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How did Horatio Alger influence American society?
A pity: for Alger was at the forefront of a phenomenally successful experiment in social reform and improvement, a broad movement that inspired poor kids to take advantage of America's social mobility and that led tens of thousands of New York's post-Civil War juvenile delinquents into productive lives.
What were Horatio Alger's stories about?
The term is linked to the fictional stories of real-life, 19th-century author Horatio Alger Jr., who penned tales about street children who managed to better their circumstances through a