photo,caption, and citation 1

Snow in New York (1902) by Robert Henri.

This painting by Robert Henri show fresh snow fall in the streets of New York City as you would have seen it in 1902. Robert Henri in this pictures along with the rest of his collection of art is about the beauty in the reality that you see.  It isn't abstract or trying to make you feel something of think differently through colors chosen.  He painted the reality, the scene, that was there in frount of him; realism is all about the reality there, the truth without idealism of any kind.
On a side note; some of the acknowledged painters -that i've seen- during this time studied under Henri.

URL:  http://www.arts.gov/artworks/wp-content/uploads/BetterNY-829x1024.jpg

 Preliminary links and descriptions

http://ncteamericancollection.org/amer_realism.htm 
 Description: Written by Patricia Penrose the article American Realism in 1865-1910 gives details on the realism literature of the time period and references. While also having minor details on the time period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_realism
 Description: The writer is nonspecific but this site give information on realism of America. How it effected the culture and what it brought about and more. Also they have references.
http://faculty.pittstate.edu/~knichols/realist.html
 Description: Writer is someone named Nichol but the one who created the site was Dana Lea. This web page give references for the whole entire period of Realism in practically every aspect.

What I want to know about my topic

While I continue on with this Lit. assignment, I think over the name of the time period and the name of it. Questions begin to develop in my mind guided by one question "What is the Age of Realism?" If I could be more specific it would be described in these following questions:
What event(s) happened to bring upon the age?
 How did it get the name and what does it mean and how did it come about in the usa?
What was it's effect on the country?Why?

What I already know about my topic

Age of realism in american literature; what do I know on this preticular topic?  Uh, nothing.  I know I heard of realism and realist somewhere before, but my mind is a blank as to any helpful information pertaining to the topic.  But if I did learn something about realism it is most likely I learnt it in history class.  I know for a fact that I will be researching it at lenght between the years 1880-1914.  The Civil War was in between that time frame....I think. I'm not sure I'm not so great with dates. So most likely the impact it was gonna have in literature is stuff dealing with Africa Americans right and a lot of polical stuff and racism and the new change of perspective for the U.S. people and economy.  Along that time there was alot of legal matters between businesses and the government, which would explain ecconomic changes. I not entirely sure on anything.

The story behind my topic choice

I don't like lieing.  Whenever I do lie it's because I feel it would be the wisest move in the given situtation. As to go ahead and fabricate a story about the reasoning behind my choice of writing would be under false pretenses. The only reason behind my topic chioce is a flip of a coin. Shortly after seeing my two choices in topics I gather whatever basic research I could mange to extract from the schools computer system; to find which ever topic appears the most riveting.  However, after all that work luck would have it that I would want to do anything else but learn about either topic. When I went home after skimming some other websites on the topic I remained at a deadlock. At that time I got a coin said "Head romanticism, tails realism." Tail prevailed in two out of three, so the age of realism it is.