Midwestern Americanism: Fiction of the 'Middle Border,' 1900-1930

Abstract

This PhD dissertation examines a neglected strand of Midwestern rural writing from the early twentieth century to ask how it responded to and, in many ways, contributed to key contemporary debates in American literature. In 1921, Carl Van Doren’s ‘Revolt from the Village’ essay substantially reframed the way small-town Midwestern writing was critically received; in 1930, Midwestern author Sinclair Lewis became the first American author to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. This thesis considers this period to ask how popular Midwestern authors thought about and portrayed their region at a time when Midwestern writing was popular nationally, but falling out of critical favor. The primary focus is therefore not on the familiar names of the ‘revolt’—Edgar Lee Masters, Sherwood Anderson, and Sinclair Lewis—but on writers whose novels are now largely forgotten. That said, the aim of the dissertation is not simply to resurrect a neglected group of writers, but to make the case for paying attention to what has come to be known as the middlebrow when mapping out US literary history. Chapter 1 offers a reading of Booth Tarkington’s Indiana novels and, though a comparison with a fellow Hoosier, Theodore Dreiser, considers the role of the Midwest in the romance versus realism debate. By tracing how Tarkington’s representation of his home state evolved—he won the Pulitzer prize in 1919 and 1922—the chapter demonstrates how he attempted to present the Midwest in an increasingly national context. Chapter 2 focuses on another neglected writer, Ruth Suckow, and considers her fiction alongside H.L. Mencken’s The American Language to explore questions of region and nation from a different perspective. In particular, it argues that Suckow’s regionally specific language both reinforced a sense of the Midwest as the most ‘American’ region and enabled her to question national attitudes towards American English, immigration, and Americanization. Finally, Chapter 3 broadens the thesis’s scope of inquiry by dissecting the remarkable success of Midwestern authors in the Pulitzer Prize during the 1920s. Focusing on prize-winning novels by Margaret Wilson, Edna Ferber, and, finally, Sinclair Lewis, the thesis concludes by considering what the success of Midwestern writers says about the state of US fiction in this period.