Shortly after moving in, Hanson makes it apparent that he expects Carrie to pay rent. However, after arriving in Chicago and seeing her sister’s shabby apartment, Carrie feels ashamed that Drouet should see her in such a place and writes to him, telling him not to visit. On the train, Carrie meets a friendly, flirtatious, and well-dressed traveling salesman named Drouet. She is to live with her sister, Minnie, and brother-in-law, Hanson. She takes a train from her hometown of Columbia City, Wisconsin, to Chicago in the hopes of finding work in the city. Dreiser died in Los Angeles, California, in 1945.Sister Carrie chronicles the ascent and downfall of Caroline “Carrie” Meeber, a young woman who moves from provincial Wisconsin to the big city.Īt the beginning of the novel, Carrie is penniless. Critics today credit Dreiser with being the first writer to portray nineteenth-century American life in a realistic way. Based on his sisters’ lives, the novel became Dreiser’s best-known work. Slightly encouraged by this success and the urging of a friend, Dreiser penned Sister Carrie. While working in New York, Dreiser wrote several short stories that quickly sold. Louis, and Pittsburgh, Dreiser began to discover that he was better at writing impressions than he was at reporting the facts. After having been a reporter in Chicago, St. He left after a year, however, returning to Chicago where, in 1892, he made his writing debut as a reporter for the Daily Globe. He lived for a while with his brother in Chicago, then returned to Indiana to attend Indiana University. When Dreiser turned sixteen, he left the family and began working at a variety of odd jobs to try to support himself. His fondness for words led him to writing writing kept him fed and out of trouble. Because Theodore saw his father’s distress over his children’s antics, the younger Dreiser learned early how to avoid being caught for his many misadventures. Two of Theodore’s sisters were prostitutes. For example, one brother, Paul, robbed a saloon in his teens, kept company with a brothel madam, and died of alcoholism and related depression. One of ten children, next-to-the-youngest Theodore Dreiser felt the influence of his older brothers and sisters who seemed to always find themselves in trouble. They communicated with each other in German and followed strict Catholic practices. Dreiser and his wife of Moravian descent raised their family on very little money, with the stringent morals and rules of the old country. He tried to earn a living in Terre Haute while his wife and children moved from place to place looking for other work and more affordable living. Although the elder Dreiser had mastered weaving in Germany, he found that employers in his new country did not appreciate his skill.
Dreiser’s father, John Paul, fled to America from Germany to avoid the draft. Theodore Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, on August 27, 1871.
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