were sent to assist with the efforts to help the city regain its momentum. Chicagoans from all walks of life united toward a common goal of revitalizing the city. Post-fire articles and editorials predicted a future of great development and enterprise. The notion that Chicago would rise again presented the city as a symbol of hopeful ambition; its miraculous transformation inspired the American spirit and generated a whole new outlook of great optimism. It was a place that truly cultivated the American Dream.

Since so much investment had been made in the city, news about Chicago's rebuilding became an item of national interest. During the time of the fire, Chicago was at the forefront of industry and had begun to rival New York and Boston in commercial trade. This commercial enterprise, in turn, influenced the city's population growth. In Sister Carrie, Dreiser writes that people were “pouring in at the rate of 50,000 a year” (Dreiser, Sister Carrie 13). His account is accurate because by 1890, over two million people lived in the city. Like many other ambitious young people, Dreiser was fascinated with what Chicago could offer. When his older siblings returned from the city to talk of its status, his anticipation grew even more:

I had heard so much of Chicago. Rome had come and reported the magic of its temperament. Then Al had gone, not once, but several times, and had returned to sing of Halstead Street and State and Madison and the lake and the great factories and the river. Then had gone Eleanor and Ruth and Janet and Amy to return with more tales of its wonders. And now we were all to be there. (Dreiser, Dawn 156).

In 1884, Dreiser's family left Evansville to move to Chicago. Dreiser's sister Ruth had secured a modest apartment at “West Madison Street at Throop, a middle-class neighborhood” across the street from the Waverly Theatre on the West Side of the city (Dreiser, Dawn 157). Upon his first view of Chicago, Dreiser was overwhelmed and fascinated. Busy streets and wide boulevards, high rising skyscrapers and inner city parks greatly amazed him. At that time, Chicago boasted having the tallest skyline, the largest transportation system, and the most extensive business district. The massiveness of the city impressed him so much that everything about it seemed larger than life. Dreiser's attitude of Chicago's stature is well apparent in his numerous descriptions of the city and its elements. In a discussion of Chicago's rodent population, Dreiser's exaggerated fervor is obvious:

At this time, Chicago was the City of Rats … Immense ones, the product of an amazingly deficient sewer and garbage system, were constantly scampering to and fro in the alleys and occasionally in the streets. They even uncovered garbage pails, rooting out scraps and hurrying away. Some of them were almost as large as small cats, furious and defiant, holding at bay not only cats, but dogs. (Dreiser, Dawn 158)³

Coming from a less populous rural homestead, Dreiser absorbed all the sights and sounds of the big city with every glimpse. From the “hucksters calling out all manners of wares” to “women who made endless toilets near open windows” and “clerks who came bustling in at five,” Dreiser felt that “it was all so different from anything [he] had ever known” (Dreiser, Dawn 158–159). There was an air of confidence in the city that inspired great enthusiasm. Post-fire Chicagoans had maintained a sense of “harmonious co-operation, the spirit of mutual and general helpfulness, and a display of confidence and indomitable faith, courage and energy” (n.a. “Confidence-Harmony Courage” 1). According to Alfred Kazin, Chicago had literally become “the symbolic city of the nineties” (Kazin, On Native Ground 25). For Dreiser, Chicago had become a beacon of hope and aspiration.

Caught up with the atmosphere of the city, Dreiser was determined to make it his permanent residence. To supplement the family income, Dreiser walked along the streets with his brother selling newspapers. He even got a job as a cash-boy at a dry goods store. Although his life situation seemed promising, his hope for further adventure in the city was soon short-lived. Since the Dreiser family had financial difficulties, the cost of their existing apartment was too difficult to manage. Furthermore, when Dreiser's father came to live with them, Dreiser's sisters became exceedingly unhappy as their father tried to impose his religious and rural-minded manner into their cosmopolitan lifestyle. The elder Dreiser's obsessive Catholicism created tensions in the household to the point that his children resented him. Dreiser's father fixated on the religious elements of the city. Yet, for the young Dreiser, “it was unbearable to put up with the horror of another Catholic school” (Dawn 166). This attitude toward the restrictive nature of the Church and its parochial education resurfaces with James Farrell which is one reason why the two men may have understood each other.

To keep peace in the family, Dreiser's mother decided to relocate to Warsaw, Indiana. Since Dreiser was too young to remain with his sisters in Chicago, he had little choice but to leave with his parents. Although Dreiser does not discuss the matter in his autobiographical accounts, his parents' decision to relocate the family to Warsaw may have also been the result of the increasing violence occurring on the city's West Side. By 1885, Chicago became the site of numerous protests and strikes spearheaded by various organized labor movements in the city. Since some of the labor marches had escalated into violence, anyone associated with the movement was deemed an anarchist. Protests often led to fighting on the streets, vandalism, and further criminal acts. In late April the following year, over 200 strikes had occurred in the city. On May 1, 1886 striking workers made plans to hold a rally in Haymarket Square to enlist additional factory workers and others to fight for better working conditions and to join forces behind the movement for an eight-hour workday. Tensions in the city surrounding the impending protest led to a series of violent outbreaks and extensive property damage. On May 4, when the police came to disperse the crowd at Haymarket Square, a bomb was thrown and soon all mayhem broke out. Several people, including a police officer were killed; hundreds more were injured. When the violence generated even further protests and unrest, city officials responded by arresting everyone connected to the incidents. According to newspaper reports, “the Haymarket Affair triggered a national response to round up anyone who appeared to have any association with the anarchists. Individuals of foreign birth were immediate held suspect. When the individuals suspected of the crime were apprehended, all but one of them was from German descent” (David 180). Since the Dreiser family was German, it is quite possible that the elder Dreisers thought it wise to stay away from the conflicts. In Dawn, the fact that Dreiser discusses an incident in which his father is criticized for being German may substantiate this view (176–177).

