women by 1920); near universal school attendance (enrollments reached 86 percent
by 1920); the passing between 1900 and 1916 by most states of minimum working
age laws (and limitation of hours of work to less than ten); the Pendleton Civil Service
Short Fiction and Social Change
197
Act (1883), which rooted out corruption in the Civil Service; the Interstate Commerce
Act (1887), which created the fi rst true federal regulatory agency; the New York State
Tenement House Act (1901); the Pure Food and Drug Act (1906); the Meat Inspec-
tion Act (1906); the Antiquities Act (protection of Native American “ antiquities ” )
(1906); the Mann Act (1910; formally known as the “ White - Slave Traffi c Act ” ), which
criminalized transportation of women across state lines “ for the purpose of prostitution
or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose ” ; the 16th Amendment (income tax)
(1913); the 17th Amendment (popular election of Senators) (1913); the Federal
Reserve Act (1913); the Federal Trade Commission Act (1914); the Clayton Antitrust
Act (1914); the Child Labor Act (1916, though overturned in 1918 by the Supreme
Court), which prohibited products of child labor to be sold across state lines; the
Adamson Act (1916), which instituted an eight - hour work day for railroad workers;
the 18th Amendment (Prohibition) (1919); and the 19th Amendment (Women ’ s
Suffrage) (1920).
One of the most powerful genres of social change fi ction in this period was anti -
capitalist fi ction, which focuses on such topics as industrial working conditions, the
exploitation of farmers, the corrupt practices of industrialists, and life in the tene-
ments. Stylistically, such stories appear in dystopian, utopian, and realist form.
Perhaps the era ’ s most successful writer of such radical short fi ction was Jack London,
whose stories often parallel the arguments of his many lectures on socialism – lectures
that inspired such headlines as, “ One of the World ’ s Great Authorities on Socialism
Analyses Campaign Made in Behalf of Eugene V. Debs
”
(
San Francisco Examiner
November 10, 1904: 3) – and whose fi ction was highly praised by Lenin, Trotsky,
Debs, Big Bill Haywood, and Bukharin. Such stories fi t several genres, ranging from
science fi ction and horror to realism. 22 Among the most well - known of these is “ The
Apostate ” (1906), partly based on London ’ s experience working in a jute mill at age
16. The protagonist, Johnny, is turned into both machine and beast by industrial
work; he is an exploited child forced into the world too soon, prematurely old, yet
never having been allowed to grow up. Although only a few years older than his
siblings, having gone to work in a factory aged 7, at 16, he was “ very old, while they
were distressingly young ” ( “ Apostate ” 124). Johnny, in fact, was born among machines,
on the factory fl oor, foreshadowing his destiny, “ drawing with his fi rst breath the
warm moist air that was thick with fl ying lint. He had coughed that fi rst day in order
to rid his lungs of the lint; and for the same reason he had coughed ever since ” (122);
here London echoes Melville, in “ Tartarus of Maids, ” when the latter describes how
in the paper factory “ the air swam with the fi ne poisonous particles [of lint], which
from all sides darted, subtilely [ sic ] … into the lungs ” (Melville, “ Tartarus ” 222).
From “ the perfect worker [Johnny] had evolved into the perfect machine. … There
had never been a time when he had not been in intimate relationship with machines ”
( “ Apostate ” 121 – 2). Johnny, naturalistically shaped by his environment, embodies
the dehumanizing, yet highly effi cient mode of work that Frederick Winslow Taylor
called for fi ve years later in The Principles of Scientifi c Management : “ All waste move-
ments were eliminated. Every motion of his thin arms, every movement of a muscle
198
Andrew J. Furer
in the thin fi ngers, was swift and accurate … his mind had gone to sleep … He was
a work - beast ” (127, 128, 129).
Throughout the story, London describes him as either brute or machine, the two
poles of the inhuman. 23 Johnny is stunted both physically and mentally; when he
fi nally rebels, and leaves the factory to become a hobo, as London himself did in 1894,
all of his humanity has been drained out of him by industrial work. The eloquence
of London ’ s call for child labor reform is perhaps most evident in his fi nal description
of Johnny, a description that also could easily be applied to Davis ’ s steelworkers: “ He
did not walk like a man. He did not look like a man. He was a travesty of the human.
It was a twisted and stunted and nameless piece of life that shambled like a sickly
ape, arms loose - hanging, stoop - shouldered, narrow - chested, grotesque and terrible ”
(134). Our sympathy is roused for Johnny ’ s plight here not primarily through senti-
mental or domestic techniques, but rather by London ’ s directly confronting us with
the dehumanizing effects of industrial labor. Although Johnny, unlike such later
London anti - capitalist protagonists as Ernest Everhard or Freddie Drummond, does
not violently resist the forces of capital, his heretical abandonment of it is as much
of a direct confrontation (hence his mother ’ s horror and shock) as throwing a bomb
or beating a scab would be.
