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A Companion to American Literature, 3 Volume Set
Page 36

Chronology: 1820–1914

Literary event	Date	Historical event
James Fenimore Cooper, Precaution Washington Irving, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.	1820	US population: 9 638 453 Missouri Compromise excludes slavery from all lands of the former Louisiana Territory north and west of Missouri James Monroe reelected President
William Cullen Bryant, Poems Cooper, The Spy Saturday Evening Post founded	1821	William Becknell pioneers the Santa Fe Trail Beginning of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1832)
Catharine Maria Sedgwick, A New‐England Tale	1822	Denmark Vesey charged with plotting a slave rebellion in Charleston, South Carolina
Cooper, The Pioneers	1823	President issues the Monroe Doctrine, opposing further European colonization of the Americas
Lydia Maria Child, Hobomok Irving, Tales of a Traveller	1824	John Quincy Adams elected President
	1825	Completion of the 363‐mile Erie Canal between Albany and Buffalo, New York
Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans	1826	Deaths of former Presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on 4 July
Sedgwick, Hope Leslie Freedom’s Journal, first African American periodical, founded	1827
Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language Cherokee Phoenix, first Native American newspaper, founded	1828	Andrew Jackson elected President
William Apess, A Son of the Forest John Augustus Stone, Metamora; or, The Last of the Wampanoags David Walker, Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World	1829	Tremont House, the first modern luxury hotel in US, opens in Boston
Sedgwick, Clarence Godey’s Lady’s Book founded	1830	Indian Removal Act forces exchanges of Native lands in the East for land west of the Mississippi River Mormon Church organized
Edgar Allan Poe, PoemsWilliam Lloyd Garrison founds antislavery newspaper The Liberator	1831	Nat Turner leads a slave revolt in Virginia
Irving, Tales of the Alhambra	1832	Andrew Jackson reelected President New England Anti‐Slavery Society founded Black Hawk War in Illinois
Child, An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans New York Sun, first penny‐press newspaper, founded	1833	Parliament passes the Slavery Abolition Act, ending slavery in the British colonies of the West Indies as of August 1, 1834 American Anti‐Slavery Society founded
Lydia Sigourney, Sketches and Poems Southern Literary Messenger founded	1834
Irving, A Tour on the Prairies	1835	Outbreak of the Second Seminole War (1835–1842) in Florida
Apess, “Eulogy on King Philip” Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature Richards Hildreth, The Slave Oliver Wendell Holmes, Poems	1836	Battle of the Alamo and establishment of the Republic of Texas Martin Van Buren elected President
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Twice‐Told Tales United States Magazine and Democratic Review is founded	1837	Financial crisis and economic downturn in US known as the Panic of 1837 Victoria becomes Queen of Great Britain
Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket	1838	“Trail of Tears” begins as Cherokees are forced from their ancestral lands and moved west to “Indian Territory” Frederick Douglass escapes from slavery in Maryland
Caroline Kirkland, A New Home, Who’ll Follow?	1839	Slaves aboard the Amistad rebel and capture the ship
Poe, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque The Dial founded	1840	William Henry Harrison elected President
Catherine Beecher, Treatise on Domestic Economy Emerson, Essays New‐York Tribune founded by Horace Greeley	1841	First wagon trains travel on the Oregon Trail John Tyler becomes President after the death of Harrison
Rufus Wilmot Griswold, The Poets and Poetry of America	1842	Treaty with Great Britain establishing US–Canada border east of the Rocky Mountains
Elizabeth Oakes Smith, The Sinless Child and Other PoemsHarriet Beecher Stowe, The Mayflower	1843	The Second Coming of Christ does not occur, contrary to the prediction of the American preacher William Miller
Emerson, Essays: Second Series	1844	James K. Polk elected President Samuel Morse invents telegraph
Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century George Lippard, The Quaker City Anna Cora Mowatt, Fashion Poe, The Raven and Other Poems	1845	The American editor John L. O’Sullivan declares that the US must be allowed to fulfill its “manifest destiny to overspread the continent” US annexes Texas, which enters Union as a slave state
Hawthorne, Mosses from an Old Manse Herman Melville, Typee La Patria founded in New Orleans	1846	Oregon Treaty with Great Britain sets the boundary between the US and Canada west of the Rocky MountainsUS declares war on Mexico
James Russell Lowell, Poems	1848	Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the Mexican–American War; California and the vast territory of “New Mexico” are ceded to US First Women’s Rights Convention in US held in Seneca Falls, New York Zachary Taylor elected President Democratic revolutions throughout Europe
Alice and Phoebe Cary, Poems Melville, Mardi Francis Parkman, The Oregon Trail Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers	1849	Following the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, hundreds of thousands of prospectors, called “forty niners,” begin to converge on California
Susan Fenimore Cooper, Rural Hours Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter Narrative of Sojourner TruthSusan Warner, The Wide, Wide World	1850	Compromise of 1850 admits California as a free state and enacts strict Fugitive Slave Law
Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables Melville, Moby‐Dick New York Times founded	1851	Western Union founded
Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin first published in book formGeorge L. Aiken’s adaptation of the novel first performed in Troy, New York	1852	Franklin Pierce elected President
George Henry Boker, Francesca da Rimini William Wells Brown, Clotel Douglass, The Heroic Slave Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave	1853	Fleet of US warships commanded by Commodore Matthew Perry arrives in Japan, forcing the opening of ports to American trade
Maria Susanna Cummins, The Lamplighter Frances E.W. Harper, Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects Thoreau, Walden	1854	Kansas–Nebraska Act provides for popular sovereignty to decide issue of slavery in these territories, repealing the Missouri Compromise
Fanny Fern, Ruth Hall Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha Mary Gove Nichols, Mary Lyndon Walt Whitman, first edition of Leaves of Grass	1855	Violence erupts between proslavery and antislavery forces in Kansas Territory First bridge over Mississippi River opens in Minnesota
Emerson, English TraitsMelville, The Piazza Tales Stowe, Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp	1856	James Buchanan elected President
George Fitzhugh, Cannibals All! Or Slaves Without Masters Melville, The Confidence‐Man Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s Weekly founded	1857	Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision declares that African Americans have no constitutional rights Economic depression follows downturn in financial markets
Brown, The Escape; or a Leap for Freedom Oliver Wendell Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table	1858	Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas stage a series of debates during Senate election campaign in Illinois
Martin Delany, Blake; or The Huts of America E.D.E.N. Southworth, The Hidden Hand Harriet Wilson, Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black	1859	John Brown executed for attempting to initiate a slave revolt by taking over the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia
Emily Dickinson writes several hundred poems over the next five years Harriet Prescott Spofford, “Circumstance” Ann S. Stephens, Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter, the first “dime novel”	1860	US population: 31 443 321 Abraham Lincoln elected President South Carolina is the first southern state to secede from the Union
Rose Terry Cooke, Poems Rebecca Harding Davis, “Life in the Iron‐Mills” Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl	1861	Confederate States of America formed in February Civil War begins with attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, in April
Julia Ward Howe, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard, The Morgesons	1862	Federal government forbids Union army officers from returning fugitive slaves, annulling Fugitive Slave Act
Louisa May Alcott, Hospital Sketches	1863	Emancipation Proclamation
Emma Edmonds, Unsexed; or, The Female Soldier	1864	Lincoln reelected President
Julia C. Collins, The Curse of Caste; or, The Slave Bride Mark Twain, “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog,” later entitled “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County” Whitman, Drum‐Taps	1865	Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery in the US General Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox, Virginia, ending the Civil War Andrew Johnson becomes President after the assassination of Lincoln
Brown, The Negro in the American Rebellion Melville, Battle‐Pieces and Aspects of the War John Greenleaf Whittier, Snow Bound: A Winter Idyll	1866	Founding of Ku Klux Klan, a terrorist organization whose primary goal is the reestablishment of white supremacy in the South
Horatio Alger, Ragged Dick Child, A Romance of the Republic John William De Forest, Miss Ravenel’s Conversion from Secession to Loyalty	1867	Purchase of Alaska from Russia
Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, Part One Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, The Gates Ajar	1868	Ulysses S. Grant elected President Fourteenth Amendment grants citizenship to all persons born in the US, including former slaves
Alcott, Little Women, Part Two Twain, The Innocents Abroad	1869	Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony establish the National Woman Suffrage Association Opening of the Suez Canal Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads are linked to form transcontinental rail system
Bret Harte, The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches	1870	Fifteenth Amendment grants voting rights to all qualified men, regardless of race or previous condition of servitude
María Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Who Would Have Thought It? Twain, Roughing It	1872
Alcott, Work: A Story of Experience	1873	Financial panic leads to economic depression in US
Julia Moore, The Sentimental Song Book Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Loreta Janeta Velazquez, The Woman in Battle	1876	Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the first World’s Fair in the US Lakota (Sioux) and Cheyenne defeat Colonel Custer and his troops at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana Territory Rutherford B. Hayes elected President
Henry James, The American Sarah Orne Jewett, Deephaven	1877	Withdrawal of federal troops from the South signals end of Reconstruction
James, Daisy Miller and The Europeans	1878
Albion W. Tourgée, A Fool’s Errand	1879
George Washington Cable, The Grandissimes José Martí, Impressions of America	1880	James A. Garfield elected President
Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor James, The Portrait of a Lady	1881	Chester A. Arthur becomes President after the assassination of Garfield Booker T. Washington founds Tuskegee Institute in Alabama
