03611nam 2200685 a 450 991078198020332120230802004117.00-8047-7845-010.1515/9780804778459(CKB)2550000000057499(EBL)793292(OCoLC)767502196(SSID)ssj0000631608(PQKBManifestationID)12226562(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000631608(PQKBWorkID)10592144(PQKB)11753571(StDuBDS)EDZ0000127890(MiAaPQ)EBC793292(DE-B1597)564123(DE-B1597)9780804778459(Au-PeEL)EBL793292(CaPaEBR)ebr10505103(OCoLC)1178769582(EXLCZ)99255000000005749920110315d2012 uy 0engur|n|---|||||txtccrAccident society[electronic resource] fiction, collectivity, and the production of chance /Jason PuskarStanford, California Stanford University Press20121 online resource (280 p.)Description based upon print version of record.0-8047-7535-4 Includes bibliographical references and index.Introduction : writing the accident -- The insurance of the real : William Dean Howells -- Aimless battles : Stephen Crane -- Detecting "absolute chance" : Charles Peirce, Anna Katharine Green -- The feminization of chance : Edith Wharton, Crystal Eastman -- Performing the accident on purpose : Theodore Dreiser, James Cain.This book argues that language and literature actively produced chance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by categorizing injuries and losses as innocent of design. Automobile collisions and occupational injuries became "car accidents" and "industrial accidents." During the post-Civil War period of racial, ethnic, and class-based hostility, chance was an abstract enemy against which society might unite. By producing chance, novels by William Dean Howells, Stephen Crane, Anna Katharine Green, Edith Wharton, Theodore Dreiser, and James Cain documented and helped establish new modes of collective interdependence. Chance here is connected not with the competitive individualism of the Gilded Age, but with important progressive and social democratic reforms, including developments in insurance, which had long employed accident narratives to shape its own "mutual society." Accident Society reveals the extent to which American collectivity has depended—and continues to depend—on the literary production of chance.American fiction19th centuryHistory and criticismAmerican fiction20th centuryHistory and criticismChance in literatureRealism in literatureLiterature and societyUnited StatesHistory19th centuryLiterature and societyUnited StatesHistory20th centuryAmerican fictionHistory and criticism.American fictionHistory and criticism.Chance in literature.Realism in literature.Literature and societyHistoryLiterature and societyHistory813.009Puskar Jason Robert1551897MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQBOOK9910781980203321Accident society3811598UNINA