Chicago Makes Modernism
FAIN: FB-55474-11
Liesl Marie Olson
Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois (Chicago, IL 60610-3305)
My book places Chicago at the center of a new modernist geography. Based upon archival research, my book focuses on writers, artists, institutions, and cultural advocates during the early twentieth century when Chicago was a center for the production of modernist art and literature. I examine key publications launched in Chicago like Harriet Monroe's POETRY magazine and Margaret Anderson's LITTLE REVIEW and I also take account of equally important yet overlooked figures, many of them women, who helped expose modernism to a wide public audience. These figures (among many) include Alice Roullier, a curator who coolly negotiated radical and challenging exhibits, and Fanny Butcher, the longtime literary editor of the Chicago Tribune. I consider why Chicago's "middlebrow" readers embraced the most experimental writers and artists of the era. I show how Chicago has always maximized connections between art and industry, becoming a city where lines of track merged to meet and make modernism.
Associated Products
100 Years of Poetry: ‘In the Middle of Major Men' (Article)Title: 100 Years of Poetry: ‘In the Middle of Major Men'
Author: Liesl Olson
Abstract: A history of the early years of Poetry magazine and its editorial women.
Year: 2012
Primary URL:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/244666.Primary URL Description: Poetry Foundation Website
Publisher: Poetry Foundation
Stormy, Husky, Brawling: Chicago Poetry 100 years after Sandburg’s Chicago Poems, (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Stormy, Husky, Brawling: Chicago Poetry 100 years after Sandburg’s Chicago Poems,
Author: Liesl Olson (organizer)
Abstract: This public program was inspired by the controversy—100 years ago—over the publication of Sandburg’s Chicago Poems in Poetry magazine. Poets, musicians, activists, journalists, literary scholars, and historians read and performed work inspired by Sandburg. The program also included an exhibit of Sandburg-related material from the Newberry collection.
Date: 3/12/14
White City, Black Metropolis (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: White City, Black Metropolis
Author: Liesl Olson
Abstract: This paper begins with a look at the relationship between Gwendolyn Brooks and Richard Wright within the larger context of the Chicago Black Renaissance. Drawing upon new and extensive archival research, the paper maps out what was distinctive about Chicago’s literary culture at this time—especially in comparison to Harlem. It tells a story of interracial collaborations supported by the Works Progress Administration, and explores the question of how black writers conceived of an audience for their writing, when they were dependent upon white publishers. Ultimately the paper puts forth two claims: that the art and literature of Bronzeville balanced the aims of social realism with the experimental forms of literary modernism; and that the Chicago Black Renaissance was a movement with its own distinctive energy even as it was informed by a set of aesthetic concerns characteristic to Chicago more broadly.
Writers and artists discussed in the paper include: Nelson Algren, Arna Bontemps, Gwendolyn Brooks, Horace Cayton, Jack Conroy, Eldzier Cortor, Ralph Ellison, Vivian Harsh, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Wayne Miller, Inez Stark, Gertrude Stein, Era Bell Thompson, Margaret Walker, Richard Wright.
Date: 4/23/15
Representing Chicago: the City in Art, Literature, and Music (Course or Curricular Material)Title: Representing Chicago: the City in Art, Literature, and Music
Author: Liesl Olson (guest lecture)
Abstract: Invited guest lecture in course at the University of Chicago. Presentation on periodical culture in Chicago, particularly "little magazines": The Dial, Poetry magazine, The Little Review
Year: 2015
Audience: Undergraduate
Chicago Renaissance: The Midwest and Modernism (Book)Title: Chicago Renaissance: The Midwest and Modernism
Author: Liesl Olson
Abstract: Chicago Renaissance traces a literary history of Chicago from the 1893 World’s Fair to the Chicago Black Renaissance of the mid-twentieth-century. It focuses on writers and artists in Chicago who were part of the sweeping aesthetic transformations of the modernist movement. Based upon new and extensive archival research, the book considers the significance of cohorts and institutions in developing singular styles—from Poetry magazine and the Art Institute of Chicago to the city’s many newspapers and informal writing groups. If the city produced literary “greats” with international repute, then these writers were also stimulated by a range of lesser-known yet influential figures in Chicago (many of them women); that is, by editors, patrons, critics, and readers who shaped how and what was written. That a distinctive modernism emerged in Chicago is the book’s premise. This book focuses upon the many people who made it.
