Timeline Introduction Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors 1507 The name “America” appears on a map Toby Lester 1521, August 13 Mexico in America Kirsten Silva Gruesz 1536, July 24 Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca Ilan Stavans 1585 “Counterfeited according to the truth” Michael Gaudio 1607 Fear and love in the Virginia colony Adam Goodheart 1630 A city upon a hill Elizabeth Winthrop 1643 A nearer neighbor to the Indians Ted Widmer 1666, July 10 Anne Bradstreet Wai Chee Dimock 1670 The American jeremiad Emory Elliott 1670 The stamp of God’s image Jason D. LaFountain 1673 The Jesuit relations Laurent Dubois 1683 Francis Daniel Pastorius Alfred L. Brophy 1692 The Salem witchcraft trials Susan Castillo 1693–94, March 4 Edward Taylor Werner Sollors 1700 Samuel Sewall, The Selling of Joseph David Blight 1722 Benjamin Franklin, The Silence Dogood Letters Joyce E. Chaplin 1740 The Great Awakening Joanne van der Woude 1740s, September 13-14 1814, Yankee Doodle goes to town; Francis Scott Key writes The Star-Spangled Banner 1765, December 23 Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur Leo Damrosch 1773, September Phillis Wheatley Rafia Zafar 1776 The Declaration of Independence Frank Kelleter 1784, June Charles Willson Peale Michael Leja 1787 James Madison, Notes of the Debates in the Federal Convention Mitchell Meltzer 1787–1790 John Adams, Discourses on Davila John Diggins 1791 Philip Freneau and The National Gazette Jefrey L. Pasley 1796 Washington’s farewell address François Furstenberg 1798 Mary Rowlandson and the Alien and Sedition Acts Nancy Armstrong 1798 American gothic Marc Amfreville 1801, March 4 Jefferson’s first inaugural address Jan Ellen Lewis 1804, January The matter of Haiti Kaiama Glover 1809 Cupola of the world Judith Richardson 1819 The Missouri crisis John Stauffer 1820, November 27 Landscape with birds Christoph Irmscher 1821 Sequoyah, the Cherokee syllabary Lisa Brooks 1821, June 30 Junius Brutus Booth Coppelia Kahn 1822 Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, the Ojibwe firefly, and Longfellow’s Hiawatha David Treuer 1825, November Thomas Cole and the Hudson River Alan Wallach 1826, July 4 Songs of the republic Steve Erickson 1826 Cooper’s Leatherstocking tales Richard Hutson 1826; 1927 Transnational poetry Stephen Burt 1827 Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon Terryl L. Givens 1828 David Walker, Appeal, in Four Articles Tommie Shelby 1830, May 21 Jump Jim Crow W. T. Lhamon, Jr. 1831, March 5 The Cherokee Nation decision Philip Deloria 1832, July 10 President Jackson’s bank veto Dan Feller 1835, January Democracy in America Ted Widmer 1835 William Gilmore Simms, The Yemasseee Jefrey Johnson 1835 The Sacred Harp Sean Wilentz 1836, February 23–March 6 The Alamo and Texas border writing Norma E. Cantú 1836, February 28 Richard Henry Dana, Jr. Kirsten Silva Gruesz 1837, August 31 Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar” James Conant 1838, July 15 “The Divinity School Address” Herwig Friedl 1838, September 3 The slave narrative Caille Millner 1841 “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” Robert Clark 1846, June James Russell Lowell’s Biglow Papers Shelley Streeby 1846, late July Henry David Thoreau Jonathan Arac 1850 The Scarlet Letter Bharati Mukherje 1850, July 19 Margaret Fuller and the Transcendentalist Movement Lawrence Buell 1850, August 5 Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville Clark Blaise 1851, Moby-Dick 1851 Uncle Tom’s Cabin Beverly Lowry 1852 Hawthorne’s Blithedale Romance and utopian communities Winfried Fluck 1852, July 5 Frederick Douglass, “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” Liam Kennedy 1854, March Maria Cummins and sentimental fiction Cindy Weinstein 1855 Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass Angus Fletcher 1858 The Lincoln-Douglas debates Michael