19th Century Identity In America

1872 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essay on native american literature

In the late 19th century America was grappling with who it was as a country. With African American's being freed with the end of the Civil War it did not make it any easier. Before the war America was predominately seen as a country run by Caucasians. While after the war African Americans were not necessarily treated any better. The war did not give America a sense of identity. African Americans were not treated any more equally. The search for an identity was not merely between black and white. It also involved the Native American culture. Alone each culture had there own identity. However, they were mixed together. This was confusing not only from the standpoint of one culture looking at another but, of the person that does not know they have a mixed heritage. Writers not only male and female but white and black wrote about the hardships of being the culture that was not liked. Through there stories George Washington Cable and Grace King are two writers of this era that depicted the hardships of searching for an identity.

George Washington Cable was born in 1844 in New Orleans. His mother's side of the family was Puritan from New England. His father's side was German from a Virginian slaveholding family. At the age of fourteen his father died. This forced Cable to leave school to get a job. When he was nineteen he enlisted in the Fourth Mississippi Cavalry. After the war he worked as a surveyor for Atchafalaya River levees. While working he contracted malaria allowing him to begin writing. He started by writing columns for the New Orleans Picayune. After marriage he worked as a newspaper reporter followed by keeping books for a cotton firm. He did not go to school to receive his education. He spent his time before work reading and writing, teaching himself French and learning much of the old New Orleans records. This helped give him knowledge for many of his writings that would garner him national recognition. By using his knowledge of various cultures he crafted them into stories about the different cultures in the region.

The story ‘Tite Poulette takes place in New Orleans, focusing on race and the relationship between races. Kristian is a white male who moves to New Orleans.

Show More
Related

  • Jim Crow Laws Essay

    715 Words  | 2 Pages

    To wrap it up, African Americans lived an unfair past in the south, such as Alabama, during the 1930s because of discrimination and the misleading thoughts towards them. The Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow Laws and the way they were generally treated in southern states all exemplify this merciless time period of the behavior towards them. They were not given the same respect, impression, and prospect as the rest of the citizens of America, and instead they were tortured. Therefore, one group should be never singled out and should be given the same first intuition as the rest of the people, and should never be judged by color, but instead by character.

    Read More

  • American Immigrants In The 18th Century

    1440 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ellis island brought millions of immigrants to America between the years 1892 and 1954. It is said that 40% of our population today can trace their ancestors to Ellis Island. Many people of many nationalities came to The United States get a chance at having the “American Dream”. Whilst pursuing their dreams, they left their marks on American culture. No one has influenced us so much as the Italians and their way of life.

    Read More

  • Contrasting Native Son and Their Eyes Were Watching God

    4138 Words  | 9 Pages

    This paper examines the drastic differences in literary themes and styles of Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston, two African--American writers from the early 1900's. The portrayals of African-American women by each author are contrasted based on specific examples from their two most prominent novels, Native Son by Wright, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Hurston. With the intent to explain this divergence, the autobiographies of both authors (Black Boy and Dust Tracks on a Road) are also analyzed. Particular examples from the lives of each author are cited to demonstrate the contrasting lifestyles and experiences that created these disparities, drawing parallels between the authors’ lives and creative endeavors. It becomes apparent that Wright's traumatic experiences involving females and Hurston's identity as a strong, independent and successful Black artist contributed significantly to the ways in which they chose to depict African-American women and what goals they adhered to in reaching and touching a specific audience with the messages contained in their writing.

    Read More

  • Nathan Irvin Huggins: Culture And Identity Crisis In The Harlem Renaissance

    1665 Words  | 4 Pages

    In fact, it is clear to the reader that Huggins makes a concerted effort to bring light to both ethnicities’ perspectives. Huggins even argues that their culture is one and the same, “such a seamless web that it is impossible to calibrate the Negro within it or to ravel him from it” (Huggins, 309). Huggins argument is really brought to life through his use of historical evidence found in influential poetry from the time period. When analyzing why African Americans were having an identity crisis he looked to a common place that African American looked to. Africa was a common identifier among the black community for obvious reasons and was where Authors and Artists looked for inspiration. African American artists adopted the simple black silhouette and angular art found in original African pieces. Authors looked to Africa in their poetry. In The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes, the names of rivers in Africa such as the Euphrates, the Congo and the Nile were all used and then the scene switches to the Mississippi river found in America showing that blacks have “seen”, or experienced both. Huggins looks deeply into Countee Cullen’s Heritage discussing “what is Africa to me?” a common identifier that united black artistry in the Harlem Renaissance, “Africa? A book one thumbs listlessly, till slumber comes” (Countee). The black community craved to be a separate society from white Americans so they were forced to go back to the past to find their heritage, before America and white oppression. Huggins finds an amazing variety of evidence within literature of this time period, exposing the raw feelings and emotion behind this intellectual movement. The connections he makes within these pieces of poetry are accurate and strong, supporting his initial thesis

    Read More

  • Condition of African-Americans in the late nineteenth century

    713 Words  | 2 Pages

    Examine the condition of African-Americans in the late nineteenth century and explain why the Thirteenth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Fifteenth Amendment, which were enacted to aid the new freedmen, actually did little.

