Technological Encroachment and Social Changes in Late Nineteenth-Century American Writing

Abstract

This article explores instances of American literary production that illustrate the massive changes caused by unbridled industrial development and its social ramifications in the late nineteenth century. Expounding first on the differences between modernity and Modernism, it focuses on several narratives, both fictional and non-fictional, that present the circumstances of transition from Victorianism to a new era characterized by industrial innovations, heightened mechanization, social implications, and cultural reflections. The article discusses texts by late nineteenth-century American writers and tries to demonstrate how they revise earlier concepts of nature and sense of purpose and belonging under the impact of forceful modernization and industrialization. While the industrial revolution and the emergent capitalist system inflicted irreparable damage on nature, they also affected social and moral norms and practices. Most strikingly, the explosive urbanization and changed economic order in the United States led to alarming social differences and transformed visions of nature and the self, calling for new ways of representation in literature at the end of the nineteenth century.