Series Type: Classroom Resources

Search for Identity – Activities

Search for Identity – Timeline

This timeline places literary publications (in black) in their historical contexts (in red).

Alice Walker (b. 1944)

Born in rural Eatonton, Georgia, but educated in the North, Alice Walker has been able to analyze the rural South,…

Thomas Pynchon (b. 1937)

Thomas Pynchon has become famous as the man who does not want to be famous. Little is known about this…

Toni Morrison (b. 1931)

Unlike many African American authors, Toni Morrison has set most of her fiction not in the rural South or the…

David Mamet (b. 1947)

David Mamet was born on the Jewish south side of Chicago. His plays have been performed throughout the country, in…

Maxine Hong Kingston (b. 1940)

Maxine Hong Kingston, née Maxine Ting Hong, was born in Stockton, California, to Chinese immigrant parents who left successful careers…

Diane Glancy (b. 1941)

Born in Kansas City, Diane Glancy is a poet, short story writer, playwright, and professor. She received her B.A. from…

Leslie Feinberg (1949 – 2014)

Like her character Jess Goldberg, Leslie Feinberg was born in Buffalo, New York, where she grew up before the 1969…

Judith Ortiz Cofer (b. 1952)

Judith Ortiz Cofer was born in Hormingueros, Puerto Rico, and was educated in the United States, primarily New Jersey. Her…

Sandra Cisneros (b. 1954)

Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago but spent most of her childhood and youth moving back and forth between Chicago…

Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995)

In addition to writing many stories and novels, Toni Cade Bambara was a civil rights activist, teacher, and editor. She…

Poetry of Liberation – Activities

Poetry of Liberation – Timeline

James Wright (1927-1980)

James Wright grew up in Martins Ferry, Ohio, a small midwestern town hit hard by the depression. Wright’s father worked…

Gary Snyder (b. 1930)

Gary Snyder was raised on a dairy farm in the Pacific Northwest. He graduated with a B.A. in anthropology from…

Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)

Born in Baltimore, Adrienne Rich describes her mother and grandmother as “frustrated artists,” whose talents were denied expression by culture…

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

Sylvia Plath spent most of her childhood in Wellesley, Massachusetts, where she lived close to her maternal grandparents. Her father,…

Audre Lorde (1934-1992)

The daughter of West Indian parents, Audre Lorde was born in Harlem. She graduated from Hunter College in 1961 and…

Joy Harjo (b. 1951)

The daughter of a mixed Cherokee, French, and Irish mother and a Creek father, Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma.…

Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997)

Allen Ginsberg was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Louis, a poet and high school teacher, and Naomi, who was…

Lorna Dee Cervantes (b. 1954)

Cervantes was born in San Francisco and is of Mexican descent. Sensitive to the racial and ethnic prejudice she might…

Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) (b. 1934)

Amiri Baraka was born Everett Leroy Jones in Newark, New Jersey. A creative child, he enjoyed cartooning and creative writing,…

John Ashbery (b. 1927)

John Ashbery was born in Rochester, New York, and he earned his B.A. from Harvard University. He also received an…

Becoming Visible – Activities

Becoming Visible – Timeline

Philip Roth (b. 1933)

Philip Roth was born in Newark, New Jersey. His father was a struggling businessman for most of Roth’s young life,…

Grace Paley (b. 1922)

Of her early writing, Paley notes, “I didn’t yet realize that you have to have two ears. One ear is…

N. Scott Momaday (b. 1934)

Writer, teacher, artist, and storyteller, Navarre Scott Momaday has spent his life preserving the oral traditions and culture of Native…

Arthur Miller (b. 1915)

Arthur Miller was born in Manhattan to a German Jewish family. His father, a successful clothing manufacturer, lost the business…

Paule Marshall (b. 1929)

Born Valenza Pauline Burke to parents who had emigrated from Barbados to New York, Paule Marshall explores the contrasts between…

Bernard Malamud (1914-1986)

In Saul Bellow’s eulogy to Bernard Malamud, he writes that “a language is a spiritual mansion from which no one…

Ralph Ellison (1914-1994)

Ralph Ellison grew up in Oklahoma City and attended college at the Tuskegee Institute, where he was a music major…

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)

Born in Topeka, Kansas, Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks grew up in Chicago. As a child she attended both all-white and all-black…

Saul Bellow (b. 1915)

Saul Bellow remains one of the most important post-World War II Jewish American writers. Like Roth, Malamud, and Paley, he…

James Baldwin (1924-1987)

The eldest of nine children, James Baldwin was born in Harlem. An excellent student who read and wrote from an…

Southern Renaissance – Activities

Southern Renaissance – Timeline

This timeline places literary publications (in black) in their historical contexts (in red).