T. Gilmore 1859 The science of the Indian Scott Richard Lyons 1861 Emily Dickinson Susan Stewart 1862, December 13 The journeys of Little Women Shirley Samuels 1865, March 4 Lincoln’s second inaugural address Ted Widmer 1865 “Conditions of repose” Robin Kelsey 1869, March 4 Carl Schurz Michael Boyden 1872, November 5 All men and women are created equal Laura Wexler 1875 The Winchester Rifle Merritt Roe Smith 1876, January 6 Melville in the dark Kenneth W. Warren 1876, March 10 The art of telephony Avital Ronell 1878 “How to Make Our Ideas Clear” Christopher Hookway 1879 John Muir and nature writing Scott Slovic 1881, January 24 Henry James, Portrait of a Lady Alide Cagidemetrio 1884 Mark Twain’s hairball Ishmael Red 1884, July The Linotype machine Lisa Gitelman 1884, November The Southwest imagined Leah Dilworth 1885 The problem of error James Conant 1885, July Limits to violence James Dawes 1885, October Writing New Orleans Andrei Codrescu 1888, The introduction of motion pictures 1889, August 28 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court Yael Schacher 1893 Chief Simon Pokagon and Native American literature David Treuer 1895 Ida B. Wells, A Red Record Jacqueline Goldsby 1896 Paul Laurence Dunbar, Lyrics of Lowly Life Judith Jackson Fossett 1896, September 6 Queen Lili‘uokalani Rob Wilson 1897, Memorial Day The Robert Gould Shaw and 54th Regiment Monument Richard Powers 1898, June 22 Literature and imperialism Amy Kaplan 1899; 1924 McTeague and Greed Gilberto Perez 1900 Henry Adams T. J. Jackson Lears 1900 The Wizard of Oz Gerald Early 1900; 1905 Sister Carrie and The House of Mirth Farah Jasmine Grifin 1901 Charles W. Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition John Edgar Wideman 1901-1903, The problem of the color line 1903, May 5 “The real American has not yet arrived” Aviva Taubenfeld 1903 The invention of the blues Luc Sante 1903 One sees what one sees Daniel Albright 1904, August 30 Henry James in America Ross Posnock 1905, October 15 Little Nemo in Slumberland Katherine Roeder 1906, April 9 The Azusa Street revival R. J. Smith 1906, April 18 , 5:14 a.m. The San Francisco Earthquake Kathleen Moran 1911 “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” Philip Furia 1912, April 15 Lifeboats cut adrift Alan Ackerman 1912 The lure of impossible things Heather Love 1912 Tarzan begins his reign Gerald Early 1913 A modernist moment Bonnie Costello 1915 D. W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation Richard Schickel 1915 Robert Frost Christian Wiman 1917 The philosopher and the millionaire Richard J. Bernstein 1920, August 10 Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues” Daphne A. Brooks 1921 Jean Toomer Elizabeth Alexander 1922 T. S. Eliot and D. H. Lawrence Anita Patterson October 1923, Chaplinesque 1924 F. O. Matthiessen meets Russell Cheney Robert Polito 1924, May 26 The Johnson-Reed Act and ethnic literature Yael Schacher 1925 The Great Gatsby Lan Tran 1925, June Sinclair Lewis Jefrey Ferguson 1925, July The Scopes trial Michael Kazin 1925, August 16 Dorothy Parker Catherine Keyser 1926 Fire!! Carla Kaplan 1926 Hardboiled Walter Mosley 1926 The Book-of-the-Month Club Joan Shelley Rubin 1927 Carl Sandburg and The American Songbag Paul Muldoon 1927, May 16 “Free to develop their faculties” Jefrey Rosen 1928, April 8, Easter Sunday Dilsey Gibson goes to church Werner Sollors 1928, Summer John Dos Passos Phoebe Kosman 1928, November 18 The mouse that whistled Karal Ann Marling 1930 “You’re swell!” Robert Gottlieb 1930, March The Silent Enemy Micah Treuer October 1930, Grant Wood’s American Gothic" 1931, March 19 Nevada legalizes gambling David Thomson 1932 Edmund Wilson, The American Jitters Anthony Grafton 1932 Arthur Miller Andrea Most 1932, April or May The River Rouge plant and industrial beauty John M. Staudenmaier, S.J. 1932, Christmas Ned Cobb Robert Cantwell 1933 Baby Face is censored Stephanie Zacharek 1933, March FDR’s first Fireside Chat Paula Rabinowitz 1934, September Robert Penn Warren Howell Raines 1935 The Popular Front Angela Miller 1935 The skyscraper Sarah Whiting 1935, June 10 Alcoholics Anonymous Michael Tolkin 1935, October 10 Porgy and Bess John Rockwell 1936, Gone with the Wind and Absalom, Absalom! 