Booth Tarkington was a popular author from Indiana whose most famous works were published between 1899 and 1921. By the end of his life he had sold more than five million books. The Gentleman from Indiana (1899) was his first success. He published several books about growing up in the midwest, including Penrod (1914) and its sequel, Penrod and Sam (1916). Two of his books won the Pulitzer Prize for literature: The Magnificant Ambersons (1918) and Alice Adams (1921). The latter two were later made into critically acclaimed movies (in 1942 and 1935). Tarkington's social realism makes his novels interesting from a historian's point of view because of his concrete observations about middle-class life during the gilded age and progressive era.
In his novels, Tarkington contrasts a simpler and more genteel nineteenth century with the brasher and "bigger" twentieth century. He describes the process of industrialization and urbanization (and "modernization" generally) as inevitable but also unfortunate in some ways. He is also sensitive to class issues and to the ways in which individuals benefit from or are disadvantaged by social class. The Dictionary of American Biography quotes his biographer's description of him as "an old-fashioned gentleman," and that characterization may explain his attitude toward his own times as well as his relative obscurity in the present. For instance, present-day readers no longer find the gentlemanly light touch of his satire as appealing as the more cutting satire of contemporaries like Sinclair Lewis. Also, his novels stereotype African Americans and Jews in ways that now make readers uncomfortable. Like other "old-fashioned gentlemen," he considered public service to be his duty, serving in the state legislature at the turn of the century, making philanthropic gifts to Indianapolis institutions later in his life, and volunteering for war work during World War I and World War II.
Tarkington was not a progressive in the sense of being a political reformer. He only served one term in the Indiana House of Representatives, and he did not pursue the kinds of legislation most often associated with progressivism. (He was later sympathetic to Prohibition, having been a heavy drinker in his youth and a teetotaler by the 1920s.) The sense in which he was a progressive was in that he was among those middle-class Americans who objected to the consequences of the economic transformation of the late nineteenth-century.
Sources for this overview:
"Booth Tarkington." Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 4: 1946-1950. American Council of Learned Societies, 1974. Reproduced at Gale Biography Resource Center.
"Booth Tarkington." St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. St. James Press, 2000. Reproduced at Gale Biography Resource Center.
Woodress, James L. "Booth Tarkington's Political Career." American Literature 26 (May 1954): 209-222. Reproduced at JSTOR.
Image from Gale Biography
Resource Center.
Selected Bibliography
Boomhower, Ray E. "Penrod and Politics: Booth Tarkington's Legislative Career." Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History 12.2 (2000): 38-45.
In this popular history magazine, Boomhower discusses Tarkington's one term in the Indiana General Assembly (having been elected in 1902).
"Booth Tarkington." Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 4: 1946-1950. American Council of Learned Societies, 1974. Reproduced at Gale Biography Resource Center.
An encyclopedic overview.
"Booth Tarkington." St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. St. James Press, 2000. Reproduced at Gale Biography Resource Center.
An encyclopedic overview.
Fennimore, Keith J. Booth Tarkington. 1974. Available at Duggan Library,
PS2973 .F4.
Macaigne, Bernard. "From Tom Sawyer to Penrod: The Child in American Popular Literature, 1870-1910. " Revue Française d'Etudes Américaines [France] 8.17 (1983): 319-331.
This scholarly article puts Tarkington's writing in the context of children's literature and attitudes toward children from the gilded age and progressive era. Published in France and written by a specialist in American studies, the article is in English.
McMains, Howard F., ed. "Booth Tarkington and the League of Nations: Advice for Senator Harry S. New." Indiana Magazine of History 84.4 (1988): 343-352.
This scholarly article focuses on a single letter Tarkington wrote to his friend, Senator New.
Mayberry, Susanah. My Amiable Uncle: Recollections about Booth Tarkington.
These reminiscences are reviewed in Indiana Magazine of History 81 (Sept. 1985) 287-288.
Morrow, Barbara Olenyik. From Ben-Hur to Sister Carrie: Remembering the Lives
and
Works of Five Indiana Authors. 1995. Available at Duggan Library, PS283.I6 M67
1995.
"Newton Booth Tarkington: Hoosier Novelist," Indiana Historical Society webpage.
A brief overview of Tarkington's life, focusing especially on details from his life in Indiana.
Tarkington, Booth. Alice Adams .1921.
Full text available at the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia.
Tarkington, Booth. Penrod. 1914.
Full text available at the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia.
Tarkington, Booth, The Magnificant Ambersons .1918.
Full text available at the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia.
Welsh, James M. "Booth Tarkington and Hollywood: From Fiction to Film." Indiana Social Studies Quarterly 34.2 (1981): 40-48.
A specialized discussion of the transformation of Tarkington's novels The Magnificent Ambersons (1919) and Alice Adams (1921) into movies by the same names in 1942 and 1935, respectively.
Wilson, William E. "The Titan and the Gentleman." Antioch Review 23.1 (1963): 25-34.
Discusses two Hoosier novelists from the progressive era, Theodore Dreiser and Booth Tarkington. Wilson notes that Tarkington was financially successful in his own time but is now dismissed by critics and that the reverse was true of Dreiser.
Woodress, James Leslie. Booth Tarkington, Gentleman from Indiana. 1955. Available at Duggan Library, PS2973 .W6.
The most often cited biography.
Woodress, James L. "Booth Tarkington's Political Career." American Literature 26 (May 1954): 209-222. Reproduced at JSTOR.
Discusses Tarkington's brief political career and its effect on his fiction.