An American Tragedy (Author Biography)

Author Biography

Theodore Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, on August 27, 1871. He was the twelfth of thirteen children of John, a German immigrant, and Sarah Dreiser. The family was poor, quarrelsome, and prone to scandal. John suffered permanent injury in an accident, which made it difficult for him to provide for his family. The children, however, were never told about his health problems and thought their father was simply a failure. In Dictionary of Literary Biography, Philip L. Gerber writes that Dreiser's niece, Vera Dreiser, described the household in which her uncle grew up as being characterized by "superstition, fanaticism, ignorance, poverty, constant humiliation." In addition, the family was constantly on the move, and Dreiser's formal education was spotty. The echoes of this chaos and humiliation are clearly heard in Dreiser's fiction.

Dreiser left home and moved to Chicago when he was fifteen. He filled in the gaps in his education by reading, especially classic literature, and survived by working at low-paying jobs in stores and restaurants. In 1889 and 1890, he attended Indiana University, but this was his last attempt at formal education. He returned to Chicago and was able to get a job as a reporter. Over the next few years, Dreiser wrote for newspapers in St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and New York. He married Sara Osborne White in 1898; the marriage ended in divorce in 1910.

As a journalist, Dreiser observed two disparate elements of American society: the few who were becoming fabulously wealthy, and the many who spent their lives laboring in poverty. Just as American ideas of equality and opportunity began to ring false for Dreiser, he discovered European writers and philosophers who gave voice to his disillusionment. Among these were novelists Emile Zola, Honoré de Balzac, Thomas Hardy, and Leo Tolstoy and philosopher Herbert Spencer.

Reading the works of these novelists showed Dreiser a new form in which he, too, could express his views on society. His first novel, Sister Carrie, published in 1900, drew on his family experiences, including that of his sister, Emma, who, like the novel's main character, ran away with a married man. Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy, published in 1925, are Dreiser's most lasting and important works. Many critics and scholars consider Dreiser the foremost author of American naturalism, a literary movement that adopted ideas popular in science at the time, especially the idea that each human being's fate is wholly determined by heredity and environment, leaving no room for individual will. An American Tragedy is widely considered the signature novel of American naturalism.

In 1930, Dreiser was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature, but the award went to Sinclair Lewis, who praised Dreiser in his acceptance speech. Dreiser married Helen Patges Richardson on June 13, 1944. In 1945, the American Academy of Arts and Letters presented him with its Award of Merit. Dreiser died of a heart attack on December 28 of that year in Los Angeles.