Fables of American history embodied in Gilded Age literatureIn this study of Gilded Age literature and culture, Benjamin Railton  proposes that in the years after Reconstruction, America’s identity was  often contested through distinct and competing conceptions of the  nation’s history. He argues that the United States moved toward unifying  and univocal historical narratives in the years between the Centennial  and Columbian Expositions, that ongoing social conflict provided sites  for complications of those narratives, and that works of historical  literature offer some of the most revealing glimpses into the nature of  those competing visions.Gilded Age scholarship often connects the period to the 20th-century  American future, but Railton argues that it is just as crucial to see  how the era relates to the American past. He closely analyzes the 1876  and 1893 Expositions, finding that many of the period’s central trends,  from technology to imperialism, were intimately connected to particular  visions of the nation’s history. Railton’s concern is with four key  social questions: race, Native Americans, women, and the South. He  provides close readings of a number of texts for the ways they highlight  these issues. He examines established classics (The Adventures of  Huck Finn and The Bostonians); newer additions to the canon (The  Conjure Woman, Life Among the Piutes, The Story of Avis); largely  forgotten best-sellers (Uncle Remus, The Grandissimes);  unrecovered gems (Ploughed Under, Where the Battle Was Fought);  and autobiographical works by Douglass and Truth, poems by Harper and  Piatt, and short stories by Woolson and Cook.These readings, while illuminating the authors themselves, contribute  to ongoing conversations over historical literature’s definition and  value, and a greater understanding of not only American society in the  Gilded Age, but also debates on our shared but contested history that  remain very much alive in the present.

Contesting the Past, Reconstructing the Nation: American Literature and Culture in the Gilded Age, 1876-1893 (Amer Lit Realism & Naturalism) PDF

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