American Literature and History: Gilded Age to Postmodernism

Practice vocabulary flashcards covering the historical context, literary movements, and key authors of American history and literature from the Gilded Age through Postmodernism.

Gilded Age

A period from the 1870s to 1912 characterized by intense industrialization, urban development, and the accumulation of immense wealth by industrial tycoons.

Robber barons

A derogatory metaphor applied to American entrepreneurs of the Gilded Age who were ruthless with competitors and the labor force, often justified by doctrines of social Darwinism.

Social Darwinism

A doctrine embracing laissez-faire capitalism and Herbert Spencer’s idea of "the survival of the fittest," opposing government intervention to regulate the market or help the poor.

Manifest Destiny

A belief system tied to the psychological impact of the closing of the American Frontier in 1890, suggesting Americans had a divinely ordained mission to expand westward.

Indian Removal Act (1830-1850)

Legislation under President Andrew Jackson that led to "The Trail of Tears" and the displacement of Native Americans.

American Naturalism (1890-1910)

A literary movement featuring controversial stories in urban settings with a deterministic ethos, where characters are victims of forces beyond their control like class, gender, and heredity.

The Forbidden Zone

A collection of fragments, poems, and stories by Mary Borden published in 1929 that provides a surreal, non-linear memoir of her hospital service during World War I.

Shell-shock

A condition experienced by soldiers in WWI, now known as post-traumatic stress disorder, resulting from the horrors of artillery and trench warfare.

Imagism

A movement in poetry originating in 1912 characterized by direct treatment of the "thing," economy of language, and musical rhythm.

Objective correlative

A literary device, used by T.S. Eliot, where a set of objects, a situation, or a chain of events serves as the formula for a particular emotion.

Modernism

A self-conscious art movement of high aesthetic value that is non-mimetic and experimental, turning away from realistic representations toward a deeper penetration of life.

Iceberg principle

Ernest Hemingway's minimalist writing style where seven-eighths of the meaning remains underwater (omitted/hinted at) for every part that shows.

Code hero

Hemingway’s ideal individualist hero defined by pride, endurance, and the ability to face defeat with "grace under pressure."

The Lost Generation

A term coined by Gertrude Stein to describe the generation marked by disorientation and lost ideals following the destruction of World War I.

The American Dream

The ideal that every citizen has an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.

Hoovervilles

Shanty encampments during the Great Depression that served as a critique of President Hoover's failure to address the housing crisis.

The New Deal

A package of legislation and federal programs (alphabet agencies) introduced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide economic relief and reform during the Great Depression.

The Dust Bowl (1932-1939)

An environmental disaster involving severe dust storms that damaged the ecology and agriculture of the Great Plains, leading to mass migratory movements.

Southern Gothic

A subgenre of American literature featuring misfits, outcasts, and taboo topics that highlight the repressed history and social burdens of the American South.

Jim Crow Laws

State laws in the South that legalized racial segregation between Black and White Americans under the "separate but equal" doctrine.

Domestic realism

A dramatic style used by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams that focused on the psychological and social struggles of ordinary people within the home.

Harlem Renaissance

An African-American intellectual, social, and artistic explosion centered in Harlem during the 1920s that sought to find a distinct African-American voice.

Metafiction

A form of postmodern fiction that continually reminds the reader that they are reading a fictional work, often through irony, parody, and comments on the writing process.

The Death of the Author

A postmodern concept by Roland Barthes suggesting that a text's meaning depends on the impressions of the reader rather than the author's biography or intent.

Identity Plot

A narrative type emerging in the 1970s that revolves around how a character from a minority group defines and understands their identity within a larger society.