Sherwood Anderson was born in 1876 in Camden, Ohio. In 1884 his family moved to Clyde, the small Ohio town that Winesburg is patterned after. After his mother's death in 1896, be moved to Chicago. He hoped to find better opportunities in the big city, but was unable to find any employment except menial, back-breaking labor; discouraged, he joined the army two years later, serving in the Spanish-American War.

After the war he finished his high school degree in Ohio and. invigorated by travel and education, he moved to Chicago again in 1900. He found employment working in the new field of advertising. In 1907, after marrying a wealthy manufacturer's daughter, he moved to Elyria, Ohio, as president of the Anderson Manufacturing Company. For five years he struggled to keep his business afloat, writing a few poems and some short stories that were of no interest to anyone until later, when...