Arguing Their World: the Representation of Major Social and Cultural Issues in Edna Ferber’S and Fannie Hurst’S Fiction, 1910-1935

1 ARGUING THEIR WORLD: THE REPRESENTATION OF MAJOR SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ISSUES IN EDNA FERBER’S AND FANNIE HURST’S FICTION, 1910-1935 A dissertation presented By Kathryn Ruth Bloom to The Department of English In partial fulfillment of the reQuirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In the field of English Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts April 2018 2 ARGUING THEIR WORLD: THE REPRESENTATION OF MAJOR SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ISSUES IN EDNA FERBER’S AND FANNIE HURST’S FICTION, 1910-1935 A dissertation presented By Kathryn Ruth Bloom ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the reQuirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities of Northeastern University April 2018 3 ABSTRACT BetWeen the early decades of the twentieth-century and mid-century, Edna Ferber and Fannie Hurst were popular and prolific authors of fiction about American society and culture. Almost a century ago, they were writing about race, immigration, economic disparity, drug addiction, and other issues our society is dealing with today with a reneWed sense of urgency. In spite of their extraordinary popularity, by the time they died within a feW months of each other in 1968, their reputations had fallen into eclipse. This dissertation focuses on Ferber’s and Hurst’s fiction published betWeen approximately 1910 and 1935, the years in Which both authors enjoyed the highest critical and popular esteem. Perhaps because these realistic narratives generally do not engage in the stylistic experimentation of the literary world around them, literary scholars came to undervalue their Work. My close readings and consideration of secondary socio-political sources establish the importance of this body of fiction as a reflection of and influence on social issues of their day, with contemporary reverberations. The social and cultural issues with Which the authors are concerned include cultural diversity in Ferber’s Cimarron (1929), her representation of the increasing homogenization of American culture in Show Boat (1926), and the association of her intensely visual writing style with the historical mural cycles of Thomas Hart Benton in her early regional novels. Hurst’s equally wide-ranging concerns include representation of the rise-and-fall of German-American culture; food insecurity, weight, and non-standard body type in narratives about cultural assimilation and acceptance of diversity; the impact of the 1920s opioid epidemic on upper-middle-class families, and her modernist experiment in Lummox (1923), in Which she combines a 4 realistic social-justice narrative calling for the equitable treatment of domestic Workers with a modernist narrative that describes an inarticulate woman’s search for self- expression through music. Through this work of recovery and restoration, I strive to demonstrate that through the characters who populate their fiction and the personal and societal issues they confront, Edna Ferber and Fannie Hurst are still speaking to us— and that there is much to learn from them. 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Several years ago, I undertook an apartment renovation that reQuired transferring many of my most-valued possessions to a storage unit. Anxious about losing precious items, particularly the literature I love, I selected the books I considered essential and kept them instead in a bedroom closet. Most had been part of my family’s library since I was a child. They included Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, William Saroyan’s The Human Comedy and My Name Is Aram, Kathryn Forbes’s Mama’s Bank Account, and the collected short stories of Stephen Vincent Benet. When I applied to the PhD program in English at Northeastern some years later, reconsidering my selections made me realize that my particular literary interest focuses on middlebroW literature, a genre that was scorned during the years of my own undergraduate and earlier graduate education. To my surprise and delight, I soon learned that the study of middlebrow literature has gained legitimacy in the academy and am proud to add my work of Edna Ferber and Fannie Hurst to scholarship in this emerging field. Writing a dissertation is the final step in the pursuit of a PhD and, although much of the student’s time is spent researching and writing in isolation, it cannot be achieved without the input and support of many people. I owe special thanks to members of the English department at Northeastern for Welcoming a non-traditional student into their program and making her feel at home. My thanks go in particular to the members of my dissertation committee, Professors Lori Lefkovitz (chair), Ryan Cordell, and Kathleen Kelly. In addition, Professor Laura Green has been most supportive of my efforts. I am also grateful for the assistance of Melissa Daigle, Jonathan Fitzgerald, Samantha PrzybyloWicz, and Amanda Rust. I also express my appreciation to my cousin David S. 6 Bloom and