Subject: horatio-alger FAQ
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Horatio Alger, Jr. Frequently Asked Questions
--------------------------------------------------
This is
the official FAQ for the Horatio Alger, Jr. Resources Web Site
Maintained
by Bill Roach (zzroach@washburn.edu)
Version
1.50 (07/04/01)
Copyright
(c) 1996 by Bill Roach All rights reserved.
This document may
be
freely distributed in its entirety provided this copyright notice is
not
removed. It may not be sold for profit
or incorporated in commercial
products
without the author's written permission.
Availability:
This FAQ is available in HTML form at:
-
http://www.washburn.edu/sobu/broach/algerFAQ.html
Credits:
Thanks to everyone who contributed big
chunks of information that
appears
here.
They include:
Gene Freeman
Glen Hendler
James Keeline
Bob Bennett
History:
Version 1.0 (10/11/96)
Version 1.1 (01/07/97)
Version 1.2 (02/02/97)
Version 1.3 (03/08/97)
Version 1.4 (02/10/99)
Version 1.5 (07/04/01)
*----------------------------------------------------------------------*
| Quick Index to Frequently Asked
Questions |
*----------------------------------------------------------------------*
1. Who
was Horatio Alger?
2. What
has he written?
3. What
Alger organizations have sites on the Net?
4. What
pseudonyms did Alger use?
5. Why
is there so little accurate information about Alger?
6. Why
is there so much disinformation about Alger?
7. What
Alger novels are available on the Net?
8. What
movies been made from his books?
9. What
are some good Alger biographies? Some
bad ones?
10.
What is the relationship between Horatio Alger stories and the
subsequent
The Rover Boys, Tom Swift, Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew Series?
11.
What is the formula for an Horatio Alger story?
12.
What libraries / museums have Horatio Alger archives?
13.
What does the Horatio Alger "Strive and Succeed" philosophy consist
of? Are there contemporary versions of it?
14.
What were the major milestones in Alger's life?
15. How
did Horatio Alger, Jr. come to leave the ministry?
16.
What authors have updated or parodied the Horatio Alger formula story?
17.
What is the Horatio Alger Society?
18. Did
any of Alger’s juvenile novels have female protagonists?
*----------------------------------------------------------------------*
| And Now: The
Answers! |
*----------------------------------------------------------------------*
1. Who
was Horatio Alger?
Horatio Alger, Jr. was an American author (1832-1899). Alger produced the
one of the first boys' adventure series. Alger published over 118 novels in
book form. Another 280 novels were produced in magazines along with more
than five hundred short stories. His young heroes succeed through a mixture
of pluck and luck. They are lucky, in part, because they deserve to be lucky.
A given hero may appear in several books, e.g., "Ragged Dick," but the books
do not have a common set of characters. Regardless of their names, the heroes
are remarkably similar.
Horatio Alger, Jr. was the oldest of five children of a
debt-ridden
New England, Unitarian minister. He was very frail. He was under
weight
and undersized, suffered from bronchial asthma, and near
sightedness. Because
of his poor health, the family deferred his introduction to the alphabet and
reading until he was six years old. He started formal school at
age 10 and achieved Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard. He was ranked eighth in
a class of 89. He volunteered for the union army three times and was
rejected three times because of his asthma and small size (just over five
feet and about 120 pounds).
Horatio
Alger, Jr. taught school or tutored school children for a good
part of
his life. His most famous student is
Benjamin Cardozo who went
on to
be a Supreme Court justice.
2. What
has he written?
Horatio
Alger wrote mostly juvenile fiction:
short stories, serialized
novels,
and novels. He also wrote biography,
juvenile biography (James
Garfield,
Abraham Lincoln, and Daniel Webster), and poetry. He did some
serious
writing for adult publications (essays), but he was not nearly
as
successful at that.
The Horatio Alger Society includes lists of his publications and their various editions
for collectors. The most comprehensive list of Alger’s publications is Bob Bennett’s
_ A Collector’s Guide to the Published Works of Horatio Alger, Jr. (1832 – 1899)_
MAD Book Company: Newark, Delaware, 1999).
