''Poor White'' is an American

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

Sherwood Anderson Sherwood Anderson (September 13, 1876 – March 8, 1941) was an American novelist and short story writer, known for subjective and self-revealing works. Self-educated, he rose to become a successful copywriter and business owner in Cleveland and ...

, published in 1920. An episode in the novel inspired

Bertold Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...

's poem "Kohlen für Mike" ("Coal for Mike"), published in his 1939 collected ''

Svendborger Gedichte ''Svendborger Gedichte'' ('Svendborg Poems') is a poetry collection by the German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht, and the last collection of new poems to be published while he lived. The collection is named after the town of Svendborg on the ...

''.Michael Morley, 'The Source of Brecht’s “Abbau des Schiffes Oskawa durch die Mannschaft”', ''Oxford German Studies'', 2.1 (1967), 149–62 (p. 150), .

Plot introduction

It is the story of an inventor, Hugh McVey, who rises from poverty on the banks of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

. The novel shows the influence of

industrialism Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econom ...

on the rural

heartland Heartland or Heartlands may refer to: Businesses and organisations * Heartland Bank, a New Zealand-based financial institution * Heartland Inn, a chain of hotels based in Iowa, United States * Heartland Alliance, an anti-poverty organization i ...

of America.

References

External links

Project Gutenberg edition of Poor White
* 1920 American novels Social class in the United States Novels by Sherwood Anderson Works about White Americans Working class in the United States Working-class literature {{1920s-novel-stub