The Historical and

Cultural Context of

Adventures of
Huckleberry
Finn
by Mark Twain

Historical Context
of Huckleberry
Finn
Set in pre-Civil War years
40-50 years before 1885
publication
Slavery ended, but racism still

rampant (Jim Crow Laws)

Mark Twain underwent

moral transformation
He believed slavery was
wrong and white
Americans owed black
Americans reparations

19
CENTURY
th

The Civil War

Industrial Revolution
Extreme contrasts
between rich and poor

Literary and Artistic

Movements: REALISM and
REGIONALISM
1. Attack upon Romantics and
Transcendentalists
pragmatic, democratic,
and experimental
Responsibly moral goal
was to report the world
with HONESTY

2. Drew subject matter

from our experience
Focused on the
common, the
average, the probable

3. Character and Setting

more important than Plot
(Local Color Movement)
Focused on the norm
of daily experience
Dialect, geography,
regional manners

HUCKLEBERRY FINN is
a
COMING-OF-AGE NOVEL: moral
growth of a comic character in an
physically beautiful yet morally
repugnant setting

and a
PICARESQUE NOVEL: follows the
adventures of a roguish hero
episodic: Mississippi River
flight to freedom vs. river
flowing toward Deep South
(slave territory)

19th century
Americans are selfconscious
They want to know what
their new country looks like,
and how the varied races of
growing population live and
talk

19 century
Firsts
th

First mappings of the West

First transcontinental
railroad
First Photography

Photography as a
social mirror
The invention ignited an artistic and
scientific frenzy
Best portrait makers could bring out
the very human essence of a subject
The advantages of photography:
immediacy, reliable representation,
low cost, etc

Massive social changes

reflected in literature &
photography.
1861-65 - Mathew Brady,
Alexander Gardner: honest
photographic record of the
Civil War.
Photography, like literary
Realism & Regionalism
showed TRUTH.

Something new
happened in Huck Finn
that had never happened in
American literature
before. It was a bookthat
served as a Declaration of
Independence from the
genteel English novel

[It] allowed a different kind

of writing to happen: a clean,
crisp, no-nonsense, earthly
vernacularit was a book that
talked. Hucks voice,
combined with Twains satiric
genius, changed the shape of
fiction in America, and
African-American voices had a
great deal to do with making it
what it was.
- Dr. Shelley Fishkin, 1995

Comparing VIEWPOINTS OF SLAVERY in

Photograph
Huckleberry Finn

#1
"Slave Boy
Brought to
Waterbury
from Bucks
Hill by Aunt
Ella Johnson's
Second
Husband
(Whelan)"
Ninth-plate
ambrotype,
circa 1855
http://www.ph
otographymuse
um.com/slaveb
oylg.html
The American
Photography
Museum, Inc.

#2
"Our Little
Pedlars"
Quarter-plate
ambrotype, circa
1855-1860
http://www.phot
ographymuseum
.com/pedlarslg.h
tml
The American
Photography
Museum, Inc.

#3
W. Queen (Philadelphia),
Publisher or Retailer:
"The Darkey's Vanity"
Tinted Albumen
Stereograph circa 1860
http://www.photography
museum.com/vanitylg.ht
ml
The American
Photography Museum,
Inc.

#4

Cumberland Landing, Virginia,

Group of "contrabands" at Foller's house, May 14, 1862
http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/psources/slavpho2.html

#5

Unidentified Photographer:
Civil War Soldiers with a "Contraband"
Albumen carte de visite, circa 1863
http://www.photographymuseum.com
/contrabl.html
The American Photography Museum, Inc.

#6
E. & H. T. Anthony &
Co. (New York),
Publishers:
"Bombproof Quarters of
Maj. Strong, at Dutch
Gap, 16th N. Y. Artillery"
Albumen Stereograph
circa 1864
http://www.photography
museum.com/majstrong.h
tml
The American
Photography Museum,
Inc.

Unidentified Photographer:
Ten Children
Cyanotype, circa 1898
http://www.photographymuseum.com/cyanokidslg.html
The American Photography Museum, Inc.

#7

#8

Palmer (Tuskegee, Alabama)

Instructor & Three Graduates with Diplomas and Geraniums
Gelatine-Silver Print, circa 1905
http://www.photographymuseum.com/tuskeglg.html
The American Photography Museum, Inc.

WorksCited
TheAmericanPhotographyMuseum,Inc.VirtualExhibit:TheFaceofSlaveryandOtherEarly
ImagesofAfricanAmericans.(2004).http://www.photography-museum.com/faceof.html

Cross,J.M..Nineteenth-CenturyPhotography:ATimeline.The Victorian Web.(2001).

http://www.victorianweb.org/photos/chron.html

Reuben,PaulP.Chapter5:LateNineteenthCentury:AmericanRealism-ABriefIntroduction.
PAL: Perspectives in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide - An Ongoing
Project.(2003). http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap5/5intro.html

Rubio,JuanCarlos.(Curator).PortraitsandLandscapesinNineteenthCenturyPhotography.Private
CollectionsofMadrid.Fundacion Telefonico.(2001).
http://www.fundacion.telefonica.com/at/photoes/efotoxix.html