Regionalism and Local Color: a Intellectual Movement and Flourishes in Literature

Regionalism and Local Color was a movement in both the mind and literature during the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. Intellectually the people of this era, especially the South placed a higher priority on regional concerns than national ones, they became more regionally aware. This then reflected in the literature of this era with compositions focusing on differences such as dialects and difference in life style. This distinct style can be seen in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in the distinct differences between the dialogue of the slave Jim to the "educated" people Huck encounters in his adventures down the Mississippi River. Twains explains "In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect, the extremist form of the backwoods Southern-Western dialects; the ordinary 'Pike-Country' dialect; and four modified varieties of this last". In addition, Twain like many authors of this era uses the erroneousness in syntax to define the origins of  his characters .

The Local Color movement enveloped greater areas, from New England to the Mid-West and the South. A dominating theme in the South was the "Lost Cause", the life before the war focusing on how life "might have been". Examples of these stories are Marse Chan by Thomas Nelson Page. Through Marse Chan he told a story about the beauty of the plantation life style, about beautiful Southern women, heroic slave owners and their blissful slaves. Southern writers also wrote about Southern diversity, culture, geography and Southern economy.

Writers of this movement include Kate Chopin, James Lane Allen and E. W. Howe.

(Marse Chan by Thomas Nelson Page)