Key Books and Authors in American History

Colonial Era & American Revolution Bartolome de las Casas Richard Hakluyt John Smith A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1552) (various pamphlets) (various memoirs) "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up into America, by a Gentlewoman in such Parts" (1647) The Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1676) New England Primer (1680s1720s) William Berkeley, John Locke (various essays and treatises, 17th century) Poor Richards Almanac (173250s) Common Sense (1776) The Declaration of Independence (1776)

Anne Bradstreet

Mary Rowlandson

Ben Franklin Thomas Paine

Thomas Jefferson

Early National Era & Antebellum Phyllis Wheatley (various poetry, 1753-84) McGuffeys Reader Washington Irving The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle, 1820s)

Abolitionist writers William Lloyd Garrison The Liberator (newspaper)

The North Star (newspaper), Frederick Douglass Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Elijah Lovejoy Harriet Beecher Stowe Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau

The Alton Observer (newspaper) Uncle Toms Cabin (1852)

Nature, Self-Reliance (1830s) Walden, On Civil Disobedience (1840s)

Romantics Herman Melville Moby-Dick (1851)

Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter (1850) Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass (1855), O Captain! My Captain! The Atlantic Monthly; Harpers Weekly

Gilded Age & Progressive Era Horatio Alger Ragged Dick series (1867)

Helen Hunt Jackson A Century of Dishonor (1881) Mark Twain Henry George Alfred T. Mahan Jacob Riis Edward Bellamy Frederick Jackson Turner Charles Sheldon L. Frank Baum Lincoln Steffens Ida Tarbell Upton Sinclair Willa Cather Tom Sawyer (1876), Huck Finn (1884) Progress and Poverty (1879) The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (1890) How the Other Half Lives (1890) Looking Backward (1890) The Significance of the Frontier in American History (1893) In His Steps: "What Would Jesus Do?" (1896) The Wizard of Oz (1900) The Shame of the Cities (1904) History of the Standard Oil Company (1904) The Jungle (1906) O Pioneers! (1913)

W. E. B. DuBois (1868-1963) News magnates William Randolph Hearst Joseph Pulitzer James Gordon Bennett

The Souls of Black Folk, The Crisis (official magazine of the NAACP)

The New York Journal New York World New York Herald

1920s & Great Depression Lost Generation/naturalist writers F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby (1925) A Farewell to Arms (1929), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), The Old Man and the Sea (1951) (various poems) (various experimental fiction & nonfiction) "The Waste Land" (1922)

Ernest Hemingway

Ezra Pound

Gertrude Stein T. S. Eliot

Harlem Renaissance "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" (1921), "Harlem (Dream Deferred)" (1951), various fiction and nonfiction (various poetry and nonfiction works about the Harlem Rennaissance) Home to Harlem (1928) Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)

Langston Hughes

Alain Locke Claude McKay Zora Neale Hurston

H. L. Mencken Francis Townsend John Steinbeck

satirist and culture critic Townsend Plan The Grapes of Wrath (1939)

Walter Lippman

founder of The New Republic magazine (1913)

50s/60s Dr. Benjamin Spock Baby and Child Care (1946)

David Reisman

The Lonely Crowd (1950)

Dr. Alfred Kinsey

Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948), Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953) Invisible Man (1952) Death of a Salesman (1949); The Crucible (1953) The Power Elite (1956) The Organization Man (1956) The Crack in the Picture Window (1956)

Ralph Ellison Arthur Miller

C. Wright Mills William Whyte John Keats Southern writers

The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I

William Faulkner

Lay Dying (1930), Light in August (1932), and Absalom, Absalom!

