Anderson was born on September 13, 1876, in Camden, Ohio. In his early years, his large family moved frequently and struggled with poverty. When Anderson was eight, the family settled in Clyde, Ohio, the small town that became the model for his famous book Winesburg, Ohio and the setting for many of his other writings. From a young age, Anderson was an ambitious, responsible, and enterprising fellow.

At the age of nineteen, Anderson left Clyde for Chicago, where he worked as a laborer and fell in love with the city. For the rest of his life, he would always be torn between the excitement of life in the big city and the charms of small-town life.

Anderson served in the Army during the Spanish- American War and then studied at Wittenberg Academy for a year before returning to Chicago to work as an advertising copywriter. After twelve years...