Soon after Sherwood Anderson (September 13, 1876 - March 8, 1941) was born in Camden, Ohio his father moved the family to Caledonia and then, in 1884, to Clyde, Ohio, the purported site for the fictional town of Winesburg, Ohio. Anderson struggled with life at home as his father, a Union veteran and once promising businessman, spiraled downward to freelance work as a sign painter and unemployed alcoholic. He worked to help support his family and capitalized on his innate gifts as a salesman, leading him to success in the fields of advertising and copywriting. His white collar career took its toll, however, and after moves to Chicago, Cleveland and Elyria, Ohio, he suffered a nervous breakdown that has become a signifier in Anderson mythology. Was it truly a breakdown brought on by overwork and alienation, or was it a voluntary display of insanity to ease his way out of one career and into another?

Anderson published three works between 1915 and 1919, the third being Winesburg, Ohio, which brought him some recognition. He continued to write novels, stories, poems, and essays for the rest of his adult life. He married three times, and generously assisted both Hemingway and Faulkner in their first attempts to be published. Anderson died in 1941 in Colon, Panama, during a cruise to South America. The autopsy noted gastrointestinal damage due to the inadvertent ingestion of a toothpick.