This document provides historical context for Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, including the time period in which it is set and cultural movements of the late 19th century. It explores slavery and racism in America at the time as well as literary realism. Additionally, it examines how photography emerged to document social changes and compare viewpoints on slavery between the novel and photographs of the era. Realism and regionalism in art and literature aimed to depict everyday American life honestly through subjects, dialects and settings.

1. The Historical and
Cultural Context of
Adventures of
Huckleberry
Finn
by Mark Twain

2. Historical Context of
Huckleberry Finn
Set in pre­Civil War years
40­50 years before 1885 publication
Slavery ended, but racism still
rampant (Jim Crow Laws)

3. Mark Twain underwent moral
transformation…
 He believed slavery was wrong
and white Americans owed
black Americans reparations

4. 19
CENTURY
th
The Civil War
Industrial Revolution
Extreme contrasts
between rich and poor

5. 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

6. 2. Drew subject matter from
“our experience”
Focused on the common,
the average, the probable

7. 3. Character and Setting more
important than Plot
(Local Color Movement)
Focused on the norm of
daily experience
Dialect, geography,
regional manners

8. HUCKLEBERRY FINN is
a…
COMING­OF­AGE NOVEL: moral growth o
a comic character in an physically beautiful
yet morally repugnant setting

9. 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)

10. 19th century Americans are
self-conscious…
They want to know what their
new country looks like, and
how the varied races of growing
population live and talk

11. 19 century
Firsts…
th
First mappings of the West
First transcontinental railroad
First Photography

12. 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…

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

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

15. …[It] allowed a different kind of
writing to happen: a clean, crisp, no­
nonsense, earthly vernacular…it
was a book that talked. Huck’s
voice, combined with Twain’s satiric
genius, changed the shape of fiction
in America, and African­American
voices had a great deal to do with
making it what it was.” ­ Dr. Shelley
Fishkin, 1995

16. Comparing VIEWPOINTS OF SLAVERY in…
Huckleberry Finn
Photograph
•

17. #1
"Slave Boy
Brought to
Waterbury from
Bucks Hill by
Aunt Ella
Johnson's
Second
Husband
(Whelan)"
Ninth-plate
ambrotype,
circa 1855
http://www.phot
ographymuseum
.com/slaveboylg
.html
The American
Photography
Museum, Inc.

18. #2
"Our Little
Pedlars"
Quarter-plate
ambrotype, circa
1855-1860
http://www.photo
graphymuseum.co
m/pedlarslg.html
The American
Photography
Museum, Inc.

19. #3
W. Queen (Philadelphia),
Publisher or Retailer:
"The Darkey's Vanity"
Tinted Albumen Stereograph
circa 1860
http://www.photographymus
eum.com/vanitylg.html
The American
Photography Museum,
Inc.

20. #4
Cumberland Landing, Virginia,
Group of "contrabands" at Foller's house, May 14, 1862
http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/psources/slavpho2.html
The American Photography Museum, Inc.

21. #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.

22. #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.photographymuseum.com/majstrong.html
The American
Photography Museum,
Inc.

23. Unidentified Photographer:
Ten Children
Cyanotype, circa 1898
http://www.photographymuseum.com/cyanokidslg.html
The American Photography Museum, Inc.
#7

24. #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.

25. Works Cited
The American Photography Museum, Inc. Virtual Exhibit: “The Face of Slavery and Other Early
Images of African Americans.” (2004). http://www.photography-museum.com/faceof.html
Cross, J.M. . “Nineteenth-Century Photography: A Timeline.” The Victorian Web. (2001).
http://www.victorianweb.org/photos/chron.html
Reuben, Paul P. “Chapter 5: Late Nineteenth Century: American Realism - A Brief Introduction.”
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, Juan Carlos. (Curator). “Portraits and Landscapes in Nineteenth Century Photography. Private
Collections of Madrid.” Fundacion Telefonico. (2001).
http://www.fundacion.telefonica.com/at/photoes/efotoxix.html