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= Horatio_Alger =
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Introduction
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Horatio Alger Jr. (; January 13, 1832 - July 18, 1899) was an American
author who wrote young adult novels about impoverished boys and their
rise from humble backgrounds to middle-class security and comfort
through good works. His writings were characterized by the
"rags-to-riches" narrative, which had a formative effect on the United
States from 1868 through to his death in 1899.
Alger secured his literary niche in 1868 with the publication of his
fourth book, 'Ragged Dick', the story of a poor bootblack's rise to
middle-class respectability. This novel was a huge success. His many
books that followed were essentially variations on 'Ragged Dick' and
featured stock characters: the valiant, hardworking, honest youth; the
noble mysterious stranger; the snobbish youth; and the evil, greedy
squire. In the 1870s, Alger's fiction was growing stale. His publisher
suggested he tour the Western United States for fresh material to
incorporate into his fiction. Alger took a trip to California, but the
trip had little effect on his writing: he remained mired in the staid
theme of "poor boy makes good". The backdrops of these novels,
however, became the Western United States, rather than the urban
environments of the Northeastern United States.
Childhood: 1832–1847
======================
Alger was born on January 13, 1832, in Chelsea, Massachusetts, the son
of Horatio Alger Sr., a Unitarian minister, and Olive Augusta Fenno.
He had many connections with the New England Puritan aristocracy of
the early 19th century. He was the descendant of Pilgrim Fathers
Robert Cushman, Thomas Cushman, and William Bassett. He was also the
descendant of Sylvanus Lazell, a Minuteman and brigadier general in
the War of 1812, and Edmund Lazell, a member of the Constitutional
Convention in 1788.
Alger's siblings Olive Augusta and James were born in 1833 and 1836,
respectively. A disabled sister, Annie, was born in 1840, and a
brother, Francis, in 1842. Alger was a precocious boy afflicted with
myopia and asthma, but Alger Sr. decided early that his eldest son
would one day enter the ministry. To that end, Alger's father tutored
him in classical studies and allowed him to observe the
responsibilities of ministering to parishioners.
Alger began attending Chelsea Grammar School in 1842, but by December
1844 his father's financial troubles had worsened considerably. In
search of a better salary, he moved the family to Marlborough,
Massachusetts, an agricultural town 25 miles west of Boston, where he
was installed as pastor of the Second Congregational Society in
January 1845 with a salary sufficient to meet his needs. Alger
attended Gates Academy, a local preparatory school, and completed his
studies at age 15. He published his earliest literary works in local
newspapers.
Harvard and early works: 1848–1864
====================================
In July 1848, Alger passed the Harvard entrance examinations and was
admitted to the class of 1852. The 14-member, full-time Harvard
faculty included Louis Agassiz and Asa Gray (sciences), Cornelius
Conway Felton (classics), James Walker (religion and philosophy), and
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (belles-lettres). Edward Everett served as
president. Alger's classmate Joseph Hodges Choate described Harvard at
this time as "provincial and local because its scope and outlook
hardly extended beyond the boundaries of New England; besides which it
was very denominational, being held exclusively in the hands of
Unitarians".
Alger thrived in the highly disciplined and regimented Harvard
environment, winning scholastic and other prestigious awards. His
genteel poverty and less-than-aristocratic heritage, however, barred
him from membership in the Hasty Pudding Club and the Porcellian Club.
In 1849, he became a professional writer when he sold two essays and a
poem to the 'Pictorial National Library', a Boston magazine. He began
reading Walter Scott, James Fenimore Cooper, Herman Melville, and
other modern writers of fiction and cultivated a lifelong love for
Longfellow, whose verse he sometimes employed as a model for his own.
He was chosen Class Odist and graduated with Phi Beta Kappa Society
honors in 1852, eighth in a class of 88.
Alger had no job prospects following graduation and returned home. He
continued to write, submitting his work to religious and literary
magazines, with varying success. He briefly attended Harvard Divinity
School in 1853, possibly to be reunited with a romantic interest, but
he left in November 1853 to take a job as an assistant editor at the
'Boston Daily Advertiser'. He loathed editing and quit in 1854 to
teach at The Grange, a boys' boarding school in Rhode Island. When The
Grange suspended operations in 1856, Alger found employment directing
the 1856 summer session at Deerfield Academy.
