The Historical and Cultural Context of

Adventures of Huckleberry

Finnby Mark Twain

Historical Context of Huckleberry

FinnSet in pre-Civil War years 40-50 years before 1885 publication

Slavery ended, but racism still rampant (Jim Crow Laws)

Mark Twain underwent moral transformation…

He believed slavery was wrong and white Americans owed black Americans reparations

19th CENTURY

The Civil WarIndustrial Revolution Extreme contrasts between rich and poor

Literary and Artistic Movements: REALISM and

REGIONALISM1. Attack upon Romantics and Transcendentalists

pragmatic, democratic, and experimental

Responsibly moral – goal was to report the world with HONESTY

2.Drew subject matter from “our experience”

Focused on the common, the average, the probable

3. Character and Setting more important than Plot

(Local Color Movement)

Focused on the norm of daily experience

Dialect, geography, regional manners

HUCKLEBERRY FINN is a…COMING-OF-AGE NOVEL: moral growth of a comic character in an physically beautiful yet morally repugnant setting

and a…PICARESQUE NOVEL: follows

the adventures of a roguish hero• episodic: Mississippi River • flight to freedom vs. river flowing toward Deep South (slave territory)

19th century Americans are self-

conscious…

They want to know what their new country looks like, and how the varied races of growing population live and talk

19th century Firsts…

First mappings of the West

First transcontinental railroad

First Photography

Photography as a social mirror…

The invention ignited an artistic and scientific frenzy…

Best portrait makers could bring out the very human essence of a subject…

The advantages of photography: immediacy, reliable representation, low cost, etc…

Massive social changes reflected in literature & photography.

1861-65 - Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner: honest photographic record of the Civil War.

Photography, like literary Realism & Regionalism

showed TRUTH.

“Something new happened in Huck Finn that had never happened in American literature before. It was a book…that served as a Declaration of Independence from the genteel English novel…

…[It] allowed a different kind of writing to happen: a clean, crisp, no-nonsense, earthly vernacular…it was a book that talked. Huck’s voice, combined with Twain’s satiric genius, changed the shape of fiction in America, and African-American voices had a great deal to do with making it what it was.” - Dr. Shelley Fishkin, 1995

•

Photograph Huckleberry FinnComparing VIEWPOINTS OF SLAVERY in…

"Slave Boy Brought to Waterbury from Bucks Hill by Aunt

Ella Johnson's Second

Husband (Whelan)"Ninth-plate ambrotype, circa 1855

http://www.photographymuseum.com/slave

boylg.htmlThe American Photography

Museum, Inc.

#1

"Our Little Pedlars"

Quarter-plate ambrotype, circa

1855-1860

http://www.photographymuseum.com/pedlarslg.h

tmlThe

American Photography

Museum, Inc.

#2

W. Queen (Philadelphia), Publisher or Retailer:

"The Darkey's Vanity"Tinted Albumen

Stereograph circa 1860

http://www.photographymuseu

m.com/vanitylg.htmlThe American Photography

Museum, Inc.

#3

Cumberland Landing, Virginia,Group of "contrabands" at Foller's house, May 14, 1862http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/psources/slavpho2.htmlThe American Photography Museum, Inc.

#4

Unidentified Photographer:Civil War Soldiers with a "Contraband"Albumen carte de visite, circa 1863

http://www.photographymuseum.com/contrabl.htmlThe American Photography Museum, Inc.

#5

 E. & H. T. Anthony & Co. (New York),

Publishers:"Bombproof Quarters of

Maj. Strong, at Dutch Gap, 16th N. Y.

Artillery"Albumen Stereograph

circa 1864

http://www.photographymuseum.com/majstrong.html

The American Photography

Museum, Inc.

                                 

#6

Unidentified Photographer: Ten ChildrenCyanotype, circa 1898http://www.photographymuseum.com/cyanokidslg.htmlThe American Photography Museum, Inc.

#7

Palmer (Tuskegee, Alabama)

Instructor & Three Graduates with Diplomas and Geraniums

Gelatine-Silver Print, circa 1905

 http://www.photographymuseum.com/tuskeglg.htmlThe American Photography Museum, Inc.

#8

Works CitedThe American Photography Museum, Inc.   Virtual Exhibit: “The Face of Slavery and Other Early

Images of African Americans.” (2004). http://www.photography-museum.com/faceof.html

Cross, J.M. . “Nineteenth-Century Photography: A Timeline.” The Victorian Web. (2001). http://www.victorianweb.org/photos/chron.html

Reuben, Paul P. “Chapter 5: Late Nineteenth Century: American Realism - A Brief Introduction.” PAL: Perspectives in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide - An

Ongoing Project.(2003). http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap5/5intro.html

Rubio, Juan Carlos. (Curator). “Portraits and Landscapes in Nineteenth Century Photography. Private Collections of Madrid.” Fundacion Telefonico. (2001).

http://www.fundacion.telefonica.com/at/photoes/efotoxix.html