Even though the Haymarket Affair led to a rise in violence against immigrants coming to the city, Dreiser refused to acknowledge this negative image of Chicago. As far as he was concerned, Chicago was the place to be; he could only dwell on the city's possibilities. Dreiser explains in Dawn that “[the] daily papers which we took recounted vast activities [of Chicago]: the building of new depots and street car lines, the extension of social and financial activities in every direction. I remember being fascinated by descriptions published in the Chicago daily papers of odd bits of city life” (Dreiser, Dawn 293). After great persistence, Dreiser managed to convince his mother that he was old enough to relocate to the city. With little opportunity in Warsaw, he told her that he “didn't want to sit around any longer” (294). He was also embarrassed at his older sister's indiscretion. W.A. Swanberg writes that Dreiser's sister Sylvia had become pregnant and in response to the scandal, “local opinion had ostracized the Dreisers as trash” (20). Soon, after convincing his mother that he could not stay in Warsaw, Dreiser was aboard a train, leaving for Chicago:

That ride to Chicago was one of the most intense and wonderful of my life. For to me it was the very substance of adventure … The train rushed on through woods, fields, towns, which although I had come this way three years before, seemed wholly new. Besides, never before had I made a railroad journey alone and here now I was, bag in hand going to Chicago and wondering what I should do and where I should stay. (Dreiser, Dawn 295).⁴

In Sister Carrie, Dreiser recreates this experience as Carrie leaves her home in Columbia City for Chicago. Like Dreiser, she is filled with anticipation of what the city has to offer:

She gazed at the green landscape now passing in swift review until swifter thoughts replaced its impression with vague conjectures of what Chicago might be. Since her infancy, her ears had been full of its fame … Across wide stretches of flat open prairie they could see lines of telegraph poles standing across the fields toward the great city … To the child, the genius with imagination, or the wholly untraveled, the approach to a great city for the first time is a wonderful thing … (Dreiser, Sister Carrie 3–10).

When Dreiser stepped off the train, “it was as though [he] was ready to conquer the world” for in his view, “neither fear nor loneliness possessed [him]” (Dreiser, Dawn 296). Determined to succeed, Dreiser felt his confidence paralleled the stature of the city which “was so strong, so rough, so shabby, and yet so vital and determined” (Dreiser, Dawn 296). Later, in The Titan, Dreiser depicts Frank Cowperwood as having the same reaction upon his arrival into the city.

Dreiser's attitude reflected the perspective of many other young people that came to Chicago during this period. Newcomers saw the city as a place of worldly opportunity where anyone could make a successful bid at becoming rich and powerful. There was the assertion that if one could not find success in Chicago, one could not find success anywhere. European immigrants and Southern migrants flocked to the city in great numbers to find jobs in the stockyards, railroads, and factories. As a major industrial center in the United States, Chicago established a solid foundation for small businesses and commercial enterprise to flourish. The Horatio Alger ideal⁵ captured the imagination of many people coming to Chicago. In Dreiser's early fiction, it is well apparent that he, too, may have at first, at least accepted this belief:

The odor and flavor of the city, the vastness of its reaches, seemed to speak or sing … It came to me again with inexpressible variety and richness, as if to say: “I am the soul of a million people. I am their joys, their prides, their loves, their appetites, their hungers, their sorrows! … I am life! This is paradise! This is that mirage of the heart and brain … of which people dream. I am the pulsating urge of the universe! … The city to me was a land of promise, a fabled realm of milk and honey … here, as nowhere else, youth might make its way” (Dreiser, Dawn 298–299)

Instinctively, Dreiser returned to Madison Street where he found a room he could afford. Inexperienced and uneducated, Dreiser was limited in what positions he could obtain. He had no contacts to help him get a position, nor did he know where to begin his search. Not wanting to rely on his family for any assistance, he forged his way on his own. He writes, “I walked the streets, miles and miles, seeking work … I remember entering immense factories and stores, seeking anything in the way of work” (Dreiser Dawn, 299). As he continued to receive rejections, he felt “the sudden sinkings of heart [and] disconcerting flashes of failure” (300). Dreiser continued to remain disheartened until he finally found a job as a dishwasher at a Greek restaurant. Dreiser's disdain for the place and his frustration over working in such a menial job prompted him to quit. Dreiser's less than favorable experiences in the city had a great impact on him. Even though he knew that Chicago could offer him greater opportunities, Dreiser saw firsthand that life in the city was difficult. He was just one of many individuals looking for a job. His lack of experience and class status already held him at a disadvantage. Most importantly, he came to realize that hard work and toil did not always lead to financial success and great happiness. The American Dream was nothing but a myth to him.

