The decades which followed the Civil War transformed the America into a modern nation. The war had been a conflict between 2 visions of democracy : an agrarian as opposed to an industrial and capitalistic one. The victory of the North mades the USA the first industrial power of the world. However, the South was left impoverished.

There were other victims, and several communities clamed recognition as human beings or as citizens. Native Americans were pushed into reservations, where they expressed their pride and protest with songs and speeches. As for black people, the end of slavery in the South was followed by bitter racial division. When the Supreme Court made segregation constitutional, separation became institutionalised.

Regional realism : the rapid expansion of the nation after the Civil War meant that differences between regions became increasingly marked. New England stopped dominating literature, and people were eager to read about lives and customs in far away regions of the nation. Many believed it would give the American novel its specificity and originality.

Local colour writing :

Local colour writing is part of realism, but focuses more on the portrayal of a particular region, its speech, dialect and mannerisms. It's concerned with verisimilitude and the detailed representation of the peculiarities of certain areas. In this kind of fiction, small town often became synonymous with hapiness and homeliness and were glorified by such a popular works.

• In the South, litarature often kamented the loss of the antebellum plantation life
• New England had writers focused on the rural world
• The West was perhaps the region which contributed the greates number of talents, and many of the frontier myths originate in their works.

Around the turn of the century, London and Paris attracted many Americans who turned their backs on the materialism and philistinism of American society.

• Henry James : what he missed in America is what he found in Europe : refined manners, aesthetic and cultural sophistication, though often at the cost of moral integrity. His stories develop this international theme, contrasting European reserve, finesse and decadence with American brashness and virtue
• Edith Wharton : her favorite subjects was the manners of society, which included a fascination with its outward signs, buildings, clothes, all of which she viewed as an index to character. She cast a critical eye upon both the pretension of the New York aristocracy and those of the newly rich social climbers, Waste, vacuity, gossip and sexual intrigue ruled everywhere. (The House of Mirth)

Naturalism :

An extreme form of realism, naturalism applies the principles of determinism to fiction. Men are seen conditioned by inner forces and drives as well as by environmental ones, forces they cant understand or control. Naturalism focuses on the causes. Scientific law find them in the work of Darwin, Marx and Freud.

The Muckrakers :

The term was given to writers who denounced social ills and the corruption rampant in bug business as well as in politics at all levels. Their condemnation first appeared in magazines, then in some novels, the best known being The Jungle (Upton Sinclair), which exposes the American Dream as illusory.

African American Voices :

Segregation gave rise to a larger range of responses from the black community, advocating participation or rebellion.

• Brooker T. Washington believed in conciliation and dialogue between the communities. His autobiography describes his rise from dire poverty to gain literacy, improve himself and become President of Tuskegee Institute.
• W.E.B Dubois shows how black people have been robbed of identity and only see themselves through the eyes of others, what he calls the double consciousness of the Negro, shut out from white people by a veil.