Estimating
the number of books sold by Horatio Alger, Jr. cannot be
done
very precisely. Some attempts are given
below:
250 million Quentin Reynolds, _The Fiction Factory; or
from
Pulp Row to Quality Street_
(New
York: Random House, 1955)
200 million Thomas Meehan, "A Forgettable Centenary-
Horatio Alger" _The New
York Times
Magazine_ (June 29, 1964)
100 million Frederick Lewis Allen, "Horatio Alger, Jr."
_The
Saturday Review_ (September 1,
1945)
Many of
the books were sold after Alger's death and after the copyrights
had
expired so careful records were not kept.
Printers frequently printed
unauthorized
editions at the same time they printed authorized editions.
The unauthorized
editions were sold by the printer with no fee paid to
the
publisher.
3. What
Alger organizations have sites on the Net?
Horatio Alger, Jr Resources
http://www.washburn.edu/sobu/broach/algerres.html
Horatio Alger Association (philanthropic organization)
http://www.horatioalger.com/
Horatio Alger Educational Programs
http://www.horatioalger.com/edupro/edupro.htm
Horatio Alger Society (collectors)
4. What
pseudonyms did Alger use?
Arthur Hamilton
Arthur Lee Putnam
Carl Cantab
Julian Starr
Charles F. Preston
5. Why
is there so little accurate information about Alger?
Alger's
sister Augusta inherited all of his papers.
She detroyed virtually
all of
his personal papers. In the Victorian
era, it was not unusual for
an
author or his/her relatives to purge the personal papers of anything
that
might be unseemly. To the Victorian
mind, virtually any eccentricity
was
unseemly. This bowdlerization occurred
to the personal papers of
Louisa
May Alcott, Sir Richard Francis Burton, Lord Byron,etc.
6. Why
is there so much disinformation about Alger?
In 1928
Herbert Mayes published a fraudulent Alger biography entitled:
Alger:
A Biography Without a Hero. Mayes even
fabricated a
diary
for Alger which detailed a life of carousing and womanizing. The
Mayes
biography became the basis for the entry in the Dictionary of
American
Biography. Mayes did not admit the
fraud until 1976.
As late
as 1963, an Alger biographer with academic credentials, John
Tebbel,
repeated all of the Mayes fabrications, supposedly after
verifying
his sources.
7. What
Alger novels are available on the Net?
Struggling Upward
Cast Upon the Breakers
The Cash Boy
Joe the Hotel Boy
Paul Prescott's Charge: A story for
boys
The Errand Boy: or, How Phil Brent
Won Success
A Fancy of Hers
Driven from Home or Carl Crawford's
Experience
Frank's Campaign or, Farm and Camp
Paul the Peddler, or, Fortunes of a
Young Street Merchant
Phil the Fiddler
8. What
movies been made from his books?
A
Disney movie _Newsies_ deals with the 1899 newsboy strike in New
York
City. The movie is not based on a
Horatio Alger story but it
does
depict the life of the newsboys that figured in so many Alger
stories. The informal web site of the movie is
referenced on the
Horatio
Alger Resources web site.
If any
movies have been made from Alger stories, they should have
been
made between 1900 and 1920 at the peak of his popularity. They
would
have been silent movies. So far none of
the FAQ readers have
turned
up an Horatio Alger silent movie (or talkie).
9. What
are some good Alger biographies? Some bad
ones?
Gary
Scarnhorst with Jack Bales, _The Lost Life of Horatio Alger, Jr._
(Indiana
University Press: Bloomington, IN,
1985)
Many
poor biographies are based on the 1928 Mayes book mentioned above.
10.
What is the relationship between Horatio Alger stories and the
subsequent
The Rover Boys, Tom Swift, Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew Series?