Other notable anti - capitalist stories of London ’ s include “ The Dream of Debs ”
(1909/1914) , “ South of the Slot ” (1909/1914) , and “ The Strength of the Strong ”
(1911/1914) . The fi rst describes through the eyes of a wealthy man a successful general
strike that paralyzes the country; at the end he states, “ I never want to see another
one. It was worse than a war … the brain of man should be capable of running industry
in a more rational way ” ( “ Debs ” 1277 – 8). The second shows the conversion of a
repressed, upper middle - class sociology professor, Freddie Drummond, into his fi ery
working - class alter ego, Bill Totts. Drummond at fi rst adopts this persona as a dis-
guise to further his research into labor – capital disputes; eventually, however, he leaves
his former self behind, disappearing “ into the labor ghetto ” ( “ Slot ” 1594), symbol-
izing the superior vigor and eventual triumph of the working classes over their oppres-
sors. In later years, “ no more lectures were given in the University of California by
one Drummond and no more books on economics and the labor question appeared
over the name of Frederick A. Drummond. On the other hand, there arose a new labor
leader, William Totts ” (1594). London implies that forever after, Drummond/Totts
will violently resist the oppression of capitalism, beating up scabs and capital ’ s enforc-
ers, the police, at every turn: “ A rush of three [policemen] … locked with Bill Totts
in a gigantic clinch, during which his scalp was opened up by a club, and coat, vest
and half his starched shirt were torn from him. But the three policemen were fl ung
far and wide … and … Totts held the fort ” (1593). The third story is a socialist
parable that answers Rudyard Kipling ’ s anti - socialist story �
�� Melissa ” (1908) by
showing that the “ strength of the strong ” is not that of the “ superman, ” but rather
that of cooperation: when such cooperation is achieved, says a member of the tribe,
“ ‘ nothing will withstand us, for the strength of each man will be the strength of all
men in the world ’ ” ( “ Strong ” 1578). All of these stories exploit the masculinist tropes
Short Fiction and Social Change
199
of battle and confl ict – rather than those of domesticity – to show their readers the
most effective path to social change, namely to fi ght for one ’ s beliefs.
Other writers of Progressive Era anti - capitalist fi ction include Hamlin Garland,
whose Main - Traveled Roads (1891) contains a number of anti - capitalist stories, such
as “ Under the Lion ’ s Paw, ” which illustrates the greed endemic to capitalist specula-
tion. Haskins, a farmer, having been rescued by a fellow farmer, Council, works hard
to improve a farm leased to him by Butler, a local speculator: “ no slave in the Roman
galleys could have toiled so frightfully and lived … There is no despair so deep as
the despair of a homeless man or woman … It was the memory of this homelessness,
and the fear of it coming again, that spurred … Haskins and Nettie … to such fero-
cious labor during that fi rst year ” (234 – 5). After their work has substantially improved
the farm, Butler nearly doubles the purchase price and gives Haskins no credit for his
improvements, baldly declaring, “ ‘ the land has doubled in value, it don ’ t matter how.
… Never trust anybody, friend. … Don ’ t take me for a thief. It ’ s the law. The reg ’ lar
thing. Everybody does it ’ ” (239). Under capitalism, the “ lion, ” Garland is saying,
such exploitation of the downtrodden is routine.
As suggested above, one of the major issues addressed in workers ’ rights stories
was the living conditions of the poor, some of which, like the London texts previously
discussed, or those in James Oppenheim ’ s Pay Envelopes (1911) , indict the capitalist
system, and others of which, like those in Jacob Riis ’ s Neighbors: Stories of the Other
Half (1914) , and Children of the Tenements (1903) , suggest the need for change, but
within the system. Riis deliberately blurs the line between fact and fi ction, a powerful
rhetorical strategy for convincing the reader of the urgency of social change. Both of
his fi ction collections include prefaces that stress that – for the most part – he has
merely changed individual and place names in his texts. He expects that his readers
will be more likely to be infl uenced by “ true stories ” (a common stratagem in reform
fi ction), than they were by his wildly successful journalistic expos é , How the Other Half
Lives (1890) . 24
In
“
The Problem of the Widow Salvini,
”
from
Neighbors
, Riis emphasizes the
intractability of tenement life and its dominant form of work, sweated labor, which
he calls “ industrial slavery ” ( “ Salvini ” 57), describing three “ curses of the tenement ”
(59): home sweat work, lodgers crammed into tiny apartments, and child labor. In
“ What the Christmas Sun Saw in the Tenements ” from his 1903 collection, he pounds
home the grimness and tragedies of life among the tenements through several vignettes,
including that of a little girl, “ barefooted and in rags ” (Riis, “ Sun ” 134) sent to procure
a pint of beer for her mother, clearly a corruption of domestic purity. Later, she returns
to a tenement apartment, “ windowless, airless, and sunless, but rented at a price that
a millionaire would denounce as robbery ” (136). As the narrator notes, “ There are no
homes in New York ’ s poor tenements ” (139). Continuing with a miniature fi ctional-
ized version of his tenement travelogue in How the Other Half Lives, he then vividly
depicts young white girls enslaved to the opium pipe in Chinatown (142), concluding
his story with a view of Potter ’ s Field, implying the premature, nameless end to tene-
ment lives, through “ the shadows of countless headstones that bear no names, only
200
Andrew J. Furer
numbers ” (148). He thus both draws in his readers through reference to a common
and usually joyous, experience, Christmas, and then savagely undermines their expec-
tations, hoping to propel them to clamor for reform. These are conventional senti-
mental representations of the powerless poor, quite different from London ’ s Johnny.
