117-814: Trans-Mississippi was a common name of the geographic area west of the Mississippi River during the 19th century. The term "Trans-Mississippi" was historically used to refer to any land "across the Mississippi" (or the entire western two-thirds of the United States), including Nebraska , Iowa , North Dakota , South Dakota , Kansas , Minnesota , Arkansas , Louisiana , Missouri , Texas , New Mexico , Arizona , California , Nevada , Colorado , Montana , Idaho , Washington and Oregon . It also included Indian Territory (now Oklahoma ), Alaska , Hawaii , and other U.S. territories. In 1898,
234-644: A Trans-Mississippi Exposition was held in Omaha, Nebraska . The postage stamps of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition Issue are considered some of the most beautiful stamps ever issued by the United States, and a complete set of the "Trans-Miss" has been highly prized since its 1898 issue. Demonstrating the ongoing significance of the event and its focus, on its 100th anniversary in 1998, a set of stamps using designs derived from
351-467: A "Puritan utopia". Other religious writers included Increase Mather and William Bradford , author of the journal published as a History of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–47 . Others like Roger Williams and Nathaniel Ward more fiercely argued state and church separation. Others, such as Thomas Morton , cared little for the church; Morton's The New English Canaan mocked the Puritans and declared that
468-745: A Native American in English, A Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul, an Indian , by Samson Occom, from the Mohegan tribe, was published and went through 19 editions. The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta (1854) by John Rollin Ridge (Cherokee, 1827–67) was the first novel by a Native American, and O-gi-maw-kwe Mit-I-gwa-ki ( Queen of the Woods ) (1899) by Simon Pokagon (Potawatomi, 1830–99)
585-494: A diary revealing the daily life of the late 17th century), and Sarah Kemble Knight (who likewise wrote a diary). New England was not the only area in the colonies with a literature: southern literature was also growing at this time. The diary of planter William Byrd and his The History of the Dividing Line (1728) described the expedition to survey the swamp between Virginia and North Carolina but also comments on
702-482: A large mound of sand spanning the width of the river 55 feet below the surface, allowing fresh water and large cargo ships to pass over. Fresh river water flowing from the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico does not mix into the salt water immediately. The images from NASA 's MODIS show a large plume of fresh water, which appears as a dark ribbon against the lighter-blue surrounding waters. These images demonstrate that
819-734: A length of 3,710 miles (5,971 km), making it the fourth longest river in the world after the Nile , Amazon , and Yangtze . When measured by the largest stream source (by water volume), the Ohio River , by extension the Allegheny River , would be the source, and the Mississippi would begin in Pennsylvania . At its source at Lake Itasca , the Mississippi River is about 3 feet (0.91 m) deep. The average depth of
936-414: A million and a half readers over a century and a half, Charlotte Temple was the biggest seller of the 19th century before Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin . Although Rowson was extremely popular in her time and is often acknowledged in accounts of the development of the early American novel, Charlotte Temple often is criticized as a sentimental novel of seduction. Hannah Webster Foster 's The Coquette: Or,
1053-478: A natural process known as avulsion or delta switching, the lower Mississippi River has shifted its final course to the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico every thousand years or so. This occurs because the deposits of silt and sediment begin to clog its channel, raising the river's level and causing it to eventually find a steeper, more direct route to the Gulf of Mexico. The abandoned distributaries diminish in volume and form what are known as bayous . This process has, over
1170-621: A nearby cabin by a wooded pond, Thoreau wrote Walden (1854), a memoir that urges resistance to the dictates of society. Other Transcendentalists included Amos Bronson Alcott , Margaret Fuller , George Ripley , Orestes Brownson , and Jones Very . As one of the great works of the Revolutionary period was written by a Frenchman, so too was a work about America from this generation. Alexis de Tocqueville 's two-volume Democracy in America (1835 and 1840) described his travels through
1287-456: A unique voice in existing literary genre, and this tendency was reflected in novels. European styles were frequently imitated, but critics usually considered the imitations inferior. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the first American novels were published. These fictions were too lengthy to be printed for public reading. Publishers took a chance on these works in hopes they would become steady sellers and need to be reprinted. This scheme
SECTION 10
#17327727693641404-682: Is 1,151,000 sq mi (2,980,000 km ), of which only about one percent is in Canada. The Mississippi ranks as the world's tenth-largest river by discharge flow, and the largest in North America. Native Americans have lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries for thousands of years. Many were hunter-gatherers , but some, such as the Mound Builders , formed prolific agricultural and urban civilizations, and some practiced aquaculture . The arrival of Europeans in
1521-794: Is 208,200 cu ft/s (5,900 m /s). Thus, by volume, the main branch of the Mississippi River system at Cairo can be considered to be the Ohio River (and the Allegheny River further upstream), rather than the Middle Mississippi. In addition to the Ohio River , the major tributaries of the Lower Mississippi River are the White River , flowing in at the White River National Wildlife Refuge in east-central Arkansas;
1638-474: Is a drama, set in Puritan Massachusetts, about a woman cast out of her community for committing adultery with a minister who refuses to acknowledge his own sin. Herman Melville (1819–1891) made a name for himself with Typee and Omoo , adventure tales based loosely on his own life at sea and jumping ship to live among South Sea natives. Becoming a friend of Hawthorne's in 1850, Melville
1755-575: Is a meandering river in a broad, flat area, only rarely flowing alongside a bluff (as at Vicksburg, Mississippi ). The Mississippi River is known as the Middle Mississippi from the Upper Mississippi River's confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri , for 190 miles (310 km) to its confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois . The Middle Mississippi is relatively free-flowing. From St. Louis to