Horatio Alger worked with a younger writer, Edward Stratemeyer, an editor at
Munsey Magazine. Before his death, Alger's arranged to have Stratemeyer
finish the works that Alger had in progress. The Alger books "completed" by
Stratemeyer include:
_Out for Business_
_Falling in with Fortune_
_Nelson, the Newsboy_
_Young Captain Jack_
_Jerry, the Backwoods Boy_
_Lost at Sea_
_From Farm to Fortune_
_The Young Book Agent_
_Randy of the River_
_Joe, the Hotel Boy_
_Ben Logan's Triumph_
Stratemeyer was a prolific author and went on to set up
the Stratemeyer
Syndicate which was responsible for the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. After
Stratemeyer's death, the syndicate operated under the leadership of his
daughter Harriet Adams Stratemeyer.
11.
What is the formula for an Horatio Alger story?
An
adolescent boy with a rural back ground sets off to earn his
livelihood
in an urban setting. He triumphs over
circumstances and
temptation
and starts advancing in his career. At
some point, he will
be
betrayed or falsely accused by one of his peers. Ultimately, the
hero
will be vindicated. While pluck and
hard work play a role in the
success
of an Alger hero, there is always an older male who takes on the
hero as
his protégé. That mentor plays a
critical role in the success
of the
Alger hero. The Alger hero never takes
revenge on those who
mistreated
him. He secures what is rightfully his,
but he is never
vindictive. Alger heroes never have romantic
interests. As they leave
adolescence,
these heroes leave his books except to play the role of mentors
for the
new generation of Alger heroes.
12.
What libraries / museums have Horatio Alger archives?
Simmons College Archives and Special Collections
Northern
Illinois University Library
Founders Library at NIU has acquired a comprehensive collection of more than
2,000 books and periodicals by and about Horatio Alger, and the library now is
the official repository for the archives and other papers of the Horatio Alger
Society. All materials received from the Society will be cataloged and made
available to interested parties through computer networks. A complete catalog
of Alger's works will be prepared, and the library will continue to acquire all
Alger-related monographs and dissertations, in addition to mounting periodic
exhibits of the collections and hosting future conventions of the Society.
Stanley Lieberman Memorial Collection of American Juvenile Literature, Princeton University
University of South Florida Tampa Campus Library
A. Frank Smith, Jr. Library Center
Special Collections Department - Emory University
Popular Culture Library at Bowling Green State
de Grummond Childrens' Literature Collection at Southern Mississipi
13.
What does the Horatio Alger "Strive and Succeed" philosophy consist
of? Are there contemporary versions of it?
There
are several elements in the Horatio Alger "Strive and Succeed"
philosophy:
- hard work
- study (informal rather than formal)
- loyalty to superiors and
subordinates
- abstaining from alcohol
- frugal living
- importance of dress and personal
grooming
- personal integrity
- speaking and writing effectively
- non-credal religious values
(Unitarian)
- avoidance of violence and revenge
- speaking the whole truth
- brotherhood of males (family without
a mother)
- obligation to help and protect the
weak and unfortunate
- duty to mother and/or sisters
- courtesy to all
- accepting the success of others
- emphasis on a secure home
- accept assistance of benefactors
- expectation of own success,
acceptance
- eschew class hatred
The Alger
success formula seems very like what one finds in _The
Autobiography
of Benjamin Franklin_. Alger's code is
less pragmatic
and
more altruitstic than Poor Richard's.
Alger's code imposes
significant
personal obligations, but it is not at all individualistic.
The
Alger code does not seem to have much in common with those
individuals
labeled "Horatio Alger success stories."
Some
modern conservatives object to Alger’s liberal philosophy.
http://home.netcom.com/~wsross/ha_art.html
W. S.
Ross even provides an example of an Alger novel (_Struggling Upward_)
http://home.netcom.com/~wsross/strugup3.html
with
all that pernicious liberalism deleted.
14.
What were the major milestones in Alger's life?
1832 born January 13, Friday
1833 birth of sister Olive Agusta
1842 enters grade school at age 10
1844 Horatio Alger, Sr has close brush
with bankruptcy
1847 passes entrance exam and enters
Harvard, nickname "Toodles"
1849 essay "Chivalry" in
Boston National Pictorial Review
1852 graduates from Harvard, Phi Beta
Kappa, eighth in class of 89
1853 freelance journalist, enters and
leaves Harvard Divinity
1854 taught at boys boarding school
1857 re-enters Harvard Divinity,
publishing in magazines for
tuition
1860 graduates from Harvard Divinity
1860 - 1861 Horatio's grand tour of
Europe
1861 -1862 supply preacher for
Unitarian churches
1863 flunked induction physical,
near-sighted, short, asthmatic
contributor to Harper's Magazine,
Putnam's, etc.
1864 Frank's Campaign
1864 assumes pulpit in Brewster, Mass.
1866 accusation of sexual misconduct
with thirteen year old and
fifteen year old males, resigns
from the ministry
1866 Horatio Alger in New York City as
journalist
his publisher, Joseph H. Allen,a
Unitarian elder, shielded him
Horatio cultivates the street
boys aged 12 to 16
1867 raises money for Five Points
mission, Newsboys Lodging, YMCA,
Children's Aid Society
Charles O'Connor gives Alger free
access to Newsboys Lodging
1867 _Ragged Dick_ , his eighth
novel, is a best seller
1867 - 1873 eighteen juvenile novels
1868 Phil the Fiddler describes the
plight of children as street
musicians, attack on the padrone
system
1872 starts to work for the Seligman
family, as a tutor and
guardian for their boys, continued until 1877
1873 Alger novels increasing violent
and sensational
1873 grand tour of Europe with his
parents, his brother, his sister
Augusta and her husband
1877 Alger book sales off dramatically
1877 Life of Edwin Forrest (serious
biography) published
Street boy fiction moves West
1880-1890 Alger informally adopts
three street boys who serve as
models for characters in his books:
Charlie Davis (_The Young CircusRider_ , 1883),
John Downie , a newsboy (_Mark Mason’s Mission_ 1886) and
(_Chester Rand_, 1892),
and Edward J. (Tommy) Downie (_The Odds Against Him_, 1889)
1880 - 1890 portrayal of Jewish money
lenders and pawn
brokers in his novels
1880 Popular concern over violence in
juvenile fiction
1881 Alger publisher A.K Loring goes
bankrupt
1881 instant book, biography of James
Garfield
From Canal Boy to President
1883 tutors young Benjamin and
Elizabeth Cardozo
1885 tutors Lewis Einstein
1885 - 1899 liberal Republican
(mugwump) themes in novels
1886 - 1896 revival of Alger
popularity, 39 serial novels
1892 attends the 40 year reunion of
his college class
1896 leaves New York permanently
1898 Alger, ill, selects Edward
Stratemeyer to complete the books
he has started
1899 died
Alger's sister Augusta destroys
his personal papers
1900 - 1910 many more Alger books sold
(in cheap editions) than
during his life time
1926 Alger all but unknown
1940 - resurrection of the Horatio
Alger myth and canonization
of his heroes
15. How
did Horatio Alger, Jr. come to leave the ministry?
Early
in 1866, Horatio Alger, Jr.'s contract was up for renewal. Some
members
of the church board did not want to renew the contract because
they were
concerned that Alger was not married and that he seemed to
spend
too much time with the congregation's group for boys, the
temperance
cadets. Other members of the board
supported Alger. In the
absence
of specific allegations, they felt the contract should be renewed.
The
board delayed the decision for a week and launched an investigation
of
their minister. The thirteen year old
son of a member of the church
board,
after questioning, told his father that
Alger had had sexual
contact
with him.
The boy
had gone to Alger's rooms to return a book, leaving his younger
sister
in a carriage. When the boy entered his
room, Alger allegedly
locked
the door and molested the boy. The
ensuing investigation named a
second
boy (aged 15) as being involved with Alger.
The report of the
committee
implies there may have been other boys involved.
Alger
did not reply specifically to the charges.
Rather he admitted to
acting
"imprudently." The charges
did not use clinical language. Rather
they
mention "unnatural familiarity with boys."
To
avoid a public hearing on the charges, the church board allowed
Alger
to resign from his post and the ministry and leave town
immediately.