William Dean Howells, A Modern Instance Whitman, Specimen Days	1882	Chinese Exclusion Act suspends immigration from China for 10 years
Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, Life Among the Piutes Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus” James Whitcomb Riley, The Old Swimmin' Hole and 'Leven More Poems	1883	Supreme Court declares part of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional, allowing individuals and corporations to discriminate on the basis of race Opening of Brooklyn Bridge, the first steel suspension bridge
Jackson, Ramona	1884	Grover Cleveland elected President
Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham Ruiz de Burton, The Squatter and the Don Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn	1885	Dedication of the Washington Monument First edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average
Jewett, A White Heron and Other Stories Constance Fenimore Woolson, East Angels	1886	Haymarket riot at a union protest meeting in Chicago Statue of Liberty dedicated in New York Harbor
Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward Thomas Nelson Page, In Ole Virginia, or Marse Chan and Other Stories	1887	Passage of Dawes Act leads to the loss of millions of acres of Indian tribal lands
Drude Krog Janson, A Saloonkeeper’s Daughter	1888	Benjamin Harrison elected President
Emily Dickinson, Poems Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York	1890	Massacre of Lakota (Sioux) by federal troops at Wounded Knee, South Dakota
Ambrose Bierce, Tales of Soldiers and Civilians Sophia Alice Callahan, Wynema: A Child of the Forest Cooke, Huckleberries Gathered from New England Hills Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, A New England Nun and Other Stories Hamlin Garland, Main‐Travelled Roads Martí, “Nuestra América”	1891	International Copyright Act passed by Congress
Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” Frances E.W. Harper, Iola Leroy Whitman, final edition of Leaves of Grass	1892	Grover Cleveland elected President Federal immigration center opens at Ellis Island in New York Harbor
Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets Paul Laurence Dunbar, Oak and Ivy	1893	Economic downturn and depression Columbian Exposition in Chicago
Kate Chopin, Bayou Folk Sara Morgan Bryan Piatt, Poems Twain, The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson	1894	Nationwide railroad strike begins in the “company town” of Pullman, in Chicago
Crane, The Red Badge of Courage Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Woman’s Bible	1895	New York Public Library created
Abraham Cahan, Yekl, A Tale of the New York Ghetto Dunbar, Lyrics of Lowly Life William Gillette, Secret Service Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs	1896	William McKinley elected President Supreme Court’s ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson upholds constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine
Edwin Arlington Robinson, The Children of the Night	1897	Klondike Gold Rush begins
Abraham Cahan, The Imported Bridegroom and Other Stories of the New York Ghetto Crane, The Open Boat and Other Tales of Adventure	1898	Spain cedes Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the US in the treaty ending the Spanish–American War
Charles W. Chesnutt, The Conjure Woman and The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line Chopin, The Awakening Sutton F. Griggs, Imperium in Imperio Frank Norris, McTeague	1899	Beginning of Philippine–American War Gold rushes in the Klondike and in Nome, Alaska
Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie Pauline Hopkins, Contending Forces	1900	US population: 75 994 575 McKinley reelected President US troops help suppress Boxer Rebellion in China
Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery Norris, The Octopus	1901	Theodore Roosevelt becomes President after the assassination of McKinley
Charles Eastman, Indian Boyhood James, The Wings of the Dove Helen Keller, The Story of My Life Zitkala‐Ša, Old Indian Legends	1902	Cuba gains independence Official end of the Philippine–American War
Mary Austin, The Land of Little Rain W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk Pauline Hopkins, Of One Blood James, The Ambassadors Jack London, The Call of the Wild	1903	Wilbur and Orville Wright make their first flights at Kitty Hawk
James, The Golden Bowl London, The Sea‐Wolf	1904	Theodore Roosevelt elected President
John Burroughs, Ways of Nature Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth	1905	Russian Revolution of 1905 leads to constitutional reform
Langdon Mitchell, The New York Idea Upton Sinclair, The Jungle	1906	Devastating earthquake and fire in San Francisco
Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams James, The American Scene	1907	Financial panic and economic downturn One million immigrants pass through Ellis Island into US
	1908	William Howard Taft elected President
Gertrude Stein, Three Lives London, Martin Eden	1909	Formation of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
Rachel Crothers, A Man’s World	1910
John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra Wharton, Ethan Frome	1911	Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City kills 146 workers, most of them women
Mary Antin, The Promised Land James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex‐Colored Man Sui Sin Far, Mrs. Spring Fragrance Harriet Monroe founds Poetry	1912	Woodrow Wilson elected President Titanic sinks in North Atlantic
Cather, O Pioneers! Wharton, The Custom of the Country	1913	Woman Suffrage Procession, the first suffragist parade in Washington, DC
Robert Frost, North of BostonEzra Pound edits Des Imagistes: An Anthology	1914	World War I begins in Europe Opening of the Panama Canal

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