(1936) A Streetcar Named Desire (1948), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and In Cold Blood (1966)

Tennessee Williams

Truman Capote

Beatnik authors Allen Ginsberg Jack Kerouac "Howl" (1958) On The Road (1951)

William S. Burroughs Junky (1953) Gregory Corso Bomb, Marriage, and other critical poems The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1955)

Sloan Wilson

John Kenneth Galbraith The Affluent Society (1958) Michael Harrington Rachel Carson Betty Friedan Ralph Nader Dr. Timothy Leary Paul Erlich David Potter Mickey Spillane John Cheever 70s-Today Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein Maya Angelou Alice Walker I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) The Color Purple (1982) The Other America (1962) Silent Spring (1962) The Feminine Mystique (1963) Unsafe at Any Speed (1965) The Psychedelic Experience (1964) The Population Bomb (1968) People of Plenty (1954), The

Impending Crisis (1977)

I, The Jury (1945) The Wapshot Chronicle (1945), Bullet Park (1969)

ks and Authors in American History

Spanish monk critical of the brutal treatment of the Taino and demanded better treatment of Indians, one of the few primary sources from the era; helped start the Black Legend; may have led some European thinkers to start thinking that power ought to come from the assent of the governed English writer who tried to persuade his countrymen to pursue an overseas empire (1580s) self-promiting English colonist who recorded his experience in Jamestown, VA (1608-31) Puritan writer and the first published female author in America; life from a woman's perspective in colonial New England one of many Puritans who wrote religious-themed captivity narratives (about being kidnapped by Indians); her narrative was about her experience during King Philips war book used for school children; taught moral lessons British philosophers who wrote about social contracts and mans natural rights: life, liberty, and property"; Locke added that we have the right to rebel if our governments become tyrannical, and both added to Rene Descartess idea that our universe can be understood and our world improved because God gave us the ability to reason popular proverbs & advice on hard work and frugality; reflected Protestant values (of the middle and New England colonies) British-born author and rebel (patriot) urged in "Common Sense" for colonists to declare independence and condemned monarchy; he also wrote the wartime propaganda pamphlets The Crisis" Jefferson's declaration was a combination of enlightenment philosophy and a lawyerly list of the things George III did that violated the natural rights of the colonists in America

first published black slave poet; wrote on patriotic and other themes wrote a famous poem about George Washington; she was later emancipated by her owners book given to young children to help them become literate and gain American values New England storyteller from the "Knickerbocker Group" of authors, wrote traditional tales and exaggerated versions of true stories, like the the I cannot tell a lie cherry tree story about a young G. Washington

Illinois abolitionist newspaper published right across the Mississippi R. across from Missouri; Lovejoy was killed by a pro-slavery mob in 1837 So youre the little lady who started this great war

founding author of transcendentalist movement Transcendentalist who wrote about finding a spiritual connection in nature; critic of slavery and the Mexican war, inspired later reformers such as MLK, Jr. romanticism was related to transcendentalism in that focused on the individual experience and mans relationship with nature first great American novel but unpopular at the time

famous poem about Lincoln still-in-print magazines founded in the mid-19th C to publish works of American authors; The Atlantic had an abolitionist bent to it

rags-to-riches stories for young boys; advocated of hard work and honesty & the American Dream critical of US policy toward Native Americans American humorist; wrote stories about young boys and regional subcultures, later wrote biting satire and fierce criticism of imperialism critic of laissez-faire economics who blamed problems on high land prices & monopolies pro-imperialist who advocated creating a stronger navy photos & articles that exposed problems of urban poor sci-fi story about a man who wakes up in a socialist paradise as President of the American Historical Association, he presented his "frontier thesis" at the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair (aka Worlds Columbian Exposition) major novel of Social Gospel movement, one of the best-selling books of all time has been interpreted as allegory of the 1896 election/Populism/gold standard controversy muckraker whose McLure s articles exposed corruption in cities and other urban problems muckraker who helped increase support for govt anti-trust action Christian Socialist classic; made readers demand food safety regulation novel about difficult life for frontier settlers living on the Great Plains

NAACP co-founder & critic of Booker T. Washington lived through many of the most important Civil Rights-related eras the 1941 Orson Welles movie Citizen Kane is based on the life of Hearst and the newspaper war he engaged in with Pulitzer, which led to the creation of crass "yellow journalism" James Bennett, Sr. and his son James Bennett, Jr; their papers evolved into what is today the International Herald Tribune

expatriate authors, many who lived in Paris during Prohibition, critical of materialism and fundamentalism that grew in the 1920s celebration of the 1920s exhuberance but critical of the materialism that accompanied it leading voice for his generation; spent years in Paris and Cuba; uses a very masculine, forceful style in all of his writing leading modernist poet who pioneered the imagist technique that influenced later poets like Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams; controversial figure in the 1930s for his support of fascism & anti-semitism modernist, avante garde writer who inspired many other artists and writers during her time in Paris; a leading intellectual of her era; experimented with stream-ofconsciousness writing modernist classic poem that seemed to embody post-WWI disillusionment black authors who struggled with the realities of an oppressive society (and the contradictions that come from being supported by white patrons); also affiliated with jazz musicians like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong leading poet and writer of the movement; rhythmic poetry and prose that focuses on the black experience in America so-called "father of the Harlem Ren.", encouraged blacks to look to Africa for inspiration, advocated "The New Negro" ideology that insisted on confidence and refusing to comply with unreasonable attitudes from whites Jamaican-born poet and novelist who was for a time communist (but who grew disillusioned after visiting the USSR) seminal work in womens & African-American literature

spoke out against Prohibition and Christian fundamentalism (lampooned W. J. Bryan at the Scopes trial) Not really an author--he led the movement to a nationwide pension system (helped lead to Social Security) story of Okies who abandon the Dust Bowl and set out for California during the Depression

came up with the term "Cold War," later was critical of George F. Kennans containment policy and in the 70s became the conservative enemy of liberal critic Noam Chomsky

influenced generations of baby boom parents to be more affectionate with their children, and to treat them as individuals (before the focus had been on discipline) classic work of sociology that attempted to describe the way middle class values were increasingly shaped by materialism rather than traditional values The so-called "Kinsey Reports" revealed hidden attitudes about sexual behavior; helped liberalize attitudes about sex and gender relations; continued by other doctors who challenged beliefs about gender and sexuality such as [William] Masters & [Virginia] Johnson and Dr. Shere Hite (author of The Hite Report ). depicted the struggles for identity for black Americans Miller's plays criticized life in America, and the latter was set in Puritan New England and was meant to condemn McCarthy'switch hunts; Miller refused to testify before HUAC (his wife Marilyn Monroe accompanied him at the risk to her own career) a critical look at the class of people in power; explored the "military-industrial complex" that Eisenhower warned about upon leaving office nonfiction work that described how people not only worked for organizations but how they belonged to them as well; critical of the way corporate life harms individual identity nonfiction work critical of suburban sprawl

set a series of novels in a fictional town (Yoknapatawpha County), geographically identical to his own hometown of Oxford Mississippi; unlike minimalists like Hemingway, he wrote stream-of-consciousness works that described the complexity of Southern life famous playwright controversial journalist and fiction writer; his novel-like account of a small-town murder (In Cold Blood) helped establish what is often called the "non-fiction novel" critical of the conformity they witnessed in the 1950s; the forerunners of the broader 60s counterculture movement critical of 50s conformity semi-autobiographical novel inspired by jazz, poetry, and drugs described life as a heroin addict youngest o the beat poets, lived overseas for a time

novel about the depressing nature of corporate life in white-collar America

ironically-titled book identified the problems of increasing private wealth but and a declining public sector and an increasing income disparity socialist member of the New Left who "re-discovered" rural and inner-city poverty that had become invisible to an increasingly middle class, suburban America helped start the modern environmentalism movement a psychologist who studied depression in thousands of middle-class housewives; helped start the feminist (women's liberation) movement about dangers of cars; helped start consumer protection movement promoted the use of LSD; he was a counterculture icon warning that overpopulation would drain resources and kill millions by the 1980s historian who argued that American institutions and culture has been shaped by its abundance; earned the Pulitzer prize for his work on the causes of the Civil War his pulp novels (starring toughguy detective Mike Hammer) are trashy, violent, and mysoginistic--not to mention fiercely anticommunist novels that were critical of middle class conformity

The Washington Post investigative reporters who uncovered the Watergate scandal poet laureate who wrote about her own life and female Afro-American experience novels & nonfiction about the black and female experience