1872-565: Is best known for her novel Charlotte: A Tale of Truth , published in London in 1791. In 1794 the novel was reissued in Philadelphia under the title, Charlotte Temple . Charlotte Temple is a seduction tale, written in the third person, which warns against listening to the voice of love and counsels resistance. She also wrote nine novels, six theatrical works, two collections of poetry, six textbooks, and countless songs. Reaching more than
1989-498: Is called the Lower Mississippi River from its confluence with the Ohio River to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of about 1,000 miles (1,600 km). At the confluence of the Ohio and the Middle Mississippi, the long-term mean discharge of the Ohio at Cairo, Illinois is 281,500 cubic feet per second (7,970 cubic meters per second), while the long-term mean discharge of the Mississippi at Thebes, Illinois (just upriver from Cairo)
2106-912: Is controlled and managed as a series of pools created by 26 locks and dams. The Upper Mississippi River is joined by the Minnesota River at Fort Snelling in the Twin Cities ; the St. Croix River near Prescott, Wisconsin ; the Cannon River near Red Wing, Minnesota ; the Zumbro River at Wabasha, Minnesota ; the Black , La Crosse , and Root rivers in La Crosse, Wisconsin ; the Wisconsin River at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin ;
2223-520: Is largely a multi-thread stream with many bars and islands. From its confluence with the St. Croix River downstream to Dubuque, Iowa , the river is entrenched, with high bedrock bluffs lying on either side. The height of these bluffs decreases to the south of Dubuque, though they are still significant through Savanna, Illinois . This topography contrasts strongly with the Lower Mississippi, which
2340-539: Is the only true waterfall on the entire Mississippi River. The water elevation continues to drop steeply as it passes through the gorge carved by the waterfall. After the completion of the St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam in 1963, the river's head of navigation moved upstream, to the Coon Rapids Dam . However, the Locks were closed in 2015 to control the spread of invasive Asian carp , making Minneapolis once again
2457-715: The Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), the Wonders of the Invisible World and The Biblia Americana . Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield represented the Great Awakening , a religious revival in the early 18th century that emphasized Calvinist thought . Other Puritan and religious writers include Thomas Hooker , Thomas Shepard , John Wise , and Samuel Willard . Less strict and serious writers included Samuel Sewall (who wrote
SECTION 20
#17327727693642574-618: The American Civil War , the Mississippi's capture by Union forces marked a turning point towards victory , due to the river's strategic importance to the Confederate war effort. Because of the substantial growth of cities and the larger ships and barges that replaced steamboats, the first decades of the 20th century saw the construction of massive engineering works such as levees , locks and dams , often built in combination. A major focus of this work has been to prevent
2691-880: The Arkansas River , joining the Mississippi at Arkansas Post ; the Big Black River in Mississippi; and the Yazoo River , meeting the Mississippi at Vicksburg, Mississippi . Deliberate water diversion at the Old River Control Structure in Louisiana allows the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana to be a major distributary of the Mississippi River, with 30% of the combined flow of the Mississippi and Red Rivers flowing to
2808-606: The Declaration of Independence , his influence on the U.S. Constitution , his autobiography, his Notes on the State of Virginia , and his many letters. The Federalist essays by Alexander Hamilton , James Madison , and John Jay presented a significant historical discussion of American government organization and republican values. Fisher Ames , James Otis , and Patrick Henry are also valued for their political writings and orations. Early American literature struggled to find
2925-577: The Gulf of Mexico , part of the Atlantic Ocean. The total catchment of the Mississippi River covers nearly 40% of the landmass of the continental United States. The highest point within the watershed is also the highest point of the Rocky Mountains , Mount Elbert at 14,440 feet (4,400 m). In the United States, the Mississippi River drains the majority of the area between the crest of
3042-603: The Minnesota River , James River , and Milk River valleys. When the ice sheet completely retreated, many of these "temporary" rivers found paths to Hudson Bay or the Arctic Ocean, leaving the Mississippi Basin with many features "over-sized" for the existing rivers to have carved in the same time period. Ice sheets during the Illinoian Stage , about 300,000 to 132,000 years before present, blocked
3159-566: The Ohio and Missouri , formed pathways for the western expansion of the United States. The river also became the subject of American literature , particularly in the writings of Mark Twain . Formed from thick layers of the river's silt deposits, the Mississippi embayment is one of the most fertile regions of the United States; steamboats were widely used in the 19th and early 20th centuries to ship agricultural and industrial goods. During
3276-1320: The Rock River at the Quad Cities ; the Iowa River near Wapello, Iowa ; the Skunk River south of Burlington, Iowa ; and the Des Moines River at Keokuk, Iowa . Other major tributaries of the Upper Mississippi include the Crow River in Minnesota, the Chippewa River in Wisconsin, the Maquoketa River and the Wapsipinicon River in Iowa, and the Illinois River in Illinois. The Upper Mississippi
3393-887: The Rocky Mountains and the crest of the Appalachian Mountains , except for various regions drained to Hudson Bay by the Red River of the North ; to the Atlantic Ocean by the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River ; and to the Gulf of Mexico by the Rio Grande , the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, the Chattahoochee and Appalachicola rivers, and various smaller coastal waterways along
3510-752: The Salem witch trials as the basis for a novel ) in 1828. Catherine Maria Sedgwick wrote A New England Tale in 1822, Redwood in 1824, Hope Leslie in 1827, and The Linwoods in 1835. James Kirke Paulding wrote The Lion of the West in 1830, The Dutchman's Fireside in 1831, and Westward Ho! in 1832. Omar ibn Said , a Muslim slave in the Carolinas, wrote an autobiography in Arabic in 1831, considered an early example of African-American literature . Robert Montgomery Bird wrote Calavar in 1834 and Nick of
