The Utopian Tradition.

During the 1880s and 1890s Utopian literature enjoyed an American renaissance. Imaginary worlds (some of them appealing, some horrific) cropped up in novels such as Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888), Ignatius Donnelly's Caesar's Column (1890), Henry Olerich's A Cityless and Countryless World (1893), King Gillette's The Human Drift (1894), and William Dean Howells's A Traveler from Altruria (1894). In appropriating the Utopian form American authors tapped a well-established tradition. The word Utopia—a Greek term meaning either "no place" or "ideal place"—first entered the literary lexicon in 1516, when the British author Sir Thomas More (1477 or 1478-1535) published a political fantasy titled Utopia. Later British works in the Utopian vein include Francis Bacon's New Atlantis (1627) and Samuel Butler's Erewhon (1872).

Beyond Escapism.

Overwhelmed by rapid change—fast-growing cities, financial "panics," unprecedented industrial growth—Americans of the late nineteenth century were eager to imagine alternate...