Reading for Reform: The Social Work of Literature in the Progressive Era

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Reading for Reform rewrites the literary history of late nineteenth and early twentieth century America, putting social reform institutions at the centre of literary and cultural analysis. It tells a new story about the fate of literary practice, and the idea of literature's practical value, during the very years that modernist authors were proclaiming art's autonomy from concepts of social utility.

Reviews

"At once richly archival and theoretically nuanced, Reading for Reform investigates a neglected period of U.S. literary history by exploring how settlement houses, working girls clubs, and African American colleges influenced the eras fiction. It is necessary reading for any student of Progressive Era literature and print culture."Mary Chapman, author of Making Noise, Making News: Suffrage Print Culture and U.S. Modernism

"Reading for Reform is an extraordinary exploration not only of the possibility but also the limits of empathy. Arguing that Progressive Era reform institutions took reading literature to be instrumental, not merely persuasive, Laura R. Fisher suggests that negative reactions to this task-oriented idea about reading paved the way for new modes of storytelling in subsequent decades."Brad Evans, Rutgers University

"Elegantly written, Reading for Reform breaks important new ground in United States literary studies, contributing to vital contemporary conversations about labor, class, working-class womens literary cultures, and U.S. literary aesthetics. Laura R. Fisher carefully examines the role of Progressive Era institutions in authorizing certain forms of literary expression and offers richly detailed case studies of how particular reform institutions generate versions of the literary and uphold distinctions in the literary field. It is a revisionist work of fine-grained literary history of a very high quality."Lori Merish, author of Archives of Labor: Working-Class Women and Literary Culture in the Antebellum

Author Bio

Laura R. Fisher is associate professor of English at Ryerson University.