Subsequent
to leaving Brewster, Alger continued to publish in youth
journals
affiliated with the church. When a
member of the Brewster
church
complained that Alger's influence over young boys was dangerous,
the
publisher of the journal, Joseph H. Allen, a church elder familiar
with the
Brewster incident, replied that Alger was entitled to earn a living.
Scholars
did not unearth evidence of the Brewster incident until more
than
one hundred years later. Apparently,
the records of the local
church
in Brewster and the Unitarian Convention were incomplete on
this
point. This is to be expected since the
mater did not proceed to a
formal
hearing.
Part of
the Horatio Alger formula is that the hero is falsely accused
and
loses his job because of manufactured evidence. The motivation for
the
false evidence is that someone wants the hero's job. The Horatio
Alger
hero leaves quietly without responding to the charges. Later
events
exonerate the hero. This element of the
formula dates from before
the
time of the Brewster episode.
Shortly
after the Brewster incident, Alger wrote a poem "Friar Anselmo"
whose
subject had committed some significant sin and devoted the rest
of his
life to good works as atonement. The
friar achieves some sort
of
peace, realizing the world will be a better place if he continues
to live
and continues his ministry. For Alger,
writing for boys was
his
ministry.
16.
What authors have updated or parodied the Horatio Alger formula story?
Theodore
Dreiser frequently parodies Alger. _The
Financier_ is an attempt
to modernize
the Alger myth. Its hero is Frank
Algernon Cowperwood.
Raymond
Feist, the science fiction writer, has used some Horatio Alger
themes
in the Serpent War Saga.
F.
Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is an Alger parody. Gatsby is
the antithesis
of the typical Alger hero.
Lawrence
Sanders, the writer of hard-boiled detective fiction, wrote
two
stories for _Playboy_, "The Adventures of Chauncey Alcock" (April,
1972)and
"The Further Adventures of Chauncey Alcock" (December, 1972).
The stories
are sex comedies in the Horatio Alger style.
A
Nathaniel West novel, _A Cool Million_ parodies the Alger formula
quite
mercilessly (literally tearing a classic Alger hero into
pieces,
limb by limb) and simultaneously uses his language (whole
paragraphs
out of Alger novels).
Hunter S. Thompson, _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_
parodies the Ager myth.
Raoul Duke, Thompson's alter ego, refers to himself as a "monster
reincarnation" of Horatio Alger. In the movie, Johnny Depp plays
Thompson. Or, more precisely,
Raoul Duke, the alias Thompson uses while he and Acosta scam their way from
Glitter Gulch to the Strip in search of "Free Enterprise. The American
Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas."
17.
What is the Horatio Alger Society?
The
Horatio Alger Society is a group organized " To further the
philosophy
of Horatio Alger, Jr., and to encourage the spirit of
Strive
and Succeed that for half a century guided Alger's undaunted
heroes
..."
The
members of the society are Alger collectors and scholars. Many
collect
other juvenile series as well as Horatio Alger. The
Newsboy
is the official newsletter of the Horatio Alger Society.
It is
published bi-montly (six issues per yearThe Horatio Alger Society
has its
own web site:
http://www.ihot.com/~has
The
e-mail address for the Horatio Alger Society is
has@ihot.com
18. Did
any of Alger’s juvenile novels have female protagonists?
Two of
the juvenile novels had female protagonists:
_Helen Ford_ (1866) (prior to Ragged
Dick) and
_Tattered Tom_ (1871)(after Ragged
Dick)
Tattered
Tom was a young girl who dressed and lived as a boy; like
many
Alger heroes, she was a news boy. Some young
girls read the Alger
books,
but the books about male heroes sold much better. The Alger
formula
called for the young hero to find a mentor in business. This
was not
possible for female protagonists.
---
If
there is any information that you feel should be in here, or if you
Think
something is wrong or out of date, please email me at
zzroach@washburn.edu
Any and
all information and/or suggestions for improvement will be
welcomed!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maintained
by Bill Roach
--
ALGER-L
owner: zzroach@washburn.edu
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