3627-429: The headwaters region and serve multiple purposes, including power generation and recreation. The remaining 29 dams, beginning in downtown Minneapolis, all contain locks and were constructed to improve commercial navigation of the upper river. Taken as a whole, these 43 dams significantly shape the geography and influence the ecology of the upper river. Beginning just below Saint Paul, Minnesota , and continuing throughout
Trans-Mississippi - Misplaced Pages Continue
3744-491: The most recent Ice Age . The southernmost extent of this enormous glaciation extended well into the present-day United States and Mississippi basin. When the ice sheet began to recede, hundreds of feet of rich sediment were deposited, creating the flat and fertile landscape of the Mississippi Valley. During the melt, giant glacial rivers found drainage paths into the Mississippi watershed, creating such features as
3861-465: The 16th century changed the native way of life as first explorers, then settlers, ventured into the basin in increasing numbers. The river served sometimes as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain , New France , and the early United States, and throughout as a vital transportation artery and communications link. In the 19th century, during the height of the ideology of manifest destiny , the Mississippi and several tributaries, most notably its largest,
3978-553: The 18th century, writing shifted from the Puritanism of Winthrop and Bradford to Enlightenment ideas of reason. The belief that human and natural occurrences were messages from God no longer fit with the budding anthropocentric culture. Many intellectuals believed that the human mind could comprehend the universe through the laws of physics, as described by Isaac Newton . One of these was Cotton Mather . The first book published in North America that promoted Newton and natural theology
4095-513: The 1920s, but John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway , who became famous with The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms , and William Faulkner , adopted experimental forms. American modernist poets included diverse figures such as Wallace Stevens , T. S. Eliot , Robert Frost , Ezra Pound , and E. E. Cummings . Depression -era writers included John Steinbeck , author of The Grapes of Wrath (1939). America's involvement in World War II led to works such as Norman Mailer 's The Naked and
4212-429: The American frontier. In New England , a group of writers known as Boston Brahmins included James Russell Lowell , then in later years Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. In 1836, Ralph Waldo Emerson , who had renounced his ministry, published his essay Nature , which argued that men should dispense with organized religion and reach a lofty spiritual state by studying and interacting with
4329-796: The Dead (1948), Joseph Heller 's Catch-22 (1961) and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 's Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). Prominent playwrights of these years include Eugene O'Neill , who won a Nobel Prize. In the mid-twentieth century, drama was dominated by Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller . Musical theater was also prominent. In late 20th century and early 21st century, there has been increased popular and academic acceptance of literature written by immigrant, ethnic, and LGBT writers, and of writings in languages other than English. Examples of pioneers in these areas include LGBT author Michael Cunningham , Asian American authors Maxine Hong Kingston and Ocean Vuong , and African Americans authors such as Ralph Ellison , James Baldwin , and Toni Morrison . In 2016,
4446-402: The Earth's mantle (specifically, the Bermuda hotspot ) that was undergoing a period of intense activity. The upwelling of magma from the hotspot forced the further uplift to a height of perhaps 2–3 km of part of the Appalachian-Ouachita range, forming an arch that blocked southbound water flows. The uplifted land quickly eroded and, as North America moved away from the hot spot and as
4563-927: The East Coast – in the border state of Missouri . His regional masterpieces were the memoir Life on the Mississippi and the novels Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). Twain's style – influenced by journalism, wedded to the vernacular, direct and unadorned but also highly evocative and irreverently humorous – changed the way Americans write their language. His characters speak like real people and sound distinctively American, using local dialects, newly invented words, and regional accents. Other writers interested in regional differences and dialect were George W. Cable , Thomas Nelson Page , Joel Chandler Harris , Mary Noailles Murfree ( Charles Egbert Craddock ), Sarah Orne Jewett , Mary E. Wilkins Freeman , Henry Cuyler Bunner , and William Sydney Porter ( O. Henry ). A version of local color regionalism that focused on minority experiences can be seen in
4680-408: The English renaming it New York and changing the administrative language from Dutch to English. From 1696 to 1700, only about 250 separate items were issued from the major printing presses in the American colonies. This is a small number, compared to the output of the printers in London at the time. London printers published materials written by New England authors, so, the body of American literature
4797-536: The Execution of Moses Paul and a popular hymnbook, Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs , "the first Indian best-seller". The Revolutionary period also contained political writings, including those by colonists Samuel Adams , Josiah Quincy , John Dickinson , and Joseph Galloway , the last being a loyalist to the crown. Two key figures were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine . Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin are esteemed works, with their wit and influence toward
Trans-Mississippi - Misplaced Pages Continue
4914-402: The French immigrant J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur , whose Letters from an American Farmer (1782) addresses the question "What is an American?", by moving between praise for the opportunities and peace offered in the new society and recognition that the solid life of the farmer must rest, uneasily, between the oppressive aspects of the urban life and the lawless aspects of the frontier, where
5031-400: The French rendering of the Anishinaabe ( Ojibwe or Algonquin ) name for the river, Misi-ziibi (Great River). In the 18th century, the river was set by the Treaty of Paris as, for the most part, the western border of the new United States. With the Louisiana Purchase and the country's westward expansion, it became a convenient boundary line between the western and eastern halves of
