Theodore Dreiser

Theodore Dreiser was born on the 1871 in a large family.His family was rich before he was born,they had a successful working factory to only loos it in a fire.Theodore spent most of his childhood with his family moving from one place to another trying to reestablish themselves economically.He left home at sixteen year's old to Chicago alone, he supported himself by working odd jobs.After he made some money he attended the University of Indiana only for one year and then returning to Chicago because he felt the city like home and it was glamorous and fun.At the age of twenty-two he started working for a small newspaper Daily Globe in Chicago.Later in his life he will work for other newspapers in  in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Saint Louis, and New York city.In his work as a reporter he would witness the seamier side of life and he the lowest class of people like : Beggars,working poor, robbers and so on.  Dreiser first tried his hand at fiction by writing short stories rather than novels, and the first four short stories that he wrote were published.Based on this he was encouraged to try his hand at writing novels.His first novel was to explain the harsh real life and the people's lust for money by the a fictional female character who came to Chicago poor and becoming famous on Broadway  by manipulating every one who is in her path.Theodore found a company to publish his novel,the novel wouldn't rise to fame that quickly because the publisher wanted Dreiser to change the novel and add more interesting descriptions.But Dreiser refused and the publisher didn't advertise his novel and it sold only 500 copies.Because of this Dreiser had a nervous break down meaning he had headaches, didn't sleep for days and was stressed.Dreiser was about to committee suicide but his brother stopped him and then took him to a sanatorium in White Plains New York.After recovering he started being a editor in a newspaper Butterick's .He eventually managed to purchase one-third of the company so they could  copy his novel Sister Carrie and in it's first year it sold 4500 copies and in it's second it sold over 10.000 copies.And that is how the author Theodore Dreiser rose to fame and sparked a new page and genre in the world's and Americas literature.