When he could no longer afford living on his own, he reluctantly moved in with his sisters and continued to look for another position. Job after job, he was forced to work in a series of “grimy and futureless occupations” knowing fully the underside of the city (Flanagan 133). The labor unrest continued to stir in the city. The 1897 Chicago Street Strike delayed the railways and brought to Dreiser's attention the plight of the unemployed. In Dawn, Dreiser explains that he “was touched by the figures of other job seekers like [himself]—their eyes and worn faces … the weariness of them in lines at so many doors!” (327). As Dreiser continued to struggled to find a better job, his former teacher, Mildred Fielding, happened to meet him in the city and after much discussion over his present circumstance, she decided to pay for him to attend Indiana University for one year (Flanagan 133). Without hesitation, Dreiser took advantage of the opportunity and left for Bloomington. Fielding's intervention became a significant turning point in Dreiser's career.

II. DREISER'S EMERGENCE AS A WRITER: NEWSPAPER DAYS

After spending a year at the university, Dreiser withdrew from further study because he did not feel he could compete socially with the other students who were from more wealthy families. Dreiser's poverty embarrassed him; he felt self-conscious about his background and he would continue to do so throughout his life. Dreiser returned to Chicago because he still believed that the city presented great “promise of becoming one of the foremost in the world, and it was something to walk its streets to ponder over its youth, wealth and power” (Dreiser, Dawn 574). With one year of college education, Dreiser felt much more confident of his abilities. Although he was gone for only a year, he marveled at the transformation of the city within one year's time:

Even our neighborhood, now that I saw it a new in June seemed more interesting, with new houses going up everywhere. I remember thinking as I made my way home, that everything was before everybody in Chicago, if they but though so, and that in spite of all my doubts, I would find work and joy somewhere here. So many people were making money. So many new enterprises were underway. Even the dullest could see that and would be certain to be moved by the hope of prosperity. (Dreiser, Dawn 446).

During this time, the city had transformed itself into a Midwest Mecca of wealth, power, and dominance in American culture. This atmosphere no doubt reinforced Dreiser's opinion that the city was where he needed to remain if he were to fulfill his ambitions. In his view, “the city … seemed like a lithe young giant … powerful and hopeful” (Dawn 514).

Soon after his return, he managed to find a job at a real estate office working for a man named Asa Conklin.⁶ Working in the city as a real estate agent, Dreiser could not help but recognize the great divide between the rich and the poor of Chicago: “There were sections … [of] the most degraded Americans I have ever seen—horrible, scummy, soggy animal types, joined in with thieves, panhandlers, hoboes, barrelhouse bums—regions in which the smoking of opium and eating of cocaine, morphine and the allied soporifics were common” (Dreiser Dawn 573). Dreiser's mention of drug abuse in the city is significant because during the time he was writing, such topics were not discussed. Dreiser's description of these terrible neighborhoods and the appalling slums left a profound impact on him. He understood the circumstances that brought people to these places and he felt a deep empathy. Saloons, gambling halls, and bordellos were notorious in Chicago. Dreiser's impressions of the sordid areas of the city convinced him that many people did not share in the wealth of the city. In his comparison between the more wealthy locations in the city, Dreiser describes in vivid detail the disparity of the city's urban areas:

Streets were still unpaved, or paved so badly with broken-down cedar blocks that they would better have not been paved at all. Sidewalks were still of wood—raised all of six feet … a strong smell of sour beer or stale whiskey or uric acid or sewer gas out of broken mains, or poisonous vapors from some distant factory or glue works … (Dreiser, Dawn 573)

Dreiser's experience with the vice districts of Chicago is important because he would later depict these scenes in his fiction. In most writing, such scenes of the city were often overlooked because they reminded people of situations they did not want to acknowledge. Poverty and homelessness was depressing and newspapers avoided writing about topics that discussed the city's negative social conditions. Writing Sunday features about the poor and depressed did not sell newspapers. The genteel readers did not want to know about the lives of derelicts, prostitutes, and bums. Nor did they want to be held responsible for the conditions of such individuals. Yet Dreiser felt that the downtrodden also had stories to tell. Compelled to do something about what he saw, Dreiser concluded that writing about these scenes would be one way to expose the tragedy of the human condition. In an interview following the publication of Sister Carrie, Dreiser explained that “Life is tragedy … [and that] the infinite suffering and deprivation of great masses of men and women upon whom existence has been thrust [appalled him]” (Dreiser, qtd. in Kazin, Stature 59). It was the desire to write ab...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Theodore Dreiser
• 2 Langston Hughes
• 3 Richard Wright
• 4 James T. Farrell
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography