Hamlin Garland's desire to express a particular economic point of view has been long recognized as an important factor in his early work. However, there have been various interpretations of the motives which led Garland to adopt and later abandon economically orientated writing. A primary reason for the misinterpretation of this phase of Garland's career, a notable example of which is Bernard I. Duffey's recent article in American Literature, has been the lack of information regarding Garland's economic thought and activity during 1887–92, these years constituting the period of both his most intensive literary output and fullest participation in political-economic affairs. Garland himself has sketchily outlined this period in various autobiographical recollections (see notes 5–7, 37 below), but a much more particular and explicit source of information is found in the previously unnoted and for the greater part uncollected appearances of Garland in the Standard.

The Standard was begun as a single-tax weekly, with Henry George as editor and proprietor, in New York on 8 January 1887, during the flood tide of single-tax enthusiasm in the United States. Running for mayor of New York in November 1886, George had astonished the country by his strong showing, and his supporters immediately called for a national political party to represent single-tax ideals. This new party, the United Labor Party, promptly produced a candidate for mayor of Boston, and during the week of 5–12 December 1886, George was in Boston speaking for the candidate.