Dreiser, Theodore

Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945), American novelist, was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, and attended Indiana University. He began his writing career as a newspaperman, working in Chicago, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh. His first novel, Sister Carrie (1900), was purchased by a publisher who thought it objectionable and made little effort to promote its sale. With the publication of The Financier in 1912, he was able to give up newspaper work and devote himself to writing. He became known as one of the principal exponents of American naturalism, and in 1944, he was awarded the Merit Medal for Fiction by