1906: A Tale of Two Novels
One hundred years ago, in 1906, both Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth and Upton Sinclair's The Jungle were best-sellers in the United States. The two novels had, on the surface, very different subjects (respectively, upper-class Society in New York vs. the struggles of an immigrant, working-class family in Chicago's meatpacking industry). Nevertheless, both novels offered insider accounts of parts of American society often kept from public view. Click on the author image to go to pages focusing on each book. If you have questions or comments on this site, please contact Jim O'Loughlin.
These pages were designed by graduate students in the Spring 2006 American Realism and Naturalism seminar at the University of Northern Iowa.