to Professor Hilary Poriss, Christopher Bailey, Jose Oliveira Martins, and Claudio Vellutini for their help in identifying the musical selections in Fannie Hurst’s Lummox. My thanks as well to Professors Avi Bernstein-Nahar, Beryl Schlossman, and Richard Teleky for their support and encouragement. Special thanks also go to my friend Colin Hefferon for putting up with the endless discussions of literature I continue to have with former classmates at University of Toronto who remain dear friends. My greatest thanks go to my parents, Morris and Frances S. Bloom, of blessed memory, to whom this work is dedicated. They filled our house with music and literature and alWays encouraged my intellectual interests. In spite of the limited opportunities for higher education available to them, their curiosity, openness to learning, and enthusiasm for inQuiry and discussion continue to enrich my life. 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 2 AcknoWledgements 5 Table of Contents 7 List of Illustrations 8 Publication Chronology 9 Introduction 11 Chapter 1: “America and I”: Edna Ferber’s Cimarron and American Attitudes toWard Assimilation and Pluralism” 38 Chapter 2: “Germany, My Mother, America, My Bride”: Fannie Hurst and the Representation of German-American Culture 73 Chapter 3: Food on Her Mind, Just Not with Her Meals: Women, Food, and Body Image in Fannie Hurst’s Early Fiction 98 Chapter 4: “So Happy for a Time”: Fannie Hurst and the 1920s Opioid Epidemic 134 Chapter 5: “Life Upon the Wicked Stage”: Art and Authenticity in Edna Ferber’s Show Boat 156 Chapter 6: “The Many Long-Dumb Voices”: The Social and Aesthetic Loss of Voice in Fannie Hurst’s Lummox 182 Chapter 7: “A Picture Held Us Captive”: The American Regionalist Movement and Edna Ferber’s Early Novels 220 Illustrations 257 AfterWord 266 Works Cited 273 8 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS (Illustrations for educational use only) Plate 1: T.H. Benton, A Social History of the State of Missouri Plate 2: T.H. Benton, The Grapes of Wrath: The Departure of the Joads Plate 3: T.H. Benton, Trail Riders Plate 4: T.H. Benton, Weighing Cotton Plate 5: T.H. Benton, America Today/Deep South Plate 6: T.H. Benton, America Today/Steel Plate 7: W.H.D. Koerner, Madonna of the Prairie Plate 8: T.H. Benton, Parks, the Circus, the Klan, the Press Plate 9: Jed Harris: Wolf of BroadWay 9 PUBLICATION CHRONOLOGY This list includes Works referenced, including date and names of the magazines in Which short stories first appeared. It does not represent a complete list of all Works by Edna Ferber and Fannie Hurst. Fannie Hurst “The Joy of Living.” First Published: Reedy’s Mirror, May 27, 1909. “The Other Cheek.” First Published: Saturday Evening Post, April 11, 1914. “T.B.” First Published: Saturday Evening Post, January 9, 1915. “Sob Sister.” First Published: Metropolitan Magazine, February 1916. “Sieve of Fulfillment.” First Published: Cosmopolitan, October 1917. “A Boob Spelled Backward.” First Published: Cosmopolitan, April 1918. “She Also Serves.” First Published: Cosmopolitan, October 1918. “Humoresque.” First Published: Cosmopolitan, March 1919. “Even as You and I.” 1919. “Roulette.” First Published: Cosmopolitan, May 1921. “She Walks in Beauty.” First Published: Cosmopolitan, August 1921. Lummox, 1923. “The Spangle That Could Be a Tear.” First Published: The Bookman, December 1923. “The Gold in Fish.” First Published: Cosmopolitan, August 1925. Back Street. 1931. Imitation of Life. 1933. No Food with My Meals. 1935. Anatomy of Me: A Wonderer in Search of Herself. 1958. 10 Edna Ferber “One Hundred Percent.” Metropolitan Magazine, October 1918. So Big. 1924. Show Boat. 1926. The Royal Family (with George S. Kaufman). 1927. Cimarron. 1929. Come and Get It. 1935. A Peculiar Treasure. 1939. A Kind of Magic. 1963. 11 INTRODUCTION In 1989, the author and social commentator Tom Wolfe published an essay lamenting the decline of realistic fiction and the growing popularity of literary texts grounded in “fashionable European ideas” and characterized by a “late-Marxist tWist.” Dismissing the post-modern novelist John HaWkes’s claim that he [HaWkes] “began to write fiction on the assumption that the true enemies of the novel were plot, character, setting, and theme,” Wolfe argues instead in favor of the “realistic mode,” Which “provided a slice of life, a cross section that provided a true and powerful picture of individuals and society.” In Wolfe’s vieW, the intellectual and emotional distance betWeen realism and post-modernism underscores a lack of communication betWeen different levels of society; the truth, he asserts, is that “the intelligentsia have alWays had contempt for the realistic novel—a form that wallows so enthusiastically in the dirt of everyday life and the dirty secrets of class envy and that, still Worse, is so easily understood and obviously relished by the mob, i.e., the middle class” (“Billion-Footed Beast”). Wolfe’s “Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast” was published almost 30 years ago and time has changed the nature of some of his concerns.

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