Modern language association of America

The American Literature Group was formed in 1921, after the Modern Language Association (MLA) reluctantly acknowledged a growing scholarly interest in the writing of the United States. At the time such literature was studied primarily in secondary schools, and most colleges and universities had no courses on the topic. Those that did, usually offered only a single survey course. The idea that American literature could stand on its own as a discipline was viewed with skepticism, it being understood at the time as a branch of the literature of England - a branch almost wholly lacking the greatness of its parent.

The members of the new group felt that in order to prove their subject reputable, they must bring it into line with the model of disciplines that had come into being in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. This model was based on the empiricism of the sciences, which had been modified in English as philology, author biography, textual history, and in its furthest speculative reach, influence study. Interpretive criticism was viewed as insufficiently scholarly, the domain of the "amateurs" who had dominated writing about American literature up to this point. Similarly, some in the Group thought that it should organize a way to better train secondary school teachers in the area, but this was rejected as insufficiently academic.

The Group met each December at the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association. Many of the early papers presented under the auspices of the Group dealt with the problem of how to build a proper discipline. Work was immediately begun on bibliographies and on lists of manuscript resources and dissertations written (or needed). In 1926, as an aid to research, the field was divided into three areas: the Puritan tradition, Romanticism in American literature, and the frontier spirit. In 1928, the Group's approach was documented by the essays in The Reinterpretation of American Literature (edited by Norman Forester), which added a fourth area, realism. Efforts to establish a quarterly journal that dealt exclusively with American literature began in 1924. Duke University eventually won a small bidding war for it, and the first issue of American Literature was dated March, 1929. In 1928 a full scheme of officers and procedures was put into place with the first version of the articles of organization. This document would be periodically revised over the following decades. One project that never got off the ground was a history of American literature. Almost from its inception, the Group was dissatisfied with the existing one - The Cambridge History of American Literature (1918) - because it was written prior to the discovery of much information, gave no relative weight to different figures and genres, and had no overarching vision of the area. A committee headed by Robert Speller worked toward a plan for a new history during the thirties, but conflicting positions concerning readiness and approach caused the plan to be abandoned by 1941. (Speller proceeded with the project outside of the Group, his work resulting in The Literary History of the United States (1948).)

After World War II, with American literature firmly in place as an academic area, the Group became less central to the discipline's development. The rise of American studies in the early 1950s prompted discussion and dispute concerning the difference between cultural-historical work, and more traditional emphases on literary excellence and the humanistic approach to literature (particularly in the classroom). Insurgent movements occasionally have arisen as the Group was felt to be behind the critical times. In 1968 younger members staged a protest at the annual meeting, agitating for a direct denouncement of the Vietnam War and more explicit politics in general (particularly regarding the college students whom the professors were serving). Meanwhile the Group (which became a full-fledged MLA Section in 1966) has periodically had to fight for particular kinds of recognition and privilege within its parent organization.

A full list of the Group's/Section's Chairs and Secretaries (later Executive Coordinators) is appended to this inventory and may be used as a cross-reference with the container lists to interpret the collection's coverage of various periods and figures. A fuller listing of officers from 1921-1948 is provided in Kermit Vanderbilt's book (cited below) on pages 545-548.

For more information on the American Literature Group/Section, see the following books, parts of which were written using the American Literature Section Papers: Kermit Vanderbilt, American Literature and the Academy(Philadelphia: U. Penn. Press, 1986) David R. Shumway, Creating American Civilization: A Genealogy of American Literature as an Academic Discipline(Minneapolis: U. Minn. Press, 1994).

From the guide to the Modern Language Association of America, American Literature Section Papers, 1922-1999, (Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library)