Garland, Hamlin (1860-1940), an American author, was one of the finest writers of regional fiction during the late 1800’s. Garland made his literary reputation with short stories about the harsh lives of prairie farmers and their families. Their lives were made hard by loneliness, unproductive land, bad weather, and an economic system that Garland believed was unjust.
The stories in Main-Travelled Roads (1891), Garland’s best book, established him as an important Midwestern supporter of literary realism. For the next several years, he continued to publish stories about what he called the Middle Border, the recently settled raw farmlands not quite on the edge of the frontier. Ending the first period in his career, Garland wrote his finest novel, Rose of Dutcher’s Coolly (1895). The work tells the story of a Wisconsin farm girl who becomes a career woman in Chicago. Garland also became active in political reform and the Populist movement (see Populism ).
In the late 1890’s, Garland’s enthusiasm for reform and Populism declined. He began writing popular romances set in the Rocky Mountains, starting with The Spirit of Sweetwater (1898). These novels lack the literary quality of Garland’s earlier work, but they portrayed American Indians with great accuracy. Garland became an important advocate of Indian rights. Garland devoted the final phase of his career to autobiographical writings. A Son of the Middle Border (1917) is his best autobiographical volume. A Daughter of the Middle Border (1921) won the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for biography.
Hannibal Hamlin Garland was born on Sept. 14, 1860, near West Salem, Wisconsin. He grew up on farms in Wisconsin, Iowa, and what is now South Dakota. He died on March 4, 1940.