5148-588: The Gulf of Mexico by this route, rather than continuing down the Mississippi's current channel past Baton Rouge and New Orleans on a longer route to the Gulf. Although the Red River was once an additional tributary, its water now flows separately into the Gulf of Mexico through the Atchafalaya River. The Mississippi River has the world's fourth-largest drainage basin ("watershed" or "catchment"). The basin covers more than 1,245,000 square miles (3,220,000 km ), including all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. The drainage basin empties into
5265-409: The Gulf. The Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico about 100 miles (160 km) downstream from New Orleans. Measurements of the length of the Mississippi from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico vary somewhat, but the United States Geological Survey 's number is 2,340 miles (3,766 km). The retention time from Lake Itasca to the Gulf is typically about 90 days; while speed varies along
5382-464: The History of Eliza Wharton was published in 1797 and was extremely popular. Told from Foster's point of view and based on the real life of Eliza Whitman, the novel is about a woman who is seduced and abandoned. Eliza is a "coquette" who is courted by two very different men: a clergyman who offers her a comfortable domestic life and a noted libertine. Unable to choose between them, she finds herself single when both men get married. She eventually yields to
5499-404: The Illinoian Stage. Timeline of outflow course changes In March 1876, the Mississippi suddenly changed course near the settlement of Reverie, Tennessee , leaving a small part of Tipton County, Tennessee , attached to Arkansas and separated from the rest of Tennessee by the new river channel. Since this event was an avulsion , rather than the effect of incremental erosion and deposition,
5616-642: The Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) and Harriet Jacobs 's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). At this time, American Indian autobiography develops, most notably in William Apess 's A Son of the Forest (1829) and George Copway 's The Life, History and Travels of Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh (1847). Moreover, minority authors were beginning to publish fiction, as in William Wells Brown 's Clotel; or, The President's Daughter (1853), Frank J. Webb 's The Garies and Their Friends , (1857) Martin Delany 's Blake; or, The Huts of America (1859–62) and Harriet E. Wilson 's Our Nig: Sketches from
5733-409: The Life of a Free Black (1859) as early African-American novels, and John Rollin Ridge 's The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta (1854), which is considered the first American Indian novel but is also an early story that talks about Mexican-American issues. Mark Twain (the pen name used by Samuel Langhorne Clemens , 1835–1910) was among the first major American writers to be born away from
5850-408: The Midwestern and eastern U.S. These earthquakes created Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee from the altered landscape near the river. When measured from its traditional source at Lake Itasca , the Mississippi has a length of 2,340 miles (3,766 km). When measured from its longest stream source (most distant source from the sea), Brower's Spring in Montana , the source of the Missouri River , it has
5967-416: The Mississippi River between Saint Paul and Saint Louis is between 9 and 12 feet (2.7–3.7 m) deep, the deepest part being Lake Pepin , which averages 20–32 feet (6–10 m) deep and has a maximum depth of 60 feet (18 m). Between where the Missouri River joins the Mississippi at Saint Louis, Missouri, and Cairo, Illinois, the depth averages 30 feet (9 m). Below Cairo, where the Ohio River joins,
SECTION 50
#17327727693646084-411: The Mississippi River has experienced numerous large and small changes to its main course, as well as additions, deletions, and other changes among its numerous tributaries, and the lower Mississippi River has used different pathways as its main channel to the Gulf of Mexico across the delta region. As Pangaea began to break up about 95 million years ago, North America passed over a volcanic " hotspot " in
6201-415: The Mississippi River near New Madrid, Missouri , between Memphis and St. Louis, is related to an aulacogen (failed rift) that formed at the same time as the Gulf of Mexico. This area is still quite active seismically. Four great earthquakes in 1811 and 1812 , estimated at 8 on the Richter magnitude scale , had tremendous local effects in the then sparsely settled area, and were felt in many other places in
6318-407: The Mississippi River. American literature American literature is literature written or produced in the United States and in the colonies that preceded it . The American literary tradition is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature but also includes literature produced in languages other than English . The American Revolutionary Period (1775–1783) is notable for
6435-404: The Mississippi near Rock Island, Illinois, diverting it to its present channel farther to the west, the current western border of Illinois. The Hennepin Canal roughly follows the ancient channel of the Mississippi downstream from Rock Island to Hennepin, Illinois . South of Hennepin, to Alton, Illinois , the current Illinois River follows the ancient channel used by the Mississippi River before
6552-414: The Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota , Wisconsin , Iowa , Illinois , Missouri , Kentucky , Tennessee , Arkansas , Mississippi , and Louisiana . The main stem is entirely within the United States; the total drainage basin
6669-529: The Missouri River; the Middle Mississippi, which is downriver from the Missouri to the Ohio River; and the Lower Mississippi , which flows from the Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico. The Upper Mississippi runs from its headwaters to its confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri. It is divided into two sections: The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca , 1,475 feet (450 m) above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, Minnesota . The name Itasca
6786-516: The Mohicans , 1826) treated uniquely American material in ways that were popular both in the new country and Europe. John Neal as a critic played a key role in developing American literary nationalism . Neal criticized Irving and Cooper for relying on old British conventions of authorship to frame American phenomena, arguing that "to succeed ... [the American writer] must resemble nobody ... [he] must be unlike all that have gone before [him]" and issue "another Declaration of Independence, in
