| Colonial Period (1607-1765) | Figures: Edward Taylor, Jonathan Edwards, Ben Franklin, Wigglesworth, Bradstreet, Byrd |
| Revolutionary & Early National Period/Age of Reason (1765-1830) | Figures: Bryant, Poe, Brown, Cooper, Irving |
| Romantic Period (1830-1865) | Figures: Bryant, Whitman, Whittier, Poe, Longfellow, Dickinson, Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, Stowe, Melville, Emerson, Thoreau, Holmes |
| Realistic Period (1865-1900) | Figures: Whitman, Lanier, Dickinson, Crane, Robinson, Twain, Howells, James |
| Naturalistic and Symbolistic Period (1900-1930) | Figures: James, Dreiser, London (Natural)
Frost, Pound, Eliot, Stevens, Williams, Cather, Wharton, O'Neil (Symbolistic) |
| Period of Conformity and Criticism (1930-1960) | Figures: Hemingway, Wolfe, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Miller, Ellison, Robinson, Millay, Sandburg, Frost, Eliot, Wilder, O'Neil, Miller, Williams |
| Period of Confessional Self (1960-1989) | Figures: Sexton, Plath, Roethke, Lowell, Styron, Bellow, Updike, Mailer, Albee, Williams |
| Revolutionary Age (1765- 1790) | Figures: Paine, Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison
Works: The Prince of Parthia, The Power of Sympathy, Federalist Papers |
| Federalist Age (1790-1830) | Figures: Bryant, Cooper, Irving |
