A Review of Hamlin Garland's book: "A Son of the Middle Border"
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Date Published: April 3, 2025
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"We are fortunate in having in this book, Hamlin Garland's "A Son of the Middle Border," a permanent record, attractive, and clear-sightedly written, of the life of those individualistic, self-reliant native farming folk, who played by far the greatest part in the upbuilding of our western territory."
Theodore Roosevelt, The Des Moines Register, September 15, 1917
A Review of “A Son of the Middle Border” by Hamlin Garland
- Reviews of the Day: 1917
- Selected Insights and Excerpts from “A Son of the Middle Border” by Garland
- This Author’s Thoughts on “A Son of the Middle Border” by Garland
Reviews of the Day: 1917
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A Son of the Middle Border written by Hamlin Garland was initially released in late 1917. It is an autobiography—a historical non-fiction, that captures the first thirty years of the author’s life as a member of a family who always sought out the United States of America’s “Middle Border,” which the author describes as an area only “bounded on the west by The Plains with their Indians and buffalo.”
This was a “border” that moved constantly westward and the theme of those who moved with it was, “If your crop fails, go west and try a new soil; if disagreeable neighbors surround you, sell out and move toward open country; to remain quietly in your native place is a sign of weakness, of irresolution. … Wealth and fame are to be found by journeying toward the sunset star.” |
Portraits of Hamlin Garland from 1886 and 1922.
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Driven by their father, this author’s family moved five times in a constant pursuit of “wealth and fame.” His family’s future was in following the “sunset star.” Here are a few of the book reviews found in the newspapers at the time of the first release of this book:
On October 6, 1917, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle wrote in its review of A Son of the Middle Border entitled “Hamlin Garland Tells His Story,” that the book “paints with sure hand the rigor and hardships of seed time, as well as the compelling beauty of harvest time. The writer tells of driving a plough all day long—sunrise to sunset, at ten years of age. … The entire book seems to be summed up in one sentence as the real victory of Mr. Garlands life at the age of thirty years was to finally provide ‘a safe harbor for his father and mother.’ ”
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On August 26, 1917, The New York Times published a two-page review of Hamlin Garland’s A Son of the Middle Border written by William Dean Howells. These are only a few short excerpts from a very full, two-pages of insights by W. D. Howells:
“In all the region of autobiography, so far as I know it, I do not know quite the like of Mr. Garland’s story of his life, and I should rank it with the very greatest of that kind in literature. … He pours himself out in a tide which gathers into it the kindred and neighbors’ lives, and reflects the chart of the shores about it and the skies above it. … It is a psychological synthesis of personal and general conditions in a new country, such as has not got into literature before. … |
An advertisement in late 1917 for
“A Son of the Middle Border.” |
“Here country life is shown as it is, or was, in the course of building an empire. The toll of it, early and late, in heat and cold: the filth of it among the cattle and horses, the helpless squalor and insult of it in the unwashed bodies of the men reeking with the sweat of the harvest fields, and served in their steam and stench at the table where the hapless women wearily put their meat and drink before them. There are facts which have not been confessed or even suggested before. …
“As you read the story of Hamlin Garland’s life you realize in it the memorial of a generation, of a whole order of American experience; as you review it you perceive it as an epic of such mood and make as has not been imagined before.”
“As you read the story of Hamlin Garland’s life you realize in it the memorial of a generation, of a whole order of American experience; as you review it you perceive it as an epic of such mood and make as has not been imagined before.”
Selected Insights and Excerpts from “A Son of the Middle Border ” by Hamlin Garland
In its review of A Son of the Middle Border on September 9, 1917, The Oregon Sunday Journal included an interview with the book's author: Hamlin Garland. The author offered the following insights:
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“It is not in any degree an attempt to describe the west as others saw it. It is only my faithful transcript of the way it appeared to me.
“Part of it is the illusory world of childhood, part of it the highly romantic realm of youth. … I picture my uncles and my father’s companions not as they appeared to their neighbors but only as they revealed themselves to me. … “It is a book of small, homely things. Nothing is so vital as the heartaches and longings of the fireside, and nothing so quickly dead as political campaigns; therefore, the reader will find in this book little reference to ‘issues.’ “I took deep pleasure—an illogical delight, in reconstructing this vanished world.” |
This is a graphic rendering of Hamlin Garland’s father returning home from the Civil War. It sets the timeframe of this book 1864–96.
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- A Perspective on the Life of a Wife and Mother on the Middle Border
“Although a constantly improving collection of farm machinery lightened the burdens of the husbandman, the drudgery of the house-wife’s dish washing and cooking did not correspondingly lessen. I fear it increased, for with the widening of the fields came the doubling of the harvest hands, and my mother continued to do most of the housework herself: cooking, sewing, washing, churning, and nursing the sick from time to time.
“No one in trouble ever sent for Isabelle Garland [the author’s mother] in vain, and I have many recollections of neighbors riding up in the night and calling for her with agitated voices. … Even on Sunday, when we were free for a part of the day, she was required to furnish forth three meals, and to help Frank and Jessie dress for church.
“Overtime, she began to sing less and less, and the songs we loved were seldom referred to. If I could only go back for one little hour and take her in my arms and tell her how much I owe her for those grinding days.”
“No one in trouble ever sent for Isabelle Garland [the author’s mother] in vain, and I have many recollections of neighbors riding up in the night and calling for her with agitated voices. … Even on Sunday, when we were free for a part of the day, she was required to furnish forth three meals, and to help Frank and Jessie dress for church.
