Local Color / Naturalism: Literature of the 1890s

If you need to know anything about literature in the 1890s, it's contained in 2 terms:

Local Color & Naturalism

We've discussed local color in regards to Chesnutt and Chopin----a new world of small places and formerly underrepresented perspectives all finally getting attention at the turn of the century... women, racial minorities, etc.

Now that you're familiar with it, you might ask yourself: What is the style of Local Color? What is its literary flavor, so to speak? And what does it tell us about the direction of American literature into the 20th C. and beyond?

However, Naturalism is a bit different....