    Read More

  • Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, and Paule Marshall

    5114 Words  | 11 Pages

    Walker and Marshall write about an identity that they have found with African-American women of the past. They both refer to great writers such as Zora Neale Hurston or Phillis Wheatley. But more importantly, they connect themselves to their ancestors. The see that their writings can be identified with what the unknown African-American women of the past longed to say but they did not have the freedom to do so. They both admire many literary greats such as Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, and Jane Austen, but they appreciate these authors' works more than they can identify with them.

    Read More

  • Immigrant Life in the 19th and 20th Centuries

    1574 Words  | 4 Pages

    American was a prosperous country with incredible economic growth between the end of Reconstruction and the Great Depression. It was during this time that "industrial expansion went into high gear because increasing manufacturing efficiencies enabled American firms to cut prices and yet earn profits for financing still better equipment (Henretta 488)." During this era, the manufacturing of steel, the construction of railroads, factories, and warehouses, and the growing demand for technological advancements, increased greatly. Philanthropists, such as Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, and John D. Rockefeller, took advantage of the situation they were in by investing large sums of capital into the growing economy. Carnegie constructed an enormous steel mill outside of Pittsburgh that became one of the worlds' largest. Mellon started the Union Trust Fund in Pittsburgh, which developed in its later years to one of the largest financial institutions in the country. Rockefeller, who was involved in the petroleum industry, built the Standard Oil Company. Philanthropists were not the only group of people funding the growth of Corporate America. "The federal government, mainly interested in encouraging interregional development, provided financial credit and land grants (Henretta 490)." As a whole, the American economy was growing at an incredible rate. It was due to this growth that countless immigrants from Europe made their way over the Atlantic, as well as African Americans migrating from the South, both with hopes of improving their own standards of life.

    Read More

  • Situational Psychology of 19th Century America

    3685 Words  | 8 Pages

    A situation can drastically affect a person’s behavior, motivation and overall attitude. There have been many psychological studies that demonstrate the strong influence a situation has on a person’s behavior. Economy, living conditions, education and treatment can have an enormous impact on an individual’s conduct and demeanor. The ever-changing situations of the 19th century in America posed a challenge for various groups of people. People were often put in demanding situations and most reacted according to their current environment.

    Read More

  • Industrial America in the Late 19th Century

    622 Words  | 2 Pages

    "Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.)." Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.). N.p., n.d. Web. 03 May 2014.

    Read More

  • Double Consciousness and the American Narrative

    1077 Words  | 3 Pages

    The American Narrative includes a number of incidents throughout American history, which have shaped the nation into what it is today. One of the significant issues that emerged was slavery, and the consequent emancipation of the slaves, which brought much confusion regarding the identification of these new citizens and whether they fit into the American Narrative as it stood. In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B Dubois introduces the concept of double consciousness as “the sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others” (Dubois 3). This later became the standard for describing the African-American narrative because of the racial identification spectrum it formed. The question of double consciousness is whether African-Americans can identify themselves as American, or whether the African designation separates them from the rest of society. President Barack Obama and Booker T. Washington, who both emerged as prominent figures representing great social change and progress for the African-American race in America, further illustrate the struggle for an identity.

    Read More

  • Inequality for African Americans

    1853 Words  | 4 Pages

    Prior to World War I there was much social, economic, and political inequality for African Americans. This made it difficult for African Americans to accept their own ethnicity and integrate with the rest of American society. By the end of World War II however African Americans had made great strides towards reaching complete equality, developing their culture, securing basic rights, and incorporating into American society.

    Read More

  • The Emerging American Character During the 1700’s

    581 Words  | 2 Pages

    (7 There once was an Italian man by the name of Amerigo Vespucci, who sailed the seas and explored South America. And later named America after himself.

    Read More

  • Racism And Inequality In Zora Neale Hurston

    852 Words  | 2 Pages

    Racism and inequality with African Americans have been prevalent in the U.S. for a long time. Specifically, during the Harlem Renaissance, this struggle of discrimination had arguably the greatest impact on the writers of this time period. Zora Neale Hurston is just one example of a writer who was affected by this. She was faced with discrimination, a harder lifestyle, and publication issues.

    Read More

  • How it Feels to be Colored Me by Hurston and Hughes’ The Negro Mother

    1238 Words  | 3 Pages

    Both Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes were great writers but their attitudes towards their personal experience as an African American differed in many ways. These differences can be attributed to various reasons that range from gender to life experience but even though they had different perceptions regarding the African American experience, they both shared one common goal, racial equality through art. To accurately delve into the minds of the writers’ one must first consider authors background such as their childhood experience, education, as well their early adulthood to truly understand how it affected their writing in terms the similarities and differences of the voice and themes used with the works “How it Feels to be Colored Me” by Hurston and Hughes’ “The Negro Mother”. The importance of these factors directly correlate to how each author came to find their literary inspiration and voice that attributed to their works.

    Read More

  • Comparing the Poetry of Lanston Hughes and Countee Cullen

    826 Words  | 2 Pages

    During this era African Americans were facing the challenges of accepting their heritage or ignoring outright to claim a different lifestyle for their day to day lives. Hughes and Cullen wrote poems that seemed to describe themselves, or African Americans, who had accepted their African Heritage and who also wanted to be a part of American heritage as well. These are some of the things they have in common, as well as what is different about them based on appearance, now I shall focus on each author individually and talk about how they are different afterwards.

    Read More

More about 19th Century Identity In America

Open Document