1936, July 5 Two days in Harlem Adam Bradley 1936, November 23 Life begins Michael Lesy 1938 Superman Douglas Wolk 1938, May Jelly Roll Morton speaks Marybeth Hamilton 1939 Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit” Robert O’Meally 1939; 1981 Up from invisibility Josef Jarab 1940 “No way like the American way” Erika Doss 1940–1944 Preston Sturges Douglas McGrath 1941 An insolent style Carrie Tirado Bramen 1941 Citizen KaneJoseph McBride 1941 The word “multicultural” Werner Sollors 1943 Hemingway’s paradise, Hemingway’s prose Keith Taylor 1944 The second Bill of Rights Cass R. Sunstein 1945, February Bebop Ingrid Monson 1945, April 11 Thomas Pynchon and modern war Glenda Carpio 1945, August 6, 10:45 a.m. The atom bomb Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi 1946, December 5 Integrating the military Gerald Early December 3 1947, Tennessee Williams 1948 Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics David A. Mindell 1948 Saul Bellow Ruth Wise 1949–1950 “Birth of the Cool”Ted Gioia 1950, November 28 “Damned busy painting” T. J. Clark 1951 A poet among painters Mark Ford 1951, The Catcher in the Rye 1951 James Jones, From Here to Eternity Lindsay Waters 1951 A soft voice M. Lynn Weis 1952, April 12 Elia Kazan and the blacklist in Hollywood Michael Ventura 1952, June 10 C. L. R. James Donald E. Pease 1953, January 1 The song in country music Dave Hickey 1954 Wallace Stevens, Collected Poems Helen Vendler 1955, August 11 “The self-respect of my people” Monica Miller 1955, September 21 A. J. Liebling and the Marciano-Moore fight Carlo Rotella 1955, October 7 A generation in miniature Richard Cándida Smith 1955, December Nabokov’s Lolita Stephen Schif 1956, April 16 “Roll Over Beethoven” James Miller 1957 Dr. Seuss Philip Nel 1959 “Nobody’s perfect” William J. Mann 1960 Psycho William Beard 1960, January More than a game Michael MacCambridge 1961, January 20 JFK’s inaugural address and Catch-22 Charles Taylor 1961, July 2 The author as advertisement David Thomson 1962 Bob Dylan writes “Song to Woody” Joshua Clover 1962 “White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art” Howard Hampton 1963, April “Letter from Birmingham Jail” George Hutchinson 1964 Robert Lowell, “For the Union Dead” Peter Sacks October 27 1964, The last stand on Earth 1965, September 11 The Council on Interracial Books for Children Dianne Johnson 1965, October The Autobiography of Malcolm X David Bradley 1968 Norman Mailer Mary Gaitskill 1968, March The illusory babels of language Hal Foster 1968, August 28 The plight of conservative literature Michael Kimage 1969 Elizabeth Bishop, Complete Poems Laura Quinney 1969, January 11 The first Asian Americans Hua Hsu 1969, November 12 The eye of Vietnam Thi Phuong-Lan Bui 1970 Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker Cheryl A. Wall 1970, 1972, Linda Lovelace" 1972 Loisaida literature Frances R. Aparicio 1973 Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck Maureen N. McLane 1975 Gayl Jones Robert O’Meally 1981, March 31 Toni Morrison Farah Jasmine Grifin 1982 Edmund White, A Boy’s Own Story Sarah Shun-lien Bynum 1982 Wild Style Hua Hsu 1982 Maya Lin’s wall Anne Wagner 1982, November 8 Harriet Wilson Saidiya V. Hartman 1985, April 24 Henry Roth Mario Materassi 1987 Maxine Hong Kingston, Tripmaster Monkey Seo-Young Chu 1995 Philip Roth Hana Wirth-Nesher 2001 Twenty-first-century free verse Stephen Burt 2003 Richard Powers, The Time of Our Singing Greil Marcus 2005, August 29, Hurricane Katrina 2008, November 4 Barack Obama Kara Walker