The strangest of coincidence seemed to him to be the origin of a powerful, arbitrary, interfering fate. In the figure of Paul, Theodore found the concept of fortune in the affairs of men. The boy dreamed especially of Chicago, the magic city where young men and women of the Midwest sought their fortunes.Īppearing after a four-year absence, dressed in silk hat and fur coat, the oldest brother Paul, now a successful song writer, returned to lift the family out of its poverty.

Passenger trains heading for Santa Fe, San Francisco, Denver, and Chicago fired his imagination of faraway places. He learned much from nature, perceiving in it many analogies to human life. Free now from the stern wrath of his father, Theodore roamed the open fields and played along the waterways and streams of Evansville, Indiana. The three youngest children, including Theodore, went with the mother. In 1879 it was decided that the family should split up. As a product of these conditions, Dreiser was possessed of a furious energy, a determination to succeed, and an unalterable will. The father's religious fanaticism, the mother's abiding tenderness, and the family's unbearable poverty worked together in shaping the young Dreiser. Sarah Dreiser was eager to be helpful and stood by to aid any child with whom the father was angry. Quiet by nature, sympathetic and gentle, she was nonetheless endowed with endless strength and patience. Even as an infant, Theodore learned the difficult lessons of poverty, chance, and morality.ĭreiser's mother, in contrast to the stern religious fanaticism of the father, was full of tender sentiment and not subject to his adamant morality. Forever on guard to preserve the virtue of his children and to pay off his debts lest he die owing money, he became an unbearable despot and led the family into near beggary.

Always a devout and orthodox Roman Catholic, he grew increasingly fanatical in his concern for salvation. The elder Dreiser was unable to secure employment to support his large family. While he convalesced, his wife was cheated out of the remainder of the family property by creditors. John Paul Dreiser, the father, was crippled shortly after his weaving mill had burned down. Just before Theodore's birth, a series of misfortunes had struck the family, rendering them penniless. Dreiser's father had come from Germany twenty-five years before and through hard work became a man of wealth and position. Born August 27, 1871, Theodore Dreiser was the second youngest of a family of ten children.

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