6903-443: The Ohio River confluence, the Middle Mississippi falls 220 feet (67 m) over 180 miles (290 km) for an average rate of 1.2 feet per mile (23 cm/km). At its confluence with the Ohio River, the Middle Mississippi is 315 feet (96 m) above sea level. Apart from the Missouri and Meramec rivers of Missouri and the Kaskaskia River of Illinois, no major tributaries enter the Middle Mississippi River. The Mississippi River
7020-479: The Old World-New World dilemma by writing directly about it. Although he was born in New York City, James spent most of his adult life in England. Many of his novels center on Americans who live in or travel to Europe. With its intricate, highly qualified sentences and dissection of emotional and psychological nuance, James's fiction can be daunting. Among his more accessible works are the novellas Daisy Miller (1878), about an American girl in Europe, and The Turn of
7137-607: The People of Morosofia, and Other Lunarians . After the war with Britain in 1812 , there was an increasing desire to produce a uniquely American literature and culture. Literary figures who took up the cause included Washington Irving , William Cullen Bryant , and James Fenimore Cooper . Irving wrote humorous works in Salmagundi and the satire A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809). Bryant wrote early romantic and nature-inspired poetry, which evolved away from their European origins. Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales about Natty Bumppo (which includes The Last of
SECTION 60
#17327727693647254-507: The Red Death ", " The Pit and the Pendulum ", and " The Fall of the House of Usher ", that explore hidden depths of human psychology and push the boundaries of fiction. Poe's " The Murders in the Rue Morgue ", is seen as the first detective story . Humorous writers were also popular and included Seba Smith and Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber in New England and Davy Crockett , Augustus Baldwin Longstreet , Johnson J. Hooper , Thomas Bangs Thorpe , and George Washington Harris writing about
7371-402: The Screw (1898), a ghost story. Stephen Crane (1871–1900), best known for his Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage (1895), depicted the life of New York City prostitutes in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893). And in Sister Carrie (1900), Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945) portrayed a country girl who moves to Chicago and becomes a kept woman. Frank Norris 's (1870–1902) fiction
7488-430: The Upper Mississippi River is the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam in Minneapolis. Above the dam, the river's elevation is 799 feet (244 m). Below the dam, the river's elevation is 750 feet (230 m). This 49-foot (15 m) drop is the largest of all the Mississippi River locks and dams. The origin of the dramatic drop is a waterfall preserved adjacent to the lock under an apron of concrete. Saint Anthony Falls
7605-426: The Upper Mississippi is a simple steel culvert, through which the river (locally named "Nicolet Creek") flows north from Lake Nicolet under "Wilderness Road" to the West Arm of Lake Itasca, within Itasca State Park . The earliest bridge across the Mississippi River was built in 1855. It spanned the river in Minneapolis where the current Hennepin Avenue Bridge is located. No highway or railroad tunnels cross under
7722-420: The Western hemisphere; Stephen Daye printed 1,000 copies on the first printing press in the American colonies. Of the second generation of New England settlers, Cotton Mather stands out as a theologian and historian, who wrote the history of the colonies with a view to God's activity in their midst and to connecting the Puritan leaders with the great heroes of the Christian faith. His best-known works include
7839-413: The Woods in 1837. James Fenimore Cooper was a notable author best known for his novel The Last of the Mohicans written in 1826. George Tucker produced in 1824 the first fiction of Virginia colonial life with The Valley of Shenandoah . He followed in 1827 with one of the country's first science fictions: A Voyage to the Moon: With Some Account of the Manners and Customs, Science and Philosophy, of
7956-555: The areas drained by them. Denser salt water from the Gulf of Mexico forms a salt wedge along the river bottom near the mouth of the river, while fresh water flows near the surface. In drought years, with less fresh water to push it out, salt water can travel many miles upstream—64 miles (103 km) in 2022—contaminating drinking water supplies and requiring the use of desalination . The United States Army Corps of Engineers constructed "saltwater sills" or "underwater levees" to contain this in 1988, 1999, 2012, and 2022. This consists of
8073-426: The artful libertine and gives birth to an illegitimate stillborn child at an inn. The Coquette is praised for its demonstration of the era's contradictory ideas of womanhood. even as it has been criticized for delegitimizing protest against women's subordination. Both The Coquette and Charlotte Temple are novels that treat the right of women to live as equals as the new democratic experiment. These novels are of
8190-444: The conflicting claims of duty and compassion on board a ship in time of war. His more profound books sold poorly, and he had been long forgotten by the time of his death. He was rediscovered in the 1920s. Anti-transcendental works from Melville, Hawthorne, and Poe all comprise the Dark romanticism sub-genre of popular literature at this time. Slave narrative autobiography from this period include Frederick Douglass 's Narrative of
8307-426: The continent among the numerous different Native American tribes. However, with the onset of English settlement of North America, the English language established a foothold in North America that would spread with the growth of England's political influence in the continent and the continued arrival of settlers from the British Isles. This included the English capture of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in 1664, with
8424-404: The continuation of the slave narrative autobiography. In 1837, the young Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) collected some of his stories as Twice-Told Tales , a volume rich in symbolism and occult incidents. Hawthorne went on to write full-length "romances", quasi-allegorical novels that explore the themes of guilt, pride, and emotional repression. His masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter (1850),
