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The Image of the Artist in Chicago Fiction Following the World's Columbian Exposition

Cunningham, Michael J.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1566463066604328

Abstract Details

1978, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, English.
The World's Columbian Exposition was a highly symbolic event. In addition to confirming Chicago's arrival as a great city of the world, the Fair on the Midway created a climate of optimism for the American artist, especially for those who designed or visited the Court of Honor. The Fair promised a closer cooperation among artists, a greater receptivity among the American people for the works of the artist, and a belief that the businessman would be a more visible ally and benefactor of the artist. This study explored representative novels to see whether observers of Chicago culture thought that the Exposition had an impact on Chicago's cultural life and on the fortunes of the artists who chose to work there. The study primarily focused on the novels and essays of Hamlin Garland, Henry Blake Fuller and Robert Herrick; but it also examined the works of Frank Norris, Hobart Chatfield-Taylor and Robert Morss Lovett. The study concluded that the Fair had created numerous promises that could not be fulfilled and that the anticipations that it fostered made the despair of the artists more acute. In the novels the city of Chicago is frequently shown as a town still in its cultural infancy; the status of the artist has not appreciably improved. The fictional artists form few alliances and those that do are satirized. The artist is frequently portrayed as a loner in an alien culture. If he lives in the city, he is usually ambivalent about the place; he both loves and loathes it. The Fair has not made the city more congenial nor its people more receptive to the artist's work. The cooperation of the businessman is another delusion. When not portrayed as an adversary of the businessman, the artist is shown as a man aware of his impotence in a business civilization. The artist's sense of despair is heightened by his realization that he is powerless to transform society in the way that the Fair had promised. At his best the fictional artist is a man like any other man of his age, bewildered by forces he could not understand and lured by dreams of success and respectability.
Charles Crow (Advisor)
American Literature

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Cunningham, M. J. (1978). The Image of the Artist in Chicago Fiction Following the World's Columbian Exposition [Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1566463066604328

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Cunningham, Michael. The Image of the Artist in Chicago Fiction Following the World's Columbian Exposition. 1978. Bowling Green State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1566463066604328.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Cunningham, Michael. "The Image of the Artist in Chicago Fiction Following the World's Columbian Exposition." Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University, 1978. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1566463066604328

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1566463066604328
452
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