Charles W. Chesnutt

An item at American Writers Museum

Charles W. Chesnutt explored nuances of African-American culture in the years after the Civil War. In short stories and novels, he acknowledged contradictions in racial identity, describing social hierarchies within the black community and delving into such controversial subjects as "passing" and miscegenation. He also pioneered the use of African-American dialect and folklore, most notably in his short-story collection The Conjure Woman (1899).

Scholar Werner Sollors once wrote that Chesnutt's "complex narrative structures laid bare the tragic, comic, and tragicomic potential of the lives of slaves, former slaves, and their descendants and the ways in which white characters understood, or misunderstood, those lives."

AMERICAN VOICES

An exhibit at American Writers Museum

American writing is distinctive, diverse, and comes in many forms from across the nation. The 100 authors featured here represent the evolution of American writing. Learn more about each writer on the timeline by turning the panels below their portraits. Explore centuries of writing by pulling, turning, and touching the interactive elements on the counter.

This is not meant to be a list of the greatest or most influential writers. Instead, we present authors and works as part of the American story as it grows and changes. Taken together, this rich literary heritage reflects America in all of its complexity: its energy, hope, conflict, disillusionment, and creativity.

American Writers Museum