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Information to Users INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely afreet reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 3 0 0 North Z eeb R oad , Ann Arbor, Ml 48 1 0 6 -1 3 4 6 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 9130498 Crane, Sinclair, and Dreiser in the temperance tradition Kimmel, David P., Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1991 UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 CRANE, SINCLAIR, AND DREISER IN THE TEMPERANCE TRADITION DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By David P. Kimmel, B.A., M.A. The Ohio State University 1991 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Steven Fink f . Julian Markels ^ s Adviser Thomas Woodson Department of English VITA June 17,1963 .................................................... Bom - Fremont, Ohio 1985 B.A., O tterbein College, Westerville, Ohio 1987 .................................................................... MA., Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio FIELD OF STUDY Major Field: English ii TABLE OF CONTENTS VITA................................................................................................................................ii INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................1 CHAPTER PAGE I. THE TEMPERANCE TRADITION IN LITERATURE.......................19 II. CRANE........................................................................................................... 89 III. SINCLAIR.................................................................................................. 163 IV. DREISER....................................................................................................228 CONCLUSION......................................................................................................... 271 WORKS CITED ........................................................................................................ 284 INTRODUCTION The end of the nineteenth century was a period of upheaval and introspection on the part of American society. Following the Civil War, the northern states had experienced a massive growth in population and industrialization. Giant corporations appeared, pooling the resources of the entire country in the hands of a small group of directors and industrialists. This Gilded Age of industrial expansion saw great new markets for the products of industrial manufacturing, caused by steadily rising per capita incomes and growing urban markets. By the time of the Chicago Exposition in 1893, the changeover from a primarily rural, agriculture-based economy to a primarily urban, industrial-based economy had for the most part become a given of American life. Americans at the turn of the century viewed their country in terms of the American Dream: a land of limitless opportunity, in which as long as a man was willing to work hard, he could make it big. By 1893, however, another view of American society was also in full force, a view which countered the mainstream optimism of the period with an acknowledgement of the dark side of industrial development. The Gilded Age’s rapid economic growth provided Americans of the period with immense productivity and a seemingly inexhaustible opportunity for expansion; along with this growth, however, came shocking symptoms of a breakdown of the old social order: existing social structures were 1 inadequate to deal with working women and children or with the masses of immigrants pouring into large cities such as New York and Chicago. Inner-city slums teemed with masses of poor immigrant laborers, whose lives seemed the antithesis of the middle-class lifestyles of the growing class of “normal” Americans. As the middle class became aware of the social stresses exacerbated by industrial development and the resulting growth of cities like Chicago and New York, concerned citizens began organizing efforts to rectify some of the most glaring social problems. By 1893, every major city in America had felt the effect of civic organizations aimed at curbing housing abuses, illiteracy, unfair labor practices, and unsanitary living conditions. Leading the effort to clean up America were the newspapers of the “yellow press.” In New York, enterprising young publishers, such as Hearst and Pulitzer, made millions by printing sensational exposes of inner-city conditions. A host of young writers devoted their careers to exposing fraud and injustice in the manner of reformer-authors, such as Jacob Riis, whose best-selling How the Other Half Lives did much to raise the consciousness of middle-class America concerning the plight of the urban poor. Among these young writers were three who would become known for their contributions to the literary school of American naturalism: Stephen Crane, Upton Sinclair, and Theodore Dreiser. In Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and George’s Mother, Sinclair’s The Jungle, and Dreiser’s Sister Carrie, all three authors write with the social world of the city in mind and with the intention—at least partially—of affecting that world by exposing the truth about it. It is important for any reader of these city fictions to remember that the novels stand as responses to and reflections of the reform mentality of tum-of-the-century America. The reformers and reform-minded journalists and authors of the 1890s and early 1900s covered a wide range of social problems plaguing American cities, but the discussion concerning all of these various problems had one issue in common: alcohol. As a social issue, alcohol— and in particular the temperance movement—touched on nearly every other major social issue of the day. And many prominent suffragists and urban housing reformers were also prominent advocates of the temperance cause. It should come as no surprise, then, that alcohol figures prominently in the city writings of Crane, Dreiser, and Sinclair. All three writers recognized the importance of alcohol in the social, political, and economic world of their day, and that importance is reflected in their fiction. Alcohol and saloons appear throughout all four city novels, contributing much to the background “feel” of the novels and often serving as the settings of or driving forces behind the major action of the stories. It is as difficult to imagine these stories without their alcoholic content as it is to imagine turn-of-the-century America without the temperance movement. Mary Johnson, for example, would be an entirely different character without her “brown bottle,” and George Kelcey’s story would be altered dramatically if he hadn’t been tempted by saloon-life. Likewise, the saloons he frequents are as much a part of Jurgis Rudkos’sl Packingtown experience as his work on the actual killing-floors of Smith’s. And the 1 “Rudkos” is the original spelling for the Lithuanian heroThe of Jungle as it appeared in Appeal to Reason. In the more familiar Doubleday, Page edition, the spelling was altered to “Rudkus.” glitter and flash of Hannah and H ogg’s ^ is practically inseparable from the personality and image of George Hurstwood. This study will investigate the role alcohol plays in the city fiction of Crane, Sinclair, and Dreiser, attempting along the way to show how the use of alcohol in these stories— beyond merely adding verisimilitude to the novels—links the three authors to their historical moments. I will pay particular attention to the uses the authors make of temperance forms and of patterns of thinking inherent in the temperance movement. I am not interested, here, in merely tracing the existence of the temperance influence in the work of Crane, Sinclair, and Dreiser; such source tracing has already been a successful part of the criticism of these three authors. Some of this type of source criticism has focused on establishing connections between the lives of the authors and the lives of their characters. In the case of Crane, critics have focused on Crane’s Methodist background, explaining how the themes, forms, and underlying morality of Crane’s fiction are directly descended from Crane’s heritage, as in Thomas Gullason’s “The Prophetic City in Stephen Crane’s 1893 Maggie” (136); Bernard Weinstein’s “George's Mother
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