Working - class life is grim in both texts, but Johnny is not helpless; he acts. London
– unlike Riis – wants to rely not merely on the goodwill of the middle class, but also
on workers ’ own actions.
Oppenheim ’ s Pay Envelopes collection is often equally melodramatic. Its preface,
“ Troubles of the Workshop, ” baldly states the critique dramatized by its stories: “ the
murder of men through twelve - hour days, child labor, and unprotected machinery;
the struggle between labor and capital; the fi ghts for sanitation ” ( “ Troubles ” 11), and
proclaims the necessity for fi ction dedicated to social change, a need convincingly
illustrated by many of the writers we have been discussing: “ In America, we must
interpret one race to another; one class to another; one type to another, before we will
ever feel that all have the same essential humanness ” (14). In Oppenheim ’ s view –
supported by many writers ’ use of the tropes previously discussed (domesticity, for
example) – stories aimed at social change engage in acts of class translation to bring
middle - class readers into the working - class ’ s world.
For Oppenheim, such interpretation can involve the provoking of both sympathy
and fear in the reader. In “ The Great Fear, ” Oppenheim elicits readers ’ sympathies by
telling the tale of a young couple with a new baby (an effective subject for reform
fi ction, as we saw in Butler ’ s “ Emma Alton ” ) devastated by unemployment, leading
them to the verge of what Jack London calls the “ social pit ” in works such as The
People of the Abyss (1902). The author continues to use well - worn tropes of the domestic
to engage his readers, yet he also begins to add masculine tropes of at least the threat
of violence. The couple ’ s “ great fear ” is the fear of unemployment and starvation, yet
the story also conveys the idea that, according to the husband, workers are “ ‘ slaves
– slaves ’ ” ; and that, if changes aren ’ t made, “ ‘ this country better look out ’ ” (26). This statement reveals a double meaning in the title: the workers fear unemployment, but
so should middle - and upper - class readers, lest they be confronted by Riis ’ s “ Man
with a Knife ” ( Other Half 207).
Many writers of the period produced short stories meant to address problems of
race and ethnicity in a society that was becoming ever more rapidly multicultural.
Interestingly, in addition to many non - Protestant or non - white writers invested in
interpreting their own cultures for a predominantly Protestant Euro - American audi-
ence, one of the most eloquent voices of anti - racism – despite his reputation otherwise
&nbs
p; – is Jack London. Indeed, he seems to have written nearly as many anti - racist stories
as anti - capitalist ones; London ’ s protest fi ction, like his work as a whole, covers mul-
tiple topics, on multiple levels. 25
As I have discussed at length in “ ‘ Zone - Conquerors ’ and ‘ White Devils ’ : The
Contradictions of Race in the Works of Jack London, ” London ’ s attitudes towards
race are complex and confl icted. London was, as it were, constituted by a series of
contradictions: superman socialist, racist/anti - racist, etc. In many of his stories (and
Short Fiction and Social Change
201
it is more often in his stories than his novels that this is the case), he displays profound
sympathy, and even outrage, at the ways in which Euro - Americans have exploited,
and often destroyed, non - whites. Among his nine or so anti - racist stories, several of
the most notable are “ Chun Ah Chun ” (1912/1914) , “ Koolau, the Leper ” (1909/1912)
and “ The Mexican ” (1911/1913) . 26
The fi rst of these explodes the kind of anti - Chinese attitudes manifested by the
Chinese Exclusion Acts, by illustrating the brilliance and power of its title character:
“ He was essentially a philosopher, and whether as coolie, or multi - millionaire and
master of many men, his poise of soul was the same ” ( “ Chun Ah Chun ” 1455). A man
of great vision, Chun imagines Honolulu as a modern city with electricity while it is
still a primitive sandblasted settlement set on a coral reef. London also shows that,
contrary to popular belief, the Chinese can become part of the American melting pot;
while Chun Ah Chun himself retires to China, his children, among whom “ the blend
of races was excellent ” (1458), go to Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Mills College, Vassar,
Wellesley, and Bryn Mawr, living the American dream.
In “ Koolau, the Leper, ” another Hawaiian tale, London illustrates the devastating
effects on native peoples of Western colonialism and imperialism, producing a text
that is both anti - racist and anti - imperialist. Koolau states: “ Because we are sick they
take away our liberty. We have obeyed the law. We have done no wrong. And yet
they would put us in prison. Molokai is a prison. … They came like lambs, speaking
A Companion to the American Short Story Page 44
