In the mid- and late 19th century, the US underwent significant cultural change. The Industrial Revolution made enormous city spaces, drawing in immigrants from abroad and from other territories in the country for work. As more people earned money, economic classes shifted. In 19th-century America, the middle class that defined American values in the early to mid-20th century emerged.

The conflict between the dominance of agrarian culture in America And urban culture significantly impacted the identity of America. Small towns like Thea’s hometown of Moonstone, Colorado, saw their young people move away to cities for education and work. The pull of small family farms gave way to large industrial farms, which changed Americans’ relationships with land ownership. Thea is an emblem of the future: She leaves her small town to earn success in the big city and returns to her small town to find it myopic and ignorant in view and culture. The Moonstone in which Thea’s parents found success, happiness, and value is not the same Moonstone that Thea discovers when she returns to visit. This discrepancy in generational experiences with the agrarian lifestyle was common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. People like Thea were torn between two significantly different lifestyles: the urban and the agrarian.