Program 1: 1650 - 1845
As the American colonies moved toward becoming an independent nation, a unique and distinctive voice poured forth from the pens of its authors. Once the nation was founded, America's first literary giants - Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edgar Allan Poe - told stories and wrote poems that could have only come from the heart and soul of this fledgling country.
1650 - Anne Bradstreet, America's First Poet
1702 - Cotton Mather Publishes The Ecclesiastical History of New England
1773 - Phillis Wheatley Becomes America's First Black Woman Poet
1819 - Washington Irving Publishes Rip Van Winkle
1826 - James Fenimore Cooper Publishes Last of the Mohicans
1836 - Ralph Waldo Emerson Initiates American Transcendentalism with Nature
1845 - Edgar Allen Poe Publishes The Raven
Program 2: 1846 - 1855
Between the War of 1812 and the Mexican American War that ended in 1848, America experienced an exuberant economic period of growth. And, it was during this time that American authors produced the nation's first great wave of classic literature. In this program, such literary giants as Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow make their mark on the American psyche.
1849 - Henry David Thoreau Originates America's Proud History of
Civil Disobedience
1850 - Nathaniel Hawthorne Writes The Scarlet Letter
1851 - Herman Melville's Moby Dick is Published
1852 - Emily Dickinson Publishes First Poem
1852 - Harriet Beecher Stowe Writes Uncle Tom's Cabin
1855 - Frederick Douglass Publishes My Bondage and My Freedom
1855 - Walt Whitman Publishes Leaves of Grass
1855 - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Writes The Song of Hiawatha
Program 3: 1856 - 1906
After the Civil War the modern American novel took shape ... It was led by Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain and Henry James. It was also the time that the American literary voice came from everyone and from everywhere.
1868 - Louisa May Alcott Writes Little Women
1878 - Henry James Writes Daisy Miller
1885 - Mark Twain Publishes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
1906 - The Whole Country Speaks
1906 - Upton Sinclair's Novel The Jungle is Published
Program 4: 1907 - 1925
During this time frame America lost its innocence. Its writers now began to struggle with the problems that accompanied modernization and industrialization. It was also the beginning of the lost generation of American authors.
1913 - Poet William Carlos Williams Publishes His First Book of Poems,
The Tempers
1914 - Carl Sandburg Publishes his Poem Chicago
1920 - Edith Wharton Wins a Pulitzer Prize for The Age of Innocence
1922 - The Innovators: e. e. cummings, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and
Henry Miller
1923 - Robert Frost Publishes Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
1925 - F. Scott Fitzgerald Writes The Great Gatsby
Program 5: 1926 - 1939
This was the most turbulent period in American history. It encompassed the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression. It gave rise to America's greatest writers, known collectively as the lost generation.
1929 - Thomas Wolfe Writes Look Homeward Angel
1929 - William Faulkner Showcases the South with The Sound and the Fury
1930 - Sinclair Lewis Becomes the First American to Win the Nobel Prize for Literature
1931 - Pearl Buck Writes The Good Earth
1936 - Playwright Eugene O'Neill Wins Nobel Prize for Literature
1939 - Steinbeck Writes The Grapes of Wrath
Program 6: 1940 - 1949
America entered the technological age through the darkness of WWII and its aftermath. American authors were now becoming legends in their own time through mass media and popular culture. Their response was as diverse as the nation's response to living in the nuclear age.
1940 - Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls is Published
1941 - James Thurber Writes The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
1947-1953 - Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov
Usher in the Era of Popular Science Fiction
1948 - Tennessee Williams Wins His First Pulitzer Prize for
A Streetcar Named Desire
1949 - Arthur Miller Produces Death of a Salesman
Program 7: 1950 - 1957
If the lost generation authors were searching for identity and meaning, the group of authors in this program rejected everything about mainstream America. Ultimately they would speak to the baby boomer generation.
1950 - Gwendolyn Brooks Wins the Pulitzer Prize
1951 - Salinger and Plath Set the Stage for the Baby Boomer Generation
1952 - Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin Speak for the American
Black Male
1957 - Jack Kerouac Begins the Beat Generation in American
Literature
1957 - Dr. Seuss Writes The Cat in the Hat
Program 8: 1958 to Present
This generation of writer witnessed and participated in WWII ... Korea ... The Cold War ... The Civil Rights movement ... And Vietnam. These experiences shaped them intellectually, spiritually and emotionally in ways that were translated into their writing.
1959 - Lorraine Hansberry's Play A Raisin in the Sun is Produced
1961 - Joseph Heller Writes Catch-22
1966 - Truman Capote Writes In Cold Blood
1969 - Kurt Vonnegut Writes Slaughterhouse Five
1982 - John Updike's Rabbit is Rich Wins Pulitzer Prize for Literature
1989 - Asian American Amy Tan Publishes The Joy Luck Club
1993 - Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and August Wilson Redefine the
Black Experience
2007 - Cormac McCarthy Wins the Pulitzer Prize for The Road