Richard Wright (1908-1960)

Richard Wright grew up during some of the darkest days of racial segregation in the American South, and the horrors…

Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938)

Known for his ability to produce lyrical torrents of largely autobiographical prose, Thomas Wolfe earned critical and commercial success with…

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)

“A morbid shyness once prevented me from having much direct communication with people,” Tennessee Williams wrote, “and possibly that is…

Eudora Welty (1909-2001)

Eudora Alice Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi, where she lived nearly all of her life. A first-generation Mississippian, Welty…

Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989)

A prominent member of the Southern Agrarians as well as an accomplished poet and novelist, Robert Penn Warren was born…

John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974)

A leading force in southern letters from the 1920s on, John Crowe Ransom was born in Pulaski, Tennessee. Educated primarily…

Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980)

“It is my firm belief,” Katherine Anne Porter once said, “that all our lives we are preparing to be somebody…

Flannery O’Connor (1925-1965)

Mary Flannery O’Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia, the daughter of devout Catholic parents of good social standing. She was…

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)

Although she would later mislead people about her age and birthplace, Zora Neale Hurston was born in 1891 in Notasulga,…

William Faulkner (1897-1962)

The man who would become one of twentieth-century American literature’s best-known figures, William Cuthbert Falkner (he added the “u” to…

Migrant Struggle – Activities

Migrant Struggle – Timeline

This timeline places literary publications (in black) in their historical contexts (in red).

Helena Maria Viramontes (b. 1954)

Viramontes is a Chicana writer who was born in East Los Angeles, California. She attended Immaculate Heart College and the…

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Best known as one of the first proponents of American Transcendentalism, Henry David Thoreau was also one of the first…

John Steinbeck (1902-1968)

John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939, depicts the plight of the Joads, a family of…

Upton Sinclair (1878-1968)

Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and is best known for his 1906 muckraking novel, The Jungle. He received a…

Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980)

Muriel Rukeyser was a political poet whose verse is noted for its intricate style and sophistication. She was born in…

Tomas Rivera (1935-1984)

Tomas Rivera was born in Crystal City, Texas. During his childhood, he accompanied his parents, who worked as farm laborers,…

Alberto Ríos (b. 1952)

The son of a Mexican American father and a British mother, Alberto Ríos was born in Nogales, Arizona, on the…

Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)

Robinson Jeffers was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father was a minister and professor of Old Testament literature. When he…

Carlos Bulosan (1913-1956)

About 150,000 Filipinos immigrated to the United States between 1906 and 1946. Early on, many Filipinos came to America to…

Rudolfo A. Anaya (b. 1937)

Rudolfo Anaya was born in Pastura, New Mexico. His family moved to Albuquerque when he was fifteen. While working as a public…

Modernist Portraits – Activities

Modernist Portraits – Timeline

This timeline places literary publications (in black) in their historical contexts (in red).

Wallace Stevens (1883-1963)

Wallace Stevens grew up in Pennsylvania and attended Harvard University for three years, leaving in 1897 to pursue a career…

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946)

Gertrude Stein lived most of her life in Europe, yet considered herself an American, famously declaring that “America is my…

John Dos Passos (1896-1970)

John Dos Passos is one of the most overtly political authors in this unit. Involved in many radical political movements,…

Marianne Moore (1887-1972)

Moore, like many other authors in this unit, was born in the Midwest but eventually settled in the East. She…

Nella Larsen (1891-1964)

Nella Larsen, like Quicksand‘s Helga, was born to parents of different races: her father was West Indian and her mother was…

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

Hemingway once stated that his goal as a writer was to create “one true sentence.” The characteristic pared-down style he…

Susan Glaspell (1876-1948)

Born in Davenport, Iowa, Susan Glaspell grew up in a Midwest that was settled only decades before, but was developing…

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s best-known work, The Great Gatsby, has made him familiar to generations of students of American literature. Though the…

Hart Crane (1899-1932)

Though Hart Crane only lived thirty-three years, the rich poetry he produced provides readers with an alternative view of modernity–his…

Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941)

Born in southern Ohio, Sherwood Anderson was the middle child of seven. His father, a harness maker, moved the family…

Rhythms In Poetry – Activities

Rhythms in Poetry – Timeline

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

Born in Rutherford, New Jersey, William Carlos Williams was the son of an English immigrant and a mother born in…

Jean Toomer (1894-1967)

Born in Washington, D.C., Nathan Eugene Toomer was raised by his grandparents. He studied at several universities, including the University…

Genevieve Taggard (1894-1948)

Born in Waitsburg, Washington, Genevieve Taggard was raised in Hawaii, where her parents ran a school. Taggard attended the University…

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

Carl Sandburg was born in Galesburg, Illinois, to parents who had emigrated from Sweden. His father was a hard-working blacksmith,…

Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

Like T. S. Eliot, with whom he enjoyed a long friendship, Ezra Pound lived his early years in the United…

Claude McKay (1889-1948)

Born in Jamaica, Claude McKay came to America to study agriculture at Tuskegee Institute, a historically black university founded by…

Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

Langston Hughes stands as one of the most prolific writers in American history: he wrote poetry, two novels, two autobiographies,…

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Although Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, where he spent his first eleven years, he is commonly associated with…

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

Born in St. Louis, Thomas Stearns Eliot was one of seven children. Originally from New England, the Eliot family’s lineage…

H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) (1886-1961)

Born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Hilda Doolittle attended exclusive private schools in Philadelphia and was admitted to Bryn Mawr College. Her…

Social Realism – Activities

Social Realism – Timeline

This timeline places literary publications (in black) in their historical contexts (in red).

