The ninth of ten surviving children, Dreiser grew up in an impoverished household in Terre Haute, but lived most of his adult life in New York City. One of the most important literary figures of the first decade of the twentieth century, Theodore Dreiser, was born in 1871. Much of his career was spent in journalism, including a period working for the Pittsburgh Dispatch. He would become best known for his massive novels, including An American Tragedy (1925),Jennie Gerhardt (1911), and Sister Carrie (1900). Dreiser died in 1945.
Dreiser was a naturalistic author who was instrumental in promoting a realistic portrayal of life in America. He was not afraid to write about sexual matters and social injustice. Two of his most well-known novels, Sister Carrie(1900) and An American Tragedy (1925), depicted characters who were motivated by their selfish impulses, not by their sense of ethics. These novels were met with much controversy by his conservative contemporaries.
St. Columba and the River
Dreiser’s short story St. Columba and the River was initially published under the title “Glory Be! McGlathery” in 1925 before being published in 1927 in Dreiser’s Chains: Lesser Novels and Stories.
The initial source for “St. Columba and the River” was an article Dreiser wrote in 1904 for the United Press, “Just What Happened When the Waters of the Hudson Broke into the North River Tunnel.”
The setting is the North River (the earlier name for the Hudson River) Tunnel Works and the surrounding neighborhood in downtown New York in the late 1880’s, as per articles about the disaster and Dreiser’s own retrospective account..
The plot of the story was as follows: An Irish-Catholic immigrant, Dennis McGlathery, is hired by his “fellow churchman,” Thomas Cavanaugh, to dig a tunnel under the Hudson River. Three times the powerful river destroys the tunnel and drowns the “sandhogs,” despite the introduction of improved tunneling mechanisms. McGlathery himself survives each disaster. Cavanaugh sacrifices his own life with courage that both frightens and inspires McGlathery. Encouraged by Cavanaugh’s example, McGlathery plugs a leak with his own body before being blown out of the tunnel up to the river’s surface, thus concluding his tunneling career as a hero.
Adapted from Drieserworks blog
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