“Overtime, she began to sing less and less, and the songs we loved were seldom referred to. If I could only go back for one little hour and take her in my arms and tell her how much I owe her for those grinding days.”
- The Effect on Family of “Following the Middle Border” Westward
“The border line had moved on, and my indomitable Dad was moving with it. … It was a very touching and beautiful moment to me, for as I looked around upon that little group of men and women, rough-handed, bent and worn with toil, silent and shadowed with the sorrow of parting, I realized as never before the high place my parents had won in the estimation of their neighbors.
“It affected me still more deeply to see my father stammer and flush with uncontrollable emotion. I had thought the event deeply important before, but I now perceived that our going was all of a piece with the West’s elemental restlessness. I could not express what I felt then, and I can recover but little of it now, but the pain which filled my throat comes back to me mixed with a singular longing to relive it.”
“It affected me still more deeply to see my father stammer and flush with uncontrollable emotion. I had thought the event deeply important before, but I now perceived that our going was all of a piece with the West’s elemental restlessness. I could not express what I felt then, and I can recover but little of it now, but the pain which filled my throat comes back to me mixed with a singular longing to relive it.”
This Author’s Thoughts on “A Son of the Middle Border ” by Hamlin Garland
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A highly recommended read for anyone that wants to read a “historical non-fiction” rather than a “historical fiction.” A Son of the Middle Border is filled with all the tenderness, complexity of emotion, and true facts of living in the late 19th Century America and the pains of moving “out west.”
Although written in the form of an autobiography, it is hard to remember that as the scenes unfold with such completeness of insight into the feelings of the author and those he loved most in this world: father, mother, sister, brothers, uncles and aunts. I read this book because of Mark Sullivan’s reference to it in his wonderful review of American in the first quarter of the 20th Century entitled, “Our Times.” Mark Sullivan reviewed “A Son of the Middle Border” as follows: |
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“The most beautifully done of these epics of the free-land era is in Hamlin Garland's ‘Son of the Middle Border,’ in which he traces the migrations of his own family from Maine to Wisconsin to Iowa, to North Dakota, and some to Southern California.
“The ‘Son of the Middle Border’ not only is one of the fine American books of its time in all respects; as an intimate, a sometimes poignantly personal, story of a typical American family that made two of these migrations in one generation—as such, it is the truest and best of histories.”
“The ‘Son of the Middle Border’ not only is one of the fine American books of its time in all respects; as an intimate, a sometimes poignantly personal, story of a typical American family that made two of these migrations in one generation—as such, it is the truest and best of histories.”
Teddy Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States and a voracious reader himself, wrote the following about Garland’s book:
“There is in the earlier chapters a study of the most typical phase of American life from the forties to the eighties of the last century. These decades included the final period of great territorial expansion within the United States.
“The Garlands and their associates were of the best old American stock, from the eastern states. They had settled in Wisconsin prior to the birth of the author … but kept moving with the pioneer restlessness which so often in the end defeated its own purpose. … We are fortunate in having in this book a permanent record, attractive, and clear-sightedly written, of the life of those individualistic, self-reliant native farming folk, who played by far the greatest part in the upbuilding of our western territory. …
“We are fortunate that it has been written”
“The Garlands and their associates were of the best old American stock, from the eastern states. They had settled in Wisconsin prior to the birth of the author … but kept moving with the pioneer restlessness which so often in the end defeated its own purpose. … We are fortunate in having in this book a permanent record, attractive, and clear-sightedly written, of the life of those individualistic, self-reliant native farming folk, who played by far the greatest part in the upbuilding of our western territory. …
“We are fortunate that it has been written”
In 1921–22, four years after the publication of this book, Hamlin Garland won the Pulitzer Prize for a new work on the western pioneers: A Daughter of the Middle Border.
As I was reading this work, I thought of my own grandmother who fled to America so she could avoid an arranged Austrian-Hungarian marriage to marry her sweetheart of a supposedly low birth. She too—like the Garland clan, went to Wisconsin. The journey to this country from the old world, though, cost my grandmother the life of her first-born—a son who died in her arms as she traveled on the train from New York to Wisconsin in about the same timeframe as the story in this book.
Those who have family who emigrated from the old country in the early days, or those who had relatives who moved west in the search of a better life, may want to read this autobiography to understand that it wasn’t all glorious but, like the ending in this book, if we live in Americana today, our lives most likely ended well like the mother and father of Hamlin Garland—although, not in the way he, his father, or his mother expected.
It ended well … but back where they started their journey from.
Not so far "out west!"
Cheers,
- Peter E.
As I was reading this work, I thought of my own grandmother who fled to America so she could avoid an arranged Austrian-Hungarian marriage to marry her sweetheart of a supposedly low birth. She too—like the Garland clan, went to Wisconsin. The journey to this country from the old world, though, cost my grandmother the life of her first-born—a son who died in her arms as she traveled on the train from New York to Wisconsin in about the same timeframe as the story in this book.
Those who have family who emigrated from the old country in the early days, or those who had relatives who moved west in the search of a better life, may want to read this autobiography to understand that it wasn’t all glorious but, like the ending in this book, if we live in Americana today, our lives most likely ended well like the mother and father of Hamlin Garland—although, not in the way he, his father, or his mother expected.
It ended well … but back where they started their journey from.
Not so far "out west!"
Cheers,
- Peter E.