Theodore Dreiser (Muckracker)

Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was born on August 27,1871 and became a famous American novelist. His father was a German immigrant and his mother was from Ohio who was disowned for marrying and converting to Roman Catholicism; therefore, Dreiser was raised in strict Catholicism. Dreiser married Sara White in 1998 and separated in 1909 due to his infatuation to Thelma Cudlipp. In 1944 he married his cousin Helen Richardson whom he began an affair in 1919. 

Most of Dreiser’s literary works contained characters who succeeded in their goal; however, lacked a moral code. Dreiser face censorship due to his work dealing with promiscuity going against what was acceptable in society at that time. Dreiser was well-known for Carrie, a 1900 novel, and An American Tragedy, a 1925 novel. Carrie is about a woman who flees the country life for the city and was not widely promoted because of the moral depictions. The young woman achieves her dreams of wealth and fame through relationships with men. The Nigger Jeff, a short story published in 1901, was inspired when Dreiser witnessed a lynching 1893. American Tragedy became a huge success and was based on the crime of American’s greed toward wealth and success.  

The reason why Carrie became known as the “greatest of all American urbans” is because it broke social standards and female ideals wrote Sister Carrie who broke female ideals, it “showed social changes of the time - city life, scramble for money and power, understood place of greed in Gilded Age.” Dreiser was involved in campaigns against social injustice and therein wrote several nonfiction books on the political issues. Dreiser wrote novels based on workers being harshly treated by business owner with sole ambition of wealth over anything else.