His first book, 'Bertha's Christmas Vision: An Autumn Sheaf', a
collection of short pieces, was published in 1856, and his second
book, 'Nothing to Do: A Tilt at Our Best Society', a lengthy satirical
poem, was published in 1857. He attended Harvard Divinity School from
1857 to 1860 and, upon graduation, toured Europe. In the spring of
1861, he returned to a nation in the throes of the Civil War. Exempted
from military service for health reasons in July 1863, he wrote in
support of the Union cause and associated with New England
intellectuals. He was elected an officer in the New England Historic
Genealogical Society in 1863.
His first novel, 'Marie Bertrand: The Felon's Daughter', was
serialized in the 'New York Weekly' in 1864, and his first boys' book,
'Frank's Campaign', was published by A. K. Loring in Boston the same
year. Alger initially wrote for adult magazines, including 'Harper's
Magazine' and 'Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper', but a friendship
with William Taylor Adams, a boys' author, led him to write for the
young.
Ministry: 1864–1866
=====================
On December 8, 1864, Alger was enlisted as a pastor with the First
Unitarian Church and Society of Brewster, Massachusetts. Between
ministerial duties, he organized games and amusements for boys in the
parish, railed against smoking and drinking, and organized and served
as president of the local chapter of the Cadets for Temperance. He
submitted stories to 'The Student and Schoolmate', a boys' monthly
magazine of moral writings, edited by William Taylor Adams and
published in Boston by Joseph H. Allen. In September 1865, his second
boys' book, 'Paul Prescott's Charge', was published and received
favorable reviews.
Child sexual abuse
====================
Early in 1866, a church committee of men was formed to investigate
reports that Alger had sexually molested boys. Church officials
reported to the hierarchy in Boston that Alger had been charged with
"the abominable and revolting crime of gross familiarity with boys".
Alger denied nothing, admitted he had been imprudent, considered his
association with the church dissolved, and left town. Alger sent
Unitarian officials in Boston a letter of remorse, and his father
assured them his son would never seek another post in the church. The
officials were satisfied and decided no further action would be taken.
New York City: 1866–1896
==========================
In 1866, Alger relocated to New York City where he studied the
condition of the street boys, and found in them an abundance of
interesting material for stories. He abandoned forever any thought of
a career in the church, and focused instead on his writing. He wrote
"Friar Anselmo" at this time, a poem that tells of a sinning cleric's
atonement through good deeds. He became interested in the welfare of
the thousands of vagrant children who flooded New York City following
the Civil War. He attended a children's church service at Five Points,
which led to "John Maynard", a ballad about an actual shipwreck on
Lake Erie, which brought Alger not only the respect of the literati
but a letter from Longfellow. He published two poorly received adult
novels, 'Helen Ford' and 'Timothy Crump's Ward'. He fared better with
stories for boys published in 'Student and Schoolmate' and a third
boys' book, 'Charlie Codman's Cruise'.
In January 1867, the first of 12 installments of 'Ragged Dick'
appeared in 'Student and Schoolmate'. The story, about a poor
bootblack's rise to middle-class respectability, was a huge success.
It was expanded and published as a novel in 1868. It proved to be his
best-selling work. After 'Ragged Dick' he wrote almost entirely for
boys, and he signed a contract with publisher Loring for a Ragged Dick
Series.
In spite of the series' success, Alger was on financially uncertain
ground and tutored the five sons of the international banker Joseph
Seligman. He wrote serials for 'Young Israel' and lived in the
Seligman home until 1876. In 1875, Alger produced the serial 'Shifting
for Himself' and 'Sam's Chance', a sequel to 'The Young Outlaw'. It
was evident in these books that Alger had grown stale. Profits
suffered, and he headed West for new material at Loring's behest,
arriving in California in February 1877. He enjoyed a reunion with his
brother James in San Francisco and returned to New York late in 1877
on a schooner that sailed around Cape Horn. He wrote a few lackluster
books in the following years, rehashing his established themes, but
this time the tales were played before a Western background rather
than an urban one.
In New York, Alger continued to tutor the town's aristocratic youth
and to rehabilitate boys from the streets. He was writing both urban
and Western-themed tales. In 1879, for example, he published 'The
District Messenger Boy' and 'The Young Miner'. In 1877, Alger's
fiction became a target of librarians concerned about sensational
juvenile fiction. An effort was made to remove his works from public
collections, but the debate was only partially successful, defeated by
the renewed interest in his work after his death.
