Van Wyck Brooks (1886–1963) was an influential American literary critic, biographer, and historian whose work profoundly shaped the study of American literature in the twentieth century. Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, Brooks graduated from Harvard University in 1908. He emerged as a key figure in cultural criticism with his 1915 book America's Coming-of-Age, in which he argued that American society was divided between the intellectual 'highbrow' and the practical 'lowbrow,' urging for a more integrated national culture.
Throughout his career, Brooks focused on identifying and constructing a 'usable past' for American writers. His most monumental achievement was Finders and Makers (1936–1952), a five-volume history of the writer in America during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first volume of this series, The Flowering of New England, 1815–1865, was highly acclaimed and won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1937. Through his extensive biographies and critical essays, Brooks helped establish American literature as a distinct and prestigious field of academic study.