8541-553: The country. This is reflected in the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, which was designed to symbolize the opening of the West, and the focus on the " Trans-Mississippi " region in the Trans-Mississippi Exposition . Regional landmarks are often classified in relation to the river, such as "the highest peak east of the Mississippi " or "the oldest city west of the Mississippi". The FCC also uses it as
8658-427: The course of the river, this gives an overall average of around 26 mi (42 km) per day, or 1 mi (1.6 km) per hour. The stream gradient of the entire river is 0.01%, a drop of 450 m over 3,766 km. The Mississippi River discharges at an annual average rate of between 200 and 700 thousand cubic feet per second (6,000 and 20,000 m /s). The Mississippi is the fourteenth largest river in
8775-403: The delta of the Chippewa River of Wisconsin as it enters the Upper Mississippi, is more than 2 miles (3.2 km) wide. By the time the Upper Mississippi reaches Saint Paul , Minnesota, below Lock and Dam No. 1, it has dropped more than half its original elevation and is 687 feet (209 m) above sea level. From St. Paul to St. Louis, Missouri, the river elevation falls much more slowly and
8892-592: The depth averages 50–100 feet (15–30 m) deep. The deepest part of the river is in New Orleans, where it reaches 200 feet (61 m) deep. The Mississippi River runs through or along 10 states, from Minnesota to Louisiana , and is used to define portions of these states' borders, with Wisconsin , Illinois , Kentucky , Tennessee , and Mississippi along the east side of the river, and Iowa , Missouri , and Arkansas along its west side. Substantial parts of both Minnesota and Louisiana are on either side of
9009-629: The differences between American Indians and the white settlers in the area. In a similar book, Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West , William Bartram described the Southern landscape and the Indian tribes he encountered; Bartram's book was popular in Europe, being translated into German, French and Dutch. As the colonies moved toward independence from Britain, an important discussion of American culture and identity came from
9126-472: The dividing line for broadcast call-signs , which begin with W to the east and K to the west, overlapping in media markets along the river. Due to its size and importance, it has been nicknamed The Mighty Mississippi River or simply The Mighty Mississippi . The Mississippi River can be divided into three sections: the Upper Mississippi , the river from its headwaters to the confluence with
9243-547: The first European settlements in North America had been founded elsewhere, many years earlier. The first item printed in Pennsylvania was in German and was the largest book printed in any of the colonies before the American Revolution. Spanish and French had two of the strongest colonial literary traditions in the areas that now comprise the United States. Moreover, a wealth of oral literary traditions existed on
9360-520: The folk-rock songwriter Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Oral literature and storytelling has existed among the various Indigenous tribes , prior to the arrival of European colonists. The traditional territories of some tribes traverse national boundaries and such literature is not homogeneous but reflects the different cultures of these peoples . In 1771 the first work by
9477-583: The formation of a budding American identity. Paine's pamphlet Common Sense and The American Crisis writings are seen as playing a key role in influencing the political tone of the time. During the Revolutionary War , poems and songs such as " Nathan Hale " were popular. Major satirists included John Trumbull and Francis Hopkinson . Philip Morin Freneau also wrote poems about the War. During
9594-571: The great Republic of Letters." As a pioneer of the literary device he referred to "natural writing", Neal was "the first in America to be natural in his diction" and his work represents "the first deviation from ... Irvingesque graciousness." Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston but raised in Virginia and identified with the South. In 1832, he began writing short stories, such as " The Masque of
9711-503: The hotspot's activity declined, the crust beneath the embayment region cooled, contracted and subsided to a depth of 2.6 km, and around 80 million years ago the Reelfoot Rift formed a trough that was flooded by the Gulf of Mexico . As sea levels dropped, the Mississippi and other rivers extended their courses into the embayment , which gradually became filled with sediment with the Mississippi River at its center. Through
9828-445: The influential Transcendentalism movement; Henry David Thoreau , author of Walden , was influenced by this movement. The conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired writers, like Harriet Beecher Stowe , and authors of slave narratives, such as Frederick Douglass . Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter (1850) explored the dark side of American history, as did Herman Melville 's Moby-Dick (1851). Major American poets of
9945-460: The lack of social structures leads to the loss of civilized living. This same period saw the beginning of African-American literature , through the poet Phillis Wheatley and the slave narrative of Olaudah Equiano , The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789). At this time, American Indian literature also began to flourish. Samson Occom published his A Sermon Preached at
10062-402: The last two decades, this number was only 160 million short tons (145 million metric tons) per year. The reduction in sediment transported down the Mississippi River is the result of engineering modification of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio rivers and their tributaries by dams, meander cutoffs , river-training structures, and bank revetments and soil erosion control programs in
10179-628: The local Native Americans were better people than them. Other late writings described conflicts and interaction with the Indians, as seen in writings by Daniel Gookin , Alexander Whitaker , John Mason , Benjamin Church , and Daniel J. Tan . John Eliot translated the Bible into the Algonquin language (1663) as Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God . It was the first complete Bible printed in
10296-558: The lower 10 miles (16 km) of the Kaskaskia River, forming a new Mississippi channel and cutting off the town from the rest of the state. Later flooding destroyed most of the remaining town, including the original State House. Today, the remaining 2,300 acres (930 ha) island and community of 14 residents is known as an enclave of Illinois and is accessible only from the Missouri side. The New Madrid Seismic Zone , along
