VOICE ONE:
I’m Shirley Griffith.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Tony Riggs with People in America. Today we tell aboutwriter Willa Cather.
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VOICE ONE:
The second half of the nineteeth century brought major changes tothe United States. From its earliest days, America had been anagricultural society. But after the end of the Civil War ineighteen-sixty-five, the country became increasingly industrial. Andas the population grew, America became less unified.
After railroads linked the Atlantic coast with the Pacific coast,the huge middle west of the country was open to settlement. Thepeople who came were almost all from Europe. There were Swedes andNorwegians, Poles and Russians, Bohemians and Germans.
Many of them failed in their new home. Some fled back to theirold homeland. But those who suffered through the freezing wintersand the burning summers and the failed crops became the newpioneers. They were the men and women celebrated by the Americanwriter Willa Cather.
VOICE TWO:
Cather’s best stories are about these pioneers. She told whatthey sought and what they gained. She wrote of their difficultrelations with those who followed. And she developed a way ofwriting, both beautiful and simple, that made her a pioneer too.
For many women in the nineteenth century writing novels was justone of the things they did. For Willa Cather, writing was her life.
VOICE ONE:
Willa Cather was born in the southern state of Virginia ineighteen-seventy-three. At the age of eight, her family moved to thenew state of Nebraska in the middle west. She and Nebraska grew uptogether.
Willa lived in the small town ofRed Cloud. As a child she showed writing ability. And, she washelped by good teachers, who were uncommon in the new frontierstates.
Few women of her time went to a university. Willa Cather,however, went to the University of Nebraska. She wrote for theuniversity literary magazine, among her other activities. Shegraduated from the university in eighteen-ninety-five.
VOICE TWO:
Most American writers of her time looked to the eastern UnitedStates as the cultural center of the country. It was a place whereexciting things were possible. It was an escape from the flatness ofthe land and culture of the middle west.
From eighteen-ninety-six to nineteen-oh-one Cather worked for thePittsburgh Daily Leader newspaper. It was in Pennsylvania, not NewYork, but it was farther east than Nebraska.
Cather began to publish stories and poems in nineteen-hundred.And she became an English teacher in nineteen-oh-one. For fiveyears, she taught English at Pittsburgh Central High School and atnearby Allegheny High School.
She published her first book in nineteen-oh-three. It was a bookof poetry. Two years later she published a book of stories calledThe Troll Garden.
VOICE ONE:
The owner of a New York magazine, S.S. McLure, read her stories.He asked her to come to New York City and work as an editor atMcLure’s Magazine. She was finally in the cultural capital of thecountry. She stayed with the magazine from nineteen-oh-six tonineteen-twelve.
One of the people who influenced her to leave the magazine wasthe American woman writer, Sarah Orne Jewett. Jewett advised Catherto write only fiction and to deal with the places and characters sheknew best. Jewett said it was the only way to write anything thatwould last.
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VOICE TWO:
In nineteen-twelve Willa Cather published her first novel,Alexander’s Bridge. By that time, Cather had enough faith in herselfto leave magazine work and use all her time to write fiction. Sheremembered Jewett’s advice and turned to the land and people sheknew best, the farmers of the Middle West.
In Red Cloud she had lived among Bohemians, French-Canadians,Germans, Scandinavians, and other immigrants. She saw that themixture of all these new Americans produced a new society.
“There was nothing but land,” she wrote. “Not a country at all,but the material out of which countries are made.” It was thismaterial she used to create her books.
VOICE ONE:
Like all good writers, she wanted her novels to show the worldshe described, not just tell about it. Later in her life, shedescribed the way she wrote. She called it “novels withoutfurniture.” What she meant was that she removed from her novelseverything that was not necessary to tell the story. Fiction in thenineteenth century was filled with social detail. It had pages ofdescription and comments by the author. Cather did not write thisway. She looked to the past for her ideas, but she drew from thepresent for her art.
A year after Alexander’s Bridge, Cather published her secondnovel. It was the first of her books to take place in the MiddleWest. It is called O Pioneers. It established her as one of the bestwriters of her time.
O Pioneers tells the story of the first small groups ofBohemians, Czechs, French, Russians, and Swedes who set about toconquer the land. Cather said they acted as if they were a naturalforce, as strong or stronger than Nature. She said they were peoplewho owned the land for a little while because they loved it.
“Spring, summer, autumn, winter, spring,” Cather wrote. “Alwaysthe same field…trees…lives.”
VOICE TWO:
Cather’s heroes are pioneers, settlers of unknown or unclaimedland. They also are pioneers of the human spirit.
They are, Cather said, the people who would dream great railroadsacross the continent. Yet she saw something more in them. It wassomething permanent within a world of continuous change. A sense oforder in what appeared to be disorder.
In Cather’s mind, her writings about the Middle West, her prairieyears, became a way to show approval of the victory of traditionalvalues against countless difficulties. The fight to remain human andin love with life in spite of everything gives the people in herstories purpose and calm.
VOICE ONE:
Willa Cather continued to write about these new pioneers in TheSong of the Lark in nineteen-fifteen. She followed that with thenovel that many consider her best, My Antonia. (PRON:An-tone-ee-ya).
By the nineteen-twenties, however, her stories began to change.She saw more defeats, fewer victories. She began to write — notabout great dreams — but about the smallness of man’s vision. Shemourned for the loss of values others would never miss.
Willa Cather never married. She began living with another womanfrom Nebraska in nineteen-oh-eight. They lived together until Catherdied.
In nineteen-twenty-two, Cather suffered a nervous breakdown. Anumber of things caused her condition. Her health was not good. Shewas unhappy with her publisher. And, she was angry about the changesin society brought by new technology.
In nineteen-twenty-three, Cather wrote the last of her Nebraskanovels, A Lost Lady. Two years later she produced another novel, TheProfessor’s House. It was clear by then that she was moving in adifferent direction.
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VOICE TWO:
Her next two novels, Death Comes for the Archbishop, and Shadowsin the Rock, take place in the distant past. They are stories aboutheroic failure. Death Comes for the Archbishop takes place in theAmerican Southwest in the sixteenth century. It describes theexperiences of two priests who are sent to what became New Mexico.The action is in the past. But the place is one that Cather feltalways would remain the same — the deserts of the AmericanSouthwest.
Where her earlier books described a person’s search for solidground, these books describe the solid ground itself. They came froma deep unhappiness with modern life.
VOICE ONE:
Although Cather turned away from modern life, she was very much amodern writer. Her writing became increasingly important to a newgroup of writers — Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and JohnDos Passos.
Near the end of her life she wrote: “Nothing really matters butliving. Get all you can out of it. I am an old woman, and I know.Sometimes people disappoint us. And sometimes we disappointourselves. But the thing is to go right on living.”
Willa Cather went right on living until the age of seventy-four.She died in nineteen-forty-seven.
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VOICE TWO:
This Special English program was written by Richard Thorman. I’mTony Riggs.
VOICE ONE:
And I’m Shirley Griffith. Join us again next week for anotherPeople in America program on the Voice of America.