Historical Background of American Autobiography

FAIN: FT-12644-75

Earl B. Fendelman
CUNY Research Foundation, Lehman College (Bronx, NY 10468-1527)

To analyze the historical background of American autobiography. The study will serve as the introductory chapter for a longer study of the autobiographical form in American literature. The object of the research is to test the thesis that religious and economic anxieties in the 17th through the 19th centuries engendered a certain kind of self-portraiture that is distinctively American. In order to find the roots of the American autobiographical mode, the P.I. will compare the diaries and journals of 17th and 18th religious figures with their public statements about themselves.