10413-415: The lower Mississippi from shifting into the channel of the Atchafalaya River and bypassing New Orleans . Since the 20th century, the Mississippi River has also experienced major pollution and environmental problems — most notably elevated nutrient and chemical levels from agricultural runoff, the primary contributor to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone . The word Mississippi itself comes from Misi zipi ,
10530-562: The natural world. He expanded his influence with his lecture " The American Scholar ", delivered in Cambridge in 1837, which called upon Americans to create a uniquely American writing style. Both the nation and the individual should declare independence. Emerson's influence fostered the movement now known as Transcendentalism . Among the leaders was Emerson's friend, Henry David Thoreau , a nonconformist and critic of American commercial culture. After living mostly by himself for two years in
10647-449: The new river channel, contiguous with the adjacent state. Also, due to a meander in the river, a small part of western Kentucky is contiguous with Tennessee but isolated from the rest of its state. Many of the communities along the Mississippi River are listed below; most have either historic significance or cultural lore connecting them to the river. They are sequenced from the source of the river to its end. The road crossing highest on
10764-401: The nineteenth century include Walt Whitman , Melville, and Emily Dickinson . Mark Twain was the first major American writer to be born in the West. Henry James achieved international recognition with novels like The Portrait of a Lady (1881). Following World War I , modernist literature rejected nineteenth-century forms and values. F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the carefree mood of
10881-557: The original issue was issued to commemorate its 100th anniversary. Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States . From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota , it flows generally south for 2,340 miles (3,766 km) to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico . With its many tributaries ,
10998-620: The past 5,000 years, caused the coastline of south Louisiana to advance toward the Gulf from 15 to 50 miles (24 to 80 km). The currently active delta lobe is called the Birdfoot Delta, after its shape, or the Balize Delta , after La Balize, Louisiana , the first French settlement at the mouth of the Mississippi. The current form of the Mississippi River basin was largely shaped by the Laurentide Ice Sheet of
11115-549: The plume did not mix with the surrounding sea water immediately. Instead, it stayed intact as it flowed through the Gulf of Mexico, into the Straits of Florida , and entered the Gulf Stream . The Mississippi River water rounded the tip of Florida and traveled up the southeast coast to the latitude of Georgia before finally mixing in so thoroughly with the ocean that it could no longer be detected by MODIS. Over geologic time,
11232-644: The political writings of Benjamin Franklin , Alexander Hamilton , Thomas Paine , and Thomas Jefferson . An early novel is William Hill Brown 's The Power of Sympathy , published in 1791. Writer and critic John Neal in the early- to mid-nineteenth century helped advance America toward a unique literature and culture, by criticizing predecessors, such as Washington Irving , for imitating their British counterparts and by influencing writers such as Edgar Allan Poe . Edgar Allan Poe took American poetry and short fiction in new directions. Ralph Waldo Emerson pioneered
11349-424: The population of the colonies numbered approximately 111,000. Thirty years later, it was more than 250,000. By 1760, it reached 1,600,000. The growth of communities, and therefore social life, led people to become more interested in the progress of individuals and their shared experience in the colonies. These new ideas can be seen in the popularity of Benjamin Franklin 's Autobiography . Even earlier than Franklin
11466-689: The religious foundations of the Massachusetts Bay Colony . Edward Winslow also recorded a diary of the first years after the Mayflower 's arrival. " A modell of Christian Charity " by John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, was a Sermon preached on the Arbella (the flagship of the Winthrop Fleet ) in 1630. This work outlined the ideal society that he and the other Separatists would build, in an attempt to realize
11583-479: The river, although the Mississippi defines part of the boundary of each of these states. In all of these cases, the middle of the riverbed at the time the borders were established was used as the line to define the borders between adjacent states. In various areas, the river has since shifted, but the state borders have not changed, still following the former bed of the Mississippi River as of their establishment, leaving several small isolated areas of one state across
11700-466: The sentimental genre, characterized by overindulgence in emotion, an invitation to listen to the voice of reason against misleading passions, as well as an optimistic overemphasis on the essential goodness of humanity. Sentimentalism is often thought to be a reaction against the Calvinistic belief in the depravity of human nature. While many of these novels were popular, the economic infrastructure of
11817-400: The site of the head of navigation of the river. The Upper Mississippi has a number of natural and artificial lakes, with its widest point being Lake Winnibigoshish , near Grand Rapids, Minnesota , over 11 miles (18 km) across. Lake Onalaska , created by Lock and Dam No. 7 , near La Crosse, Wisconsin , is more than 4 miles (6.4 km) wide. Lake Pepin , a natural lake formed behind
11934-532: The state line still follows the old channel. The town of Kaskaskia, Illinois once stood on a peninsula at the confluence of the Mississippi and Kaskaskia (Okaw) Rivers . Founded as a French colonial community, it later became the capital of the Illinois Territory and was the first state capital of Illinois until 1819. Beginning in 1844, successive flooding caused the Mississippi River to slowly encroach east. A major flood in 1881 caused it to overtake
12051-941: The time consisted of pamphlets and writings extolling the benefits of the colonies to both a European and colonial audience. Captain John Smith could be considered the first American author with his works A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Noate as Hath Happened in Virginia ;... (1608) and The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624). Other writers of this genre included Daniel Denton , Thomas Ashe , William Penn , George Percy , William Strachey , Daniel Coxe , Gabriel Thomas, and John Lawson . The religious disputes that prompted settlement in America were important topics of early American literature. A journal written by John Winthrop , The History of New England , discussed
