Dreiser wrote successfully for years as a newspaper reporter. Yet readers appreciated his stories not for their exact reporting of the events, but for their relating of personal impressions about people, places, and happenings. Dreiser grew to understand that providing his readers with realistic impressions was his strength and began to cultivate it. When critics read his early fiction, they did not at first appreciate his truthful portrayal of life in America. Only later did they applaud this in Dreiser's writing. Critics did, however, immediately praise his sensitivity and viewed it as a powerful storytelling tool. While reviewers did not particularly like his style of writing, they did like the content.

The very characteristic that disturbed the public about Sister Carrie when the book first came out is the same characteristic that critics now recognize as a strength in Dreiser's work. That characteristic is Dreiser's realistic...