Sherwood Berton Anderson was born on September 13, 1876, at 142 S. Lafayette Street in Camden, Ohio,[2] a farming town with a population of around 650 (according to the 1870 census).

[3] He was the third of seven children born to Emma Jane (née Smith) and former Union soldier and harness-maker Irwin McLain Anderson.

Considered reasonably well-off financially, Anderson's father was seen as an up-and-comer by his Camden contemporaries,[3] but the family left town just before Sherwood's first birthday.

[8] In Caledonia Anderson's father began drinking excessively, which led to financial difficulties, eventually causing the family to leave the town.

[9] That job was short-lived, and for the rest of Sherwood Anderson's childhood, his father barely supported the family as an occasional sign-painter and paperhanger, while his mother took in washing to make ends meet.

[10] Partly as a result of these misfortunes, young Sherwood became adept at finding various odd jobs to help his family, earning the nickname "Jobby".

[13][14] From the time he began to cut school to the time he left town, Anderson worked as a "newsboy, errand boy, waterboy, cow-driver, stable groom, and perhaps printer's devil, not to mention assistant to Irwin Anderson, Sign Painter",[13] in addition to assembling bicycles for the Elmore Manufacturing Company.

Sherwood, now essentially on his own, boarded at the Harvey & Yetter's livery stable where he worked as a groom—an experience that would translate into several of his best-known stories.

Following the example of his Clyde confederate and lifelong friend Cliff Paden (later to become known as John Emerson) and Karl, Anderson took up the idea of furthering his education by enrolling in night school at the Lewis Institute.

[34] According to Irving Howe, "Sherwood was popular among his army comrades, who remembered him as a fellow given to prolonged reading, mostly in dime westerns and historical romances, and talented at finding a girl when he wanted one.

[37] In particular, a high school teacher named Trillena White and a businessman Harry Simmons played a role in the author's life.

More importantly, according to Anderson, she "first introduced me to fine literature"[38] and would later serve as inspiration for a number of his characters including the teacher Kate Swift in Winesburg, Ohio.

[51] While his new job, which amounted to the position of sales manager, could be stressful[52] the happy home life Cornelia had fostered in Chicago continued in Cleveland; "his wife and he entertained frequently.

The strain from months of answering hundreds of these letters while continuing his demanding schedule at work and home led to a nervous breakdown in the summer of 1907 and eventually his departure from the company.

[54] His failure in Cleveland did not delay him for long, however, because in September 1907, the Andersons moved to Elyria, Ohio, a town of approximately ten thousand residents, where he rented a warehouse within sight of the railroad and began a mail-order business selling (at a markup of 500%) a preservative paint called "Roof-Fix".

Four days later, on Sunday, December 1, a disoriented Anderson entered a drug store on East 152nd Street in Cleveland and asked the pharmacist to help figure out his identity.

Unable to make out what the incoherent Anderson was saying, the pharmacist discovered a phone book on his person and called the number of Edwin Baxter, a member of the Elyria Chamber of Commerce.

Despite news reports in the Elyria Evening Telegram and the Cleveland Press following his admittance into the hospital that ascribed the cause of the breakdown to "overwork" and that mentioned Anderson's inability to remember what happened,[65] on December 6 the story changed.

The Evening Telegram reported (possibly spuriously)[66] that "As soon as he recovers from the trance into which he placed himself, Sherwood Anderson ... will write a book of the sensations he experienced while he wandered over the country as a nomad.

"[67] This same sense of personal agency is alluded to 30 years later in Sherwood Anderson's Memoirs (1942) where the author wrote of his thought process before walking out: "I wanted to leave, get away from business.

It was known to his wife, secretary, and some business associates that for several years Anderson had been working on personal writing projects both at night and occasionally in his office at the factory.

[71] While diagnoses for the four days of Anderson's wanderings have ranged from "amnesia" to "lost identity" to "nervous breakdown", his condition is generally characterized today as a "fugue state.

"[72][73][74] Anderson himself described the episode as "escaping from his materialistic existence,"[citation needed] and was admired for his action by many young male writers who chose to be inspired by him.

[78] "Instead of emphasizing plot and action, Anderson used a simple, precise, unsentimental style to reveal the frustration, loneliness, and longing in the lives of his characters.

[80] Beginning in 1924, Sherwood and Elizabeth Prall Anderson moved to New Orleans, where they lived in the historic Pontalba Apartments (540-B St. Peter Street) adjoining Jackson Square in the heart of the French Quarter.

For a time, they entertained William Faulkner, Carl Sandburg, Edmund Wilson and other writers, for whom Anderson was a major influence.

In 1935, he was commissioned to go to Franklin County, Virginia to cover a major federal trial of bootleggers and gangsters, in what was called "The Great Moonshine Conspiracy".

[86] In the 1930s, Anderson published Death in the Woods (short stories), Puzzled America (essays), and Kit Brandon: A Portrait (novel).

Beyond Desire built on his interest in the trade union movement and was set during the 1929 Loray Mill Strike in Gastonia, North Carolina.

[89] The Free Company consisted of "a group of prominent writers and Hollywood and stage stars which is presenting a series of thirteen radio plays dealing with Civil Liberties over the Columbia Broadcasting System".