12168-483: The time did not allow these writers to make a living through their writing alone. Charles Brockden Brown is the earliest American novelist whose works are still commonly read. He published Wieland in 1798, and in 1799 published Ormond , Edgar Huntly , and Arthur Mervyn . These novels are of the Gothic genre. The first writer to be able to support himself through the income generated by his publications alone
12285-573: The upper and lower river, the Mississippi is further controlled by thousands of wing dikes that moderate the river's flow in order to maintain an open navigation channel and prevent the river from eroding its banks. The head of navigation on the Mississippi is the St. Anthony Falls Lock. Before the Coon Rapids Dam in Coon Rapids, Minnesota , was built in 1913, steamboats could occasionally go upstream as far as Saint Cloud, Minnesota , depending on river conditions. The uppermost lock and dam on
12402-500: The works of Charles W. Chesnutt (writing about African Americans), of María Ruiz de Burton , one of the earliest Mexican-American novelists to write in English, and in the Yiddish -inflected works of Abraham Cahan . William Dean Howells also represented the realist tradition through his novels, including The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885) and his work as editor of The Atlantic Monthly . Henry James (1843–1916) confronted
12519-479: The world by volume. On average, the Mississippi has 8% the flow of the Amazon River , which moves nearly 7 million cubic feet per second (200,000 m /s) during wet seasons. Before 1900, the Mississippi River transported an estimated 440 million short tons (400 million metric tons) of sediment per year from the interior of the United States to coastal Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. During
12636-401: The young nation, making observations about the relations between American politics, individualism, and community. The political conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired the writings of William Lloyd Garrison and his paper The Liberator , along with poet John Greenleaf Whittier and Harriet Beecher Stowe in her world-famous Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). These efforts were supported by
12753-569: Was Cadwallader Colden (1689–1776), whose book The History of the Five Indian Nations , published in 1727 was one of the first texts published on Iroquois history. Colden also wrote a book on botany, which attracted the attention of Carl Linnaeus , and he maintained a long term correspondence with Benjamin Franklin. In the post-war period, Thomas Jefferson established his place in American literature through his authorship of
12870-1193: Was Washington Irving . He completed his first major book in 1809 titled A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty . Of the picaresque genre, Hugh Henry Brackenridge published Modern Chivalry in 1792–1815; Tabitha Gilman Tenney wrote Female Quixotism: Exhibited in the Romantic Opinions and Extravagant Adventure of Dorcasina Sheldon in 1801; Royall Tyler wrote The Algerine Captive in 1797. Other notable authors include William Gilmore Simms , who wrote Martin Faber in 1833, Guy Rivers in 1834, and The Yemassee in 1835. Lydia Maria Child wrote Hobomok in 1824 and The Rebels in 1825. John Neal wrote Keep Cool in 1817, Logan in 1822, Seventy-Six in 1823, Randolph in 1823, Errata in 1823, Brother Jonathan in 1825, and Rachel Dyer (earliest use of
12987-464: Was "the first Native American novel devoted to the subject of Indian life". A significant event in the development of Native American literature in English came with the awarding of the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 to N. Scott Momaday ( Kiowa tribe) for his novel House Made of Dawn (1968). The Thirteen Colonies have often been regarded as the center of early American literature. However,
13104-479: Was Mather's The Christian Philosopher (1721). The enormous scientific, economic, social, and philosophical, changes of the 18th century, called the Enlightenment , impacted the authority of clergyman and scripture, making way for democratic principles. The increase in population helped account for the greater diversity of opinion in religious and political life, as seen in the literature of this time. In 1670,
13221-500: Was chosen to designate the "true head" of the Mississippi River as a combination of the last four letters of the Latin word for truth ( ver itas ) and the first two letters of the Latin word for head ( ca put ). However, the lake is in turn fed by a number of smaller streams. From its origin at Lake Itasca to St. Louis, Missouri , the waterway's flow is moderated by 43 dams. Fourteen of these dams are located above Minneapolis in
13338-458: Was inspired by his work. Moby-Dick (1851) became not only an adventure tale about the pursuit of a white whale, but also an exploration of obsession, the nature of evil, and human struggle against the elements. It was a critical and commercial failure, as were his subsequent novels. He turned to poetry and did not return to fiction until the short novel Billy Budd , Sailor , which he left unfinished at his death in 1891. In it, Melville dramatizes
13455-464: Was larger than what was published in North America. However, printing was established in the American colonies before it was allowed in most of England. In England, restrictive laws had long confined printing to four locations, where the government could monitor what was published: London, York, Oxford, and Cambridge. Because of this, the colonies ventured into the modern world earlier than their provincial English counterparts. Some American literature of
13572-624: Was predominantly in the naturalist genre. His notable works include McTeague: A Story of San Francisco (1899), The Octopus: A Story of California (1901) and The Pit (1903). Norris along with Hamlin Garland (1860–1940) wrote about the problems of American farmers and other social issues from a naturalist perspective. Garland is best known for his fiction involving hard-working Midwestern farmers. ( Main-Travelled Roads (1891), Prairie Folks (1892), Jason Edwards (1892). ) Edward Bellamy 's utopian novel Looking Backward (1888)
13689-475: Was ultimately successful because male and female literacy rates were increasing at the time. Among the first American novels are Thomas Attwood Digges 's Adventures of Alonso , published in London in 1775 and William Hill Brown 's The Power of Sympathy published in 1789. Brown's novel depicts a tragic love story between siblings who fell in love without knowing they were related. In the next decade, important women writers also published novels. Susanna Rowson
#363636