REALIST WRITER

Up from Poverty.

Theodore Dreiser's personal experience of poverty, hunger, struggle, and social injustice informed his brand of social realism. Dreiser's America was one beset by class conflict and the ravages of capitalism. His novels were peopled by characters shaped by the difficulties of urban life, not by ideals of the middle class. Critics often dismissed him as being crude and journalistic in his writing; his advocates saw such criticism as a form of class hostility. Whichever side a reader took, few were left indifferent to Dreiser's exploration of crime, capitalism, and sexual passion. Both professionally and personally, Dreiser was an infamous character and an enormously influential figure in American letters for three decades.

Early Life.

Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1871 into a large, poor Catholic family. His parents, both immigrants, lost their business the...