New book series and magazines were founded in the 1870s and helped to publicize evolutionism. Many popular accounts focused on the ascent of life, still portraying it as a linear development toward humanity. They often used living rather than fossil species to characterize the main stages in the ascent, and stressed the parallel with the development of the embryo (the recapitulation theory). A few key fossils were discovered to boost the case for evolution, including the ancestry of the horse. Both Darwinians and the supporters of Herbert Spencer’s philosophy exploited the technique of the ‘evolutionary epic’ to make their case. But so did the promoters of rival explanations, including the Lamarckians and those who saw progress as the unfolding of a divine plan. Darwinism remained a source of controversy, and the opposition began to increase toward the end of the nineteenth century.

This chapter provides an institutional history of the new modernist studies by attending to the stated goals of significant actors within the shifting matrix of what has counted as modernist studies in the United States over the last quarter century and by tracking the institutional effects of these actors. It relies in part on a method not often used in literary studies: questionnaires were distributed to past Modernist Studies Association presidents, editors of book series, editors of Modernism/modernity, and acquisitions editors. It draws also on both rigorous and relatively casual forms of quantitative analysis. This blended approach is intended to provide a more complete account of the new modernist studies than has previously been offered and a new way to begin answering some fundamental questions: How much influence has the movement had? Where have its effects been felt and how can they be measured? Is new modernist studies more than a brand?