SOURCE: Lieberman, Elias. “The Point of Contact Between the Short Story and Locality,” and “Locality as a Factor.” In The American Short Story: A Study of the Influence of Locality in its Development, pp. 14-23, 158-68. Ridgewood, NJ: The Editor Company, 1912.

In the following essay, Lieberman underscores the importance of setting to the overall effect of a short story, asserting that location is “the most typically American” element.

Now that we have considered the forces that determine localities and types of men and women we are prepared to go a step further. What is the point of contact between the locality and the short story as an art form? Is the localization of a story an essential or a non-essential process? What is gained by giving the characters of our fiction a “local habitation and a name”?

The short-story writer if he is an artist desires to create...