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THEODORE DREISER

(1871 - 1945)

Theodore Dreiser was born in a small town in the State of Indiana, USA, in a poor family. He was the twelfth child born to Sarah Dreiser and John Paul Dreiser. After his school years he had to support himself by doing different jobs. He worked at a laundry, then for several years he was a newspaper reporter in Chicago, Cleveland and Pittsburg. Later he moved to New York, where he found work as a magazine editor.

From the very beginning of his literary career, he fought against the bourgeois writers who idealized capitalist America, and he wrote works of his own to tell the truth about it. But no publisher wanted to publish his books, and his democratic ideas were criticized. Dreiser’s life was a long fight for realistic literature under bourgeois conditions.

In his first two novels, “Sister Carrie” (1900) and “Jennie Gerhardt” (1911), Dreiser described the life of two young women in the capitalist world.

Three of his other works, “The Financier” (1912), “The Titan” (1914) and “The Stoic” (which was published only after the writer’s death in 1947), give the whole life story of an American capitalist, showing the ways in which the wealth of big capitalists is made. “The Genius” (1915) tells of the fate of an artist in the bourgeois world.

In 1927 Dreiser was a guest of the Soviet Government. He described his visit in “Dreiser Looks at Russia” (1928).

The economic crises of 1929 - 1933 brought great misery to the American working class. In “Tragic America” (1931) Dreiser says that in order to end misery and exploitation American workers must follow the example of the Soviet Union.

Dreiser began to take an active part in the struggle of the progressive people of America, and supported the working class movement.

Besides the works mentioned above, Dreiser also published several collections of short stories.

Dreiser’s literary work occupies an important place in American critical realism. His novels and short stories give a true picture of American bourgeois society and its influence upon the life of the people.