In 1881, Alger informally adopted Charlie Davis, a street boy, and
another, John Downie, in 1883; they lived in Alger's apartment. In
1881, he wrote a biography of President James A. Garfield but filled
the work with contrived conversations and boyish excitements rather
than facts. The book sold well. Alger was commissioned to write a
biography of Abraham Lincoln, but again it was Alger the boys'
novelist opting for thrills rather than facts.
In 1882, Alger's father died. Alger continued to produce stories of
honest boys outwitting evil, greedy squires and malicious youths. His
work appeared in hardcover and paperback, and decades-old poems were
published in anthologies. He led a busy life with street boys, Harvard
classmates, and the social elite. In Massachusetts, he was regarded
with the same reverence as Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Last years: 1896–1899
=======================
In the last two decades of the 19th century, the quality of Alger's
books deteriorated, and his boys' works became nothing more than
reruns of the plots and themes of his past. The times had changed,
boys expected more, and a streak of violence entered Alger's work. In
'The Young Bank Messenger', for example, a woman is throttled and
threatened with death--something that never occurred in his earlier
work.
He attended the theater and Harvard reunions, read literary magazines,
and wrote a poem at Longfellow's death in 1882. His last novel for
adults, 'The Disagreeable Woman', was published under the pseudonym
Julian Starr. He took pleasure in the successes of the boys he had
informally adopted over the years, retained his interest in reform,
accepted speaking engagements, and read portions of 'Ragged Dick' to
boys' assemblies.
His popularity--and income--dwindled in the 1890s. In 1896, he had
what he called a "nervous breakdown"; he relocated permanently to his
sister's home in South Natick, Massachusetts.
He suffered from bronchitis and asthma for two years. He died on July
18, 1899, at the home of his sister. His death was barely noticed. He
is buried in the family lot at Glenwood Cemetery, South Natick,
Massachusetts.
Before his death, Alger asked Edward Stratemeyer to complete his
unfinished works. In 1901, 'Young Captain Jack' was completed by
Stratemeyer and promoted as Alger's last work. Alger once estimated
that he earned only $100,000 between 1866 and 1896; at his death he
had little money, leaving only small sums to family and friends. His
literary work was bequeathed to his niece, to two boys he had casually
adopted, and to his sister Olive Augusta, who destroyed his
manuscripts and his letters, according to his wishes.
Alger's works received favorable comments and experienced a resurgence
following his death. By 1926, he sold around 20 million copies in the
United States. In 1926, however, reader interest plummeted, and his
major publisher ceased printing the books altogether. Surveys in 1932
and 1947 revealed very few children had read or even heard of Alger.
The first Alger biography was a heavily fictionalized account
published in 1928 by Herbert R. Mayes, who later admitted the work was
a fraud.
Legacy
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Since 1947, the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans
has bestowed an annual award on "outstanding individuals in our
society who have succeeded in the face of adversity" and scholarships
"to encourage young people to pursue their dreams with determination
and perseverance".
In Maya Angelou's 1969 autobiography, 'I Know Why the Caged Bird
Sings', she describes her childhood belief that he was "the greatest
writer in the world" and envy that all his protagonists were boys.
In 1982, to mark his 150th birthday, the Children's Aid Society held a
celebration. Helen M. Gray, the executive director of the Horatio
Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, presented a selection of
Alger's books to Philip Coltoff, the Children's Aid Society executive
director.
A 1982 musical, 'Shine!', was based on Alger's work, particularly
'Ragged Dick' and 'Silas Snobden's Office Boy'.
In 2015, many of Alger's books were published as illustrated
paperbacks and ebooks under the title "Stories of Success" by Horatio
Alger. In addition, Alger's books were offered as dramatic audiobooks
by the same publisher.
Style and themes
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Alger scholar Gary Scharnhorst describes Alger's style as
"anachronistic", "often laughable", "distinctive", and "distinguished
by the quality of its literary allusions". Ranging from the Bible and
William Shakespeare (half of Alger's books contain Shakespearean
references) to John Milton and Cicero, the allusions he employed were
a testament to his erudition. Scharnhorst credits these allusions with
distinguishing Alger's novels from pulp fiction.