Anzia Yezierska (1880-1970)

In the course of a career that spanned more than fifty years, Anzia Yezierska recorded Eastern European women immigrants’ struggles…

Edith Wharton (1862-1937)

Edith Wharton was born into a wealthy, conservative, New York family that traced its lineage back to the colonial settlement…

Booker T. Washington (c. 1856-1915)

Born into slavery and poverty, Booker T. Washington grew up to become one of the most powerful African American public…

Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt (c. 1836-1919)

Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt (1836-1919) A poet widely published in nineteenth-century America, Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt saw hundreds of her…

Henry James (1843-1916)

Henry James (1843-1916) Known for his sophisticated style, precise language, extraordinary productivity, and innovative attention to the novel form, Henry…

Sui Sin Far (Edith Maud Eaton) (1865-1914)

Writing around the turn of the twentieth century, Sui Sin Far, or Edith Maud Eaton, challenged entrenched social and political…

W. E. B. Du Bois (c. 1868-1963)

With the publication of The Souls of Black Folk in 1903, W. E. B. Du Bois emerged as the intellectual leader of…

Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)

One of the foremost practitioners of American realism, Theodore Dreiser wrote novels and stories that explored such themes as the…

Abraham Cahan (c. 1860-1951)

As a journalist and fiction writer, Abraham Cahan explored the social, cultural, and spiritual tensions of the Eastern European Jewish…

Henry Adams (1838-1918)

From his early childhood on, Henry Adams was acutely aware of his heritage as part of the remarkable political dynasty…

Regional Realism – Activities

Regional Realism – Timeline

This timeline places literary publications (in black) in their historical contexts (in red).

Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Simmons Bonnin) (1876-1938)

Writer, musician, educator, and Indian rights activist, Zitkala-Sa (or Red Bird) was born on the Sioux Pine Ridge Reservation in…

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) (1835-1910)

Samuel L. Clemens, better known by his pen name “Mark Twain,” continues to enjoy a reputation, already attained by the…

Alexander Posey (1873-1908)

Alexander Posey recorded his insights into Creek Indian tribal politics and Native American customs in his poetry, journalism, and political…

Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909)

Sarah Orne Jewett’s evocative sketches of village life in nineteenth-century Maine have earned her a place among the most important…

Bret Harte (1836-1902)

At the height of his career, in the 1860s and 1870s, Bret Harte was one of the most famous and…

Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908)

Most famous for his creation of the black folk figure Uncle Remus, Joel Chandler Harris was also a journalist, humorist,…

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1852-1930)

In composing her well-received realist depictions of women’s lives in New England villages, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman wrote about the…

Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa) (1858-1939)

A Santee Sioux, physician, government agent, and spokesperson for Indian rights, Charles Alexander Eastman was also the first well-known, widely…

Kate Chopin (1851-1904)

Writing at the end of the nineteenth century at the height of the popularity of “local color” fiction, Kate Chopin…

Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932)

Charles W. Chesnutt was a pioneer among African American fiction writers, addressing controversial issues of race in a realist style…

Slavery and Freedom – Activities

Slavery and Freedom – Timeline

This timeline places literary publications (in black) in their historical contexts (in red).

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)

Harriet Beecher Stowe was born into a large New England religious family. Her father, Lyman Beecher, was a prominent Evangelical…

Sorrow Songs

Drawing on both African musical styles and western European sources, black slaves in the antebellum South created a rich musical…

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

Born to impoverished parents in backwoods Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln rose to become the sixteenth president of the United States. His…

Harriet Jacobs (c. 1813-1897)

Born into slavery in North Carolina, Harriet Ann Jacobs was raised both by her free black grandmother and by a…

Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

A committed activist for Native American rights, Helen Hunt Jackson provides an important context for understanding Indian slavery and exploitation…

Briton Hammon (fl. 1760)

Briton Hammon’s “Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man,” published in Boston in…

Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)

Frederick Douglass was one of the most influential African American thinkers of his day, in spite of his inauspicious beginnings.…

William and Ellen Craft (c. 1826-1897)

William and Ellen Craft’s daring escape from slavery in 1848 made them famous throughout antebellum America, heroes in the eyes…

Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880)

Lydia Maria Child (born Lydia Francis) was raised outside of Boston in a community she described as made up of…

Lorenzo Asisara (b. 1819)

While the institution of slavery is generally associated with African Americans and with the antebellum South, it was in fact…

Gothic Undercurrents – Activities