What impression does Allen's King Solomon of Kentucky make on you? What are some of the strong situations in The Choir Invisible? What effect does the natural setting have on his scenes?
In the presentation of what scenes does Craddock excel? What are some of the characteristics of her mountain people? Is the individuality of the characters strongly marked or are they more frequently general types? In what parts of the South are the scenes of the stories of Cable, Page, Allen, and Craddock chiefly laid? How should you define "local color" in terms of the work of each of these writers?
CHAPTER VI
WESTERN LITERATURE
THE NEWNESS OF THE WEST.-It is difficult for the young of to-day to realize that Wisconsin and Iowa were not states when Hawthorne published his Twice Told Tales (1837), that Lowell's The Vision of Sir Launfal (1848) was finished ten years before Minnesota became a state, that Longfellow's Hiawatha (1855) appeared six years before the admission of Kansas, and Holmes's The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858), nine years before the admission of Nebraska. In 1861 Mark Twain went to the West in a primitive stagecoach. Bret Harte had finished The Luck of Roaring Camp (1868) before San Francisco was reached by a transcontinental railroad.
Even after the early pioneers had done their work, the population of the leading states of the West underwent too rapid a change for quick assimilation. Between 1870 and 1880 the population of Minnesota increased 77 per cent; Kansas, 173 per cent; Nebraska, 267 per cent. This population was mostly agricultural, and it was busy subduing the soil and getting creature comforts.
Mark Twain says of the advance guard of the pioneers who went to the far
West to conquer this new country:—
"It was the only population of the kind that the world has ever seen gathered together, and it is not likely that the world will ever see its like again. For, observe, it was an assemblage of two hundred thousand young men—not simpering, dainty, kid-gloved weaklings, but stalwart, muscular, dauntless young braves, brimful of push and energy, and royally endowed with every attribute that goes to make up a peerless and magnificent manhood—the very pick and choice of the world's glorious ones." [Footnote: Roughing It.]
In even as recent a period as the twenty years from 1880 to 1900, the population of Minnesota increased 124 per cent; Nebraska, 135 per cent; and Colorado, 177 per cent. This increase indicates something of the strenuous work necessary on the physical side to prepare comfortable permanent homes in the country, town, and city, and to plan and execute the other material adaptations necessary for progressive civilized life and trade. It is manifest that such a period of stress is not favorable to the development of literature. Although the population of California increased 60 per cent and that of the state of Washington 120 per cent between 1900 and 1910, the extreme stress, due to pioneer life and to rapid increase in population, has already abated in the vast majority of places throughout the West, which is rapidly becoming as stable as any other section of the country.
THE DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT.—In settling the West, everybody worked shoulder to shoulder. There were no privileged classes to be excepted from the common toils and privations. All met on common ground, shared each other's troubles, and assisted each other in difficult work. All were outspoken and championed their own opinions without restraint. At few times in the history of the civilized world has the home been a more independent unit. Never have pioneers been more self-reliant, more able to cope with difficulties, more determined to have their rights.