Year: 2017
Publisher: Yale University Press
Type: Single author monograph
Copy sent to NEH?: No
"Seeing Eldzier Cortor" (Article)Title: "Seeing Eldzier Cortor"
Author: Liesl Olson
Abstract: This essay and oral interview with Chicago artist Eldzier Cortor explores the relationship between social realism and abstraction in the work of African American artists. The oral interview was conducted just 8 months before Cortor died, at the age of 99.
Year: 2016
Primary URL:
http://chicagoreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/59-4-Eldzier-Cortor.pdfAccess Model: Available briefly online, then only in print.
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: The Chicago Review
Publisher: The Chicago Review
‘Fruitful Envy’: Writers at The Arts Club of Chicago (Article)Title: ‘Fruitful Envy’: Writers at The Arts Club of Chicago
Author: Liesl Olson
Abstract: This article explores the relationship between writers and visual artists in Chicago in the early twentieth century. It is part of a centennial book published by The Arts Club of Chicago.
Year: 2016
Format: Other
Publisher: The Arts Club of Chicago
"Across Stark Lines" (Article)Title: "Across Stark Lines"
Author: Liesl Olson
Abstract: This article is part of a book titled "Centennial: A History of the Renaissance Society, 1915-2015." The article looks at the role of poet/journalist/curator Inez Stark in the formation of a South Side Poets Group. Stark was the first teacher of poet Gwendolyn Brooks and also director of the Renaissance Society from 1935-1941. The article explores cross-racial creative collaboration in Chicago.
Year: 2016
Format: Other
Publisher: Renaissance Society and the University of Chicago Press
Margaret Anderson’s 'My Thirty Years’ War' (Article)Title: Margaret Anderson’s 'My Thirty Years’ War'
Author: Liesl Olson
Abstract: This short piece traces the history of Margaret Anderson's autobiographical account of avant-garde life in Chicago, New York, and Paris. The piece is part of the Caxton Club's book, "!01 Chicago," which is an account of the 101 most important books related to Chicago's cultural history.
Year: 2017
Publisher: Caxton Club and University of Chicago Press
Carl Sandburg’s Chicago: Stormy, Husky, Brawling at 100 (Article)Title: Carl Sandburg’s Chicago: Stormy, Husky, Brawling at 100
Author: Liesl Olson
Abstract: On the anniversary of the publication of Carl Sandburg's Chicago Poems (1916), this pieces looks at the history, reception, and relevance of Sandburg's groundbreaking verse.
Year: 2016
Primary URL:
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/carl-sandburgs-chicago-stormy-husky-brawling-at-100/Format: Magazine
Periodical Title: Los Angeles Review of Books
Publisher: Los Angeles Review of Books
Ernest Hemingway in Chicago (Conference/Institute/Seminar)Title: Ernest Hemingway in Chicago
Author: Liesl Olson
Abstract: I gave the plenary talk at International Ernest Hemingway Conference, which was held in Oak Park IL in July 2016.
Date Range: July 18, 2016
Location: Oak Park, IL--Dominican University
Modernism and the Ephemeral (Conference/Institute/Seminar)Title: Modernism and the Ephemeral
Author: Liesl Olson
Abstract: I was invited to the Wolfsonian Museum-Florida International University to discuss the significance of the Chicago designer Will Bradley. I also led a seminar that focused on the "little magazines" of modernism.
Date Range: March, 2016.
Location: Miami Beach, FLA.