Hamlin Garland's A Son of the Middle Border, first published in 1917, has always been considered a major American autobiography. Its narrative of prairie life in the 1870s and 1880s is frequently drawn upon by historians, as is its account of radical literary and political movements in the 1880s and 1890s. It has been edited for use in schools, and at one time many midwestern children were as familiar with it as with Franklin's autobiography. The principal approach to the work has been that it is a useful social and personal record, that it informs us about a vanished phase of American life and about the early life of an important literary figure. Although most readers of the book have recognized its holding power as a narrative, the undeniable value of the autobiography as a cultural document has hindered consideration of its themes and form. It is along these lines, however, that I would like to discuss A Son of the Middle Border. Granting its historical relevance, I wish to demonstrate that the book gains an additional permanent interest from its own powerful inner life.

The closing scene of A Son of the Middle Border is a Thanksgiving dinner held by the Garland family at West Salem, Wisconsin, in 1893.