Includes index.

An economic history of the United States 1900-1950 -- The changing status of women 1900-1950 -- The status of African Americans 1900-1950 -- Pragmatism, power, and the politics of aesthetic experience -- Class and sex in American fiction: from casual laborers to accidental desires -- Jazz: from the gutter to the mainstream -- French visual humanisms and the American style -- Early literary modernism -- Naturalism: turn-off-the-century modernism -- Money and things ...

One objective of this companion is to reflect the directions of such new scholarship: not only do many of the essays propose fresh description of familiar novels of the period. This collection brings together established literary scholars who have set new agendas in the study of modern American novel.