Albert Maltz, The Underground Stream

Patrick Chura (University of Akron)

Ed. by Patrick Chura, University of Akron
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1940

Places

United States (Country of Origin; Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Novel

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In December 1936, when Albert Maltz travelled from New York to Detroit to get material for his first novel, the twenty-nine-year-old author was already a prodigy. During the previous four years he had scripted three award-winning protest plays and published one of the most acclaimed short stories of the Depression era, “Man on a Road”, a muckraking exposé that drew attention to a deadly industrial tragedy and prompted a congressional investigation.

Writing a novel was a new challenge for Maltz, but Motor City was a perfect setting for a prose narrative that would dramatize social injustice and political conflict. In the General Motors plants of Detroit and nearby Flint, the New Deal-inspired movement for powerful labour unions was challenging the entrenched forces of profit-driven

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2649 words

Citation: Chura, Patrick. "The Underground Stream". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 November 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41683, accessed 21 November 2024.]

Albert Maltz, The Underground Stream

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