Hamlin Garland

Hamlin Garland (1860-1940), American writer, born in West Salem, Wisconsin. He grew up working on farms in his native state and in Iowa and South Dakota. In 1884 he moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where he became involved in the literary scene and established a friendship with American writer William Dean Howells. Garland's early experiences with the economics of farming in the Midwest prompted his advocacy of economic reform and furnished the central themes of his numerous short stories. These stories, bitter denunciations of the grim conditions of American farm life, were collected and published under the titles Main-Travelled Roads (1890) and Other Main-Travelled Roads (1910).

In 1894 Garland published Crumbling Idols, a volume of essays on literature and art in which he proposed his critical theory of veritism, a socially conscious realism intended to express unvarnished truth, no matter how bleak. In addition to his work for economic reform, Garland became involved in feminist reform movements and was an advocate for Native American rights. In later years he became known for his autobiographical work. In 1917 he published Son of the Middle Border, and in 1922 he won the Pulitzer Prize for biography for Daughter of the Middle Border (1921). His other books include Afternoon Neighbors (1934), a memoir; and The Mystery of the Buried Crosses (1939), concerned with research about psychic phenomena.