Scharnhorst describes six major themes in Alger's boys' books. The
first, the Rise to Respectability, he observes, is evident in both his
early and his late books, notably 'Ragged Dick', whose impoverished
young hero declares, "I mean to turn over a new leaf, and try to grow
up 'spectable." His virtuous life wins him not riches but, more
realistically, a comfortable clerical position and salary. The second
major theme is Character Strengthened Through Adversity. In 'Strong
and Steady' and 'Shifting for Himself', for example, the affluent
heroes are reduced to poverty and forced to meet the demands of their
new circumstances. Alger occasionally cited the young Abe Lincoln as a
representative of this theme for his readers. The third theme is
Beauty versus Money, which became central to Alger's adult fiction.
Characters fall in love and marry on the basis of their character,
talents, or intellect rather than the size of their bank accounts. In
'The Train Boy', for example, a wealthy heiress chooses to marry a
talented but struggling artist, and in 'The Erie Train Boy' a poor
woman wins her true love despite the machinations of a rich, depraved
suitor. Other major themes include the Old World versus the New.
All of Alger's novels have similar plots: a boy struggles to escape
poverty through hard work and clean living. However, it is not always
the hard work and clean living that rescue the boy from his situation,
but rather a wealthy older gentleman, who admires the boy as a result
of some extraordinary act of bravery or honesty that the boy has
performed. For example, the boy rescues a child from an overturned
carriage or finds and returns the man's stolen watch. Often the older
man takes the boy into his home as a ward or companion and helps him
find a better job, sometimes replacing a less honest or less
industrious boy.
According to Scharnhorst, Alger's father was "an impoverished man" who
defaulted on his debts in 1844. His properties around Chelsea were
seized and assigned to a local squire who held the mortgages.
Scharnhorst speculates this episode in Alger's childhood accounts for
the recurrent theme in his boys' books of heroes threatened with
eviction or foreclosure and may account for Alger's "consistent
espousal of environmental reform proposals". Scharnhorst writes,
"Financially insecure throughout his life, the younger Alger may have
been active in reform organizations such as those for temperance and
children's aid as a means of resolving his status-anxiety and
establish his genteel credentials for leadership."
Alger scholar Edwin P. Hoyt notes that Alger's morality "coarsened"
around 1880, possibly influenced by the Western tales he was writing,
because "the most dreadful things were now almost casually proposed
and explored". Although he continued to write for boys, Alger explored
subjects like violence and "openness in the relations between the
sexes and generations"; Hoyt attributes this shift to the decline of
Puritan ethics in America.
Scholar John Geck notes that Alger relied on "formulas for experience
rather than shrewd analysis of human behavior", and that these
formulas were "culturally centered" and "strongly didactic". Although
the frontier society was a thing of the past during Alger's career,
Geck contends that "the idea of the frontier, even in urban slums,
provides a kind of fairy tale orientation in which a Jack mentality
can be both celebrated and critiqued". He claims that Alger's intended
audience were youths whose "motivations for action are effectively
shaped by the lessons they learn".
Geck notes that perception of the "pluck" characteristic of an Alger
hero has changed over the decades. During the Jazz Age and the Great
Depression, "the Horatio Alger plot was viewed from the perspective of
Progressivism as a staunch defense of laissez-faire capitalism, yet at
the same time criticizing the cutthroat business techniques and
offering hope to a suffering young generation during the Great
Depression". By the Atomic Age, however "Alger's hero was no longer a
poor boy who, through determination and providence rose to
middle-class respectability. He was instead the crafty street urchin
who through quick wits and luck rose from impoverishment to riches".
Geck observes that Alger's themes have been transformed in modern
America from their original meanings into a "male Cinderella" myth and
are an Americanization of the traditional Jack tales. Each story has
its clever hero, its "fairy godmother", and obstacles and hindrances
to the hero's rise. "However", he writes, "the true Americanization of
this fairy tale occurs in its subversion of this claiming of nobility;
rather, the Alger hero achieves the American Dream in its nascent
form, he gains a position of middle-class respectability that promises
to lead wherever his motivation may take him". The reader may
speculate what Cinderella achieved as Queen and what an Alger hero
attained once his middle-class status was stabilized, and "[i]t is
this commonality that fixes Horatio Alger firmly in the ranks of
modern adaptors of the Cinderella myth".
