American Literature by Time Period – Teacher Reference Chart
This chart lists suggested American literature works for each project time period, along
with possible 'hot button' topic connections students can explore.
Time Period Suggested Literature Possible Hot Button
Connections
1750–1800 – Colonial & The Autobiography of Revolution & independence,
Revolutionary America Benjamin Franklin – Self- Democracy &
improvement, civic Enlightenment ideals,
responsibility Slavery debates
Common Sense (Thomas
Paine) – Independence from
Britain
The Crisis, No. 1 (Thomas
Paine) – Revolutionary
motivation
Speech to the Virginia
Convention (Patrick Henry)
– Liberty and resistance
Letters from an American
Farmer – Early American
identity
Poems (Phillis Wheatley) –
Race, religion, and freedom
1800–1850 – Romanticism Rip Van Winkle or The Westward expansion,
& Reform Legend of Sleepy Hollow Women’s rights, Slavery,
(Washington Irving) – Industrialization
American folklore
The Tell-Tale Heart or The
Fall of the House of Usher
(Edgar Allan Poe) –
Psychology & gothic themes
Selections from Walden
(Henry David Thoreau) –
Simplicity, nature
Civil Disobedience
(Thoreau) – Resistance to
injustice
The Minister’s Black Veil
(Nathaniel Hawthorne) –
Morality & society
Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass –
Slavery & freedom
1850–1900 – Civil War, The Gettysburg Address Slavery & abolition, Civil
Reconstruction & Realism (Abraham Lincoln) – Unity War, Reconstruction,
& sacrifice Industrialization,
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Immigration
Bridge (Ambrose Bierce) –
Civil War themes
The Story of an Hour (Kate
Chopin) – Women’s
independence
The Outcasts of Poker Flat
(Bret Harte) – Frontier
morality
The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn (Mark
Twain) – Race & morality
Desiree’s Baby (Kate
Chopin) – Race & identity
1900–1930 – Progressive The Open Boat (Stephen Industrialization, WWI,
Era & Modernism Crane) – Naturalism & Women’s suffrage, Jazz Age
survival
Winter Dreams (F. Scott
Fitzgerald) – Class &
ambition
Bernice Bobs Her Hair
(Fitzgerald) – Social norms
Hills Like White Elephants
(Ernest Hemingway) –
Modernist conflict
The Yellow Wall-Paper
(Charlotte Perkins Gilman)
– Women’s health
Chicago (Carl Sandburg) –
Industrial life
1930–1960 – Depression, Of Mice and Men (John Great Depression, WWII,
WWII & Early Civil Rights Steinbeck) – Dreams & Atomic age, Segregation &
hardship civil rights
The Grapes of Wrath
(Steinbeck, excerpts) –
Migrant struggles
The Lottery (Shirley
Jackson) – Tradition &
conformity
A Worn Path (Eudora
Welty) – Perseverance &
race
A Rose for Emily (William
Faulkner) – Old vs. New
South
Letter from Birmingham Jail
(Martin Luther King Jr.) –
Civil rights
1960–Present – Where Are You Going, Civil Rights, Vietnam War,
Contemporary America Where Have You Been? Technology, Immigration,
(Joyce Carol Oates) – Youth Identity politics
& danger
Everyday Use (Alice
Walker) – Heritage & family
The Things They Carried
(Tim O’Brien) – Vietnam
War
Harrison Bergeron (Kurt
Vonnegut) – Satire on
equality
Two Kinds (Amy Tan) –
Immigrant identity
Recitatif (Toni Morrison) –
Race & perception
