MainTraveled Roads Author:Hamlin Garland Hamlin Garland — Main-Travelled Roads — This book challenges the concept of the American dream. It reveals the stubborn courage and pessimistic wit of midwest farmers who are scarcely conscious that they are somewhat to blame for their own misfortunes. Inspired by a visit to the Dakota farm country of his youth, Hamlin Garland's Main-Traveled Road... more »s depicts the half-resigned, half-rebellious men and women who work the arid soil for the profit of shrewd landowners. These characters share a sense of deprivation, losing their farms, loved ones, and faith in people-with such recurrence that they feel guilt at even their own occasional, belated successes. "If anyone is still at a loss to account for that uprising of the farmers in the West which is the translation of the Peasants' War inot modern and republican terms, let him read Main-Travelled Roads..." W.D. Howells