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Worker-Writer in America: Jack Conroy and the Tradition of Midwestern Literary Radicalism, 1898-1990

1996; University of Iowa; Volume: 55; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.17077/0003-4827.10001

2473-9006

Douglas Wixson,

Poetry Analysis and Criticism

Jack Conroy, a coal miner's son who apprenticed at age thirteen in a railroad shop, later migrated to factory cities and experienced the privation and labor struggles of the 1930s. As a worker and writer he composed The Disinherited, one of the most important working-class novels in American literature. As the editor of a radical literary journal, The Anvil, he nurtured the early careers of Richard Wright, Nelson Algren, and Meridel Le Sueur before his own literary work was eclipsed in the Cold War years. Wixson draws upon a wealth of letters and manuscripts made available to him as Conroy's literary executor, as well as numerous interviews with Conroy and his former contributors and colleagues. Wixson explores the origins and development of worker-writing, the numerous little magazines that welcomed it, and the history of its reception. He examines the differences between the midwestern and East Coast literary worlds, and the milieu in which Conroy and others like him worked - the Depression, job layoffs, factory closings, homelessness, and migration.