1. Historical Background Before 1860 the United States had begun to change into an industrial and urban society. In the years preceding the Civil War relatively few volumes of imaginative literature were published in the Us. But as the century progressed
1. Historical background The growth of mass-circulation periodicals created a rich market place for popular writers o WWi stands as a great dividing line between the 19th century and contemporary America o a sense of the failure of political leaders and a belief in the futility of hope dominated
The Background of American Realism The fifty years between the end of the Civil War to the outbreak of the First World War Changes in every aspect of American life
1. Historical Background oo Politics dominated the revolutionary phase of American writing The crisis in American life carried by the Revolution made artists self-conscious about American subjects o The spiritual life in the colonies during that period was molded by the bourgeois Enlightenment
1. Historical Background 1607 Jamestown Colony, in Virginia. 1620 Plymouth Colony 1630 Massachusetts Bay Colony 1640 The Bay Psalm Book, the first publication in America