Personal life
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Scharnhorst writes that Alger "exercised a certain discretion in
discussing his probable homosexuality" and was known to have mentioned
his sexuality only once after the Brewster incident. In 1870, Henry
James Sr. wrote that Alger "talks freely about his own late
insanity--which he in fact appears to enjoy as a subject of
conversation". Although Alger was willing to speak to James, his
sexuality was a closely guarded secret. According to Scharnhorst,
Alger made veiled references to homosexuality in his boys' books, and
these references, Scharnhorst speculates, indicate Alger was "insecure
with his sexual orientation". Alger wrote, for example, that it was
difficult to distinguish whether Tattered Tom was a boy or a girl and
in other instances, he introduces foppish, effeminate, lisping
"stereotypical homosexuals" who are treated with scorn and pity by
others. In 'Silas Snobden's Office Boy', a kidnapped boy disguised as
a girl is threatened with being sent to the "insane asylum" if he
should reveal his actual sex. Scharnhorst believes Alger's desire to
atone for his "secret sin" may have "spurred him to identify his own
charitable acts of writing didactic books for boys with the acts of
the charitable patrons in his books who wish to atone for a secret sin
in their past by aiding the hero". Scharnhorst points out that the
patron in 'Try and Trust', for example, conceals a "sad secret" from
which he is redeemed only after saving the hero's life.
Alan Trachtenberg, in his introduction to the Signet Classic edition
of 'Ragged Dick' (1990), points out that Alger had tremendous sympathy
for boys and discovered a calling for himself in the composition of
boys' books. "He learned to consult the boy in himself", Trachtenberg
writes, "to transmute and recast himself--his genteel culture, his
liberal patrician sympathy for underdogs, his shaky economic status as
an author, and not least, his dangerous erotic attraction to
boys--into his juvenile fiction". He observes that it is impossible to
know whether Alger lived the life of a secret homosexual, "[b]ut there
are hints that the male companionship he describes as a refuge from
the streets--the cozy domestic arrangements between Dick and Fosdick,
for example--may also be an erotic relationship". Trachtenberg
observes that nothing prurient occurs in 'Ragged Dick' but believes
the few instances in Alger's work of two boys touching or a man and a
boy touching "might arouse erotic wishes in readers prepared to
entertain such fantasies". Such images, Trachtenberg believes, may
imply "a positive view of homoeroticism as an alternative way of life,
of living by sympathy rather than aggression". Trachtenberg concludes,
"in 'Ragged Dick' we see Alger plotting domestic romance, complete
with a surrogate marriage of two homeless boys, as the setting for his
formulaic metamorphosis of an outcast street boy into a
self-respecting citizen".
Published resources
=====================
*
* Nackenoff, Carol. "The Horatio Alger Myth", in 'Myth America: A
Historical Anthology', Volume II. 1997. Gerster, Patrick, and Cords,
Nicholas. (editors.) Brandywine Press, St. James, NY.
Archival resources
====================
* The Papers of Horatio Alger, 1880-1953 (990 pieces) are housed at
the Huntington Library.
* The H. Jack Barker Papers, undated (3 linear feet), are housed at
Emory University's Manuscripts, Archives, & Rare Book Library.
* The Seligman Family Papers, 1877-1934 (0.8 linear feet), are housed
at the American Jewish Archives, in Cincinnati, Ohio.
External links
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*
*
*
*
*
* [
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/cinder/Horatiomain.htm Horatio
Alger research page] at the University of Rochester
* [
http://www.horatioalgersociety.net/index.html Horatio Alger
Society] Home Page
* [
http://www.horatioalger.com/ The Horatio Alger Association of
Distinguished Americans]
*
[
https://web.archive.org/web/20080516192834/http://www.ulib.niu.edu/rarebooks/alger/index.cfm
The Horatio Alger Collection at Northern Illinois University]
*
[
https://web.archive.org/web/20080516074741/http://www.ulib.niu.edu/rarebooks/fellowships.cfm
The Horatio Alger Fellowship for the Study of American Popular Culture
at Northern Illinois University]
*
[
http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/horatio-alger-100-year-old-secret/
"Horatio Alger and the 100-Year-Old Secret"] New England Historical
Society article
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