Chicago and war

Early life

Sherwood Berton Anderson was born on September 13, 1876 in Camden, Ohio, a farming town with a population of around 650 (according to the 1870 census).^[4] He was the third of seven children born to former Union soldier and harness-maker Irwin McLain and Emma Jane Anderson (née Smith). Considered reasonably well-off financially—Anderson's father was seen as an up-and-comer by his Camden contemporaries,^[4] the family left town just before Sherwood's first birthday. Reasons for the departure are uncertain; most biographers note rumors of debts incurred by either Irwin^[5][6] or his brother Benjamin.^[4] The Andersons headed north to Caledonia by way of a brief stay in a village of a few hundred called Independence (now Butler). Four^[7] or five^[8] years were spent in Caledonia, years which formed Anderson's earliest memories. This period later inspired his semi-autobiographical novel Tar: A Midwest Childhood (1926).^[9] In Caledonia Anderson's father began drinking excessively, which led to financial difficulties, eventually causing the family to leave the town.^[9]

With each move, Irwin Anderson's prospects dimmed; while in Camden he was the proprietor of a successful shop who had an assistant, by the time the Andersons finally settled down in Clyde, Ohio in 1884, a frontier town, Irwin could only get work as a hired man to harness manufacturers.^[10] That job was short-lived, and for the rest of Sherwood Anderson's childhood, his father barely supported the family as an occasional sign-painter and paperhanger, while his mother took in washing to make ends meet.^[11] Partly as a result of these misfortunes, young Sherwood became adept at finding various odd jobs to help his family, earning the nickname "Jobby".^[12][13]

Though he was a decent student, Anderson attendance declined as he began picking up work, and he finally left school for good at age 14 after about nine months of high school.^[14][15] From the time he began to cut school to the time he left town, Anderson worked as a "...newsboy, errand boy, waterboy, cow-driver, stable groom, and perhaps printer's devil, not to mention assistant to Irwin Anderson, Sign Painter..."^[14] in addition to assembling bicycles for the Elmore Manufacturing Company.^[16] Even in his teens, Anderson's talent for selling was evident (he would later draw on it in a successful career in advertising). As a newsboy he was said to have convinced a tired farmer in a saloon to buy two copies of the same evening paper.^[13] With the exception of work, Anderson's childhood resembled that of other boys his age.

In addition to participating in local events and spending time with his friends, Anderson was a voracious reader. Though there were only a few books in the Anderson home (The Pilgrim's Progress and the Complete Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson among them),^[14] the youth read widely by borrowing from the school library (there was not a public library in Clyde until 1903), and the personal libraries of a school superintendent and John Tichenor, a local artist, who responded to Anderson's interest.^[17]

By Anderson's 18th year in 1895, his family was on shaky ground. His father had started to disappear for weeks on end prior to that year,^[18] Karl (Sherwood's elder brother) had left Clyde for Chicago in 1893,^[19] and Sherwood boarded at the Harvey & Yetter's livery stable where he worked as a groom - an experience that would translate into several of his best-known stories.^[20][21] On May 10, 1895, his mother succumbed to tuberculosis. (Irwin Anderson died in 1919 after having been estranged from his son for two decades).^[22] Anderson had signed up with the Ohio National Guard for a five-year term in March 1895,^[23] was going steady with an attractive girl (Bertha Baynes, possibly the inspiration for Helen White in Winesburg, Ohio),^[24] and working a secure job at the bicycle factory, but it was his mother's death that precipitated the young man's leaving Clyde.^[22] He settled in Chicago around late 1896^[25][26] or spring/summer 1897, having worked a few small-town factory jobs along the way.^[27]

Chicago and war

Finding a place to stay in Chicago was not as difficult for Anderson as it was for many others arriving in Chicago around the same time. In fact, the former mayor of Clyde and his family ran a boardinghouse in the city where Anderson's brother Karl (then studying at the Art Institute) already lived. Anderson moved in with his brother and quickly found a job at a cold-storage plant.^[28] In late 1897, Karl moved away, and Anderson relocated to a two-room flat with his sister and two younger brothers newly come from Clyde.^[29] Money was tight (Anderson earned "two dollars for a day of ten hours"),^[30] but with occasional support from Karl, they got by. Following the example of his Clyde confederate and lifelong friend Cliff Paden (later to become known as John Emerson) and Karl, Anderson took up the idea of furthering his education by enrolling in night school at the Lewis Institute.^[31] He attended several classes regularly including "New Business Arithmetic" earning marks that placed him second in the class.^[32] It was also there that Anderson heard lectures on Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, and was possibly first introduced to the poetry of Walt Whitman.^[31] Soon, however, Anderson's first stint in Chicago would come to an end as the United States prepared to enter the Spanish-American War.

Though poor in Chicago, Anderson bought a new suit on the way back to Clyde to join his Company.^[33] Once back home, the Company was fêted by the ladies of Clyde before officially enlisting (sans six men who returned to Clyde) into the new federal army at Camp Bushnell, Ohio on May 12, 1898.^[34] Several months of training followed at various southern encampments until early in 1899 when the Company finally made its way to Cuba four months after fighting had stopped. Another four months later, on April 21, 1899, they left Cuba having seen no danger.^[35] According to Irving Howe, "Sherwood was popular among his army comrades, who remembered him as a fellow given to prolonged reading, mostly in dime westerns and historical romances, and talented at finding a girl when he wanted one. For the first of these traits he was frequently teased, but the second brought him the respect it usually does in armies."^[36]

After the war, Anderson spent a few months back in Clyde doing agricultural work before deciding that in order to advance in life he would need to once again go back to school.^[37] So in September 1899 Anderson joined his siblings Karl and Stella in Springfield, Ohio where, at the age of twenty-three, he enrolled in what amounted to a senior year of high school at the Wittenberg Academy, a preparatory school located on the campus of the Wittenberg University. In his three terms there during the years 1899-1900, Anderson did quite well earning mostly A's in a variety of subjects and participating in several extracurricular activities including a debate club, called the Athenian Literary Society.^[38] In the spring of 1900 Anderson graduated from the Academy, offering a discourse on "Zionism" as one of the eight students chosen to give a commencement speech.^[39]

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