Books published by publisher U. Pennsylvania Press

The status of American children at the beginning of the eighteenth century was so insignificant that writers apologized for wasting their talents on the subject and physicians seldom condescended to prescribe for them. the Changing attitude toward the child since then, however, can be classed as one of the great revolutions of history.In this volume Monica Kiefer traces the development of various phases of child life, including religion, manners and morals, education, health and recreation, through an analysis of children's books from 1700 to 1835, which year marked the beginning of a trend fostering a view of life more benign and worldly than the previous era of extreme pietism.

Although world-famous for his novels Sister Carrie and Jennie Gerhardt, Theodore Dreiser was also highly accomplished in journalism, autobiography, and travel writing. In 1919, having recently accepted the publishing contract of a new publisher, Boni and Liveright, Dreiser proposed to publish a "book of characters" that would collect twelve biographical sketches of individuals who were major influences on Dreiser, both as a man and as a writer. The resulting narratives combine the best attributes of the character sketch, the autobiography, and the short story into miniature masterpieces of prose.The men profiled in Twelve Men are a diverse and colorful group: from Dreiser's equally famous brother, the songwriter Paul Dresser ("My Brother Paul"), to the entirely obscure railroad foreman Michael Burke ("The Mighty Rourke"), on whose work crew Dreiser had labored in 1903. The twelve narratives are compelling portraits of the men portrayed, but they also reveal many insights into Dreiser's own life and work. These factors elevate the significance of Twelve Men to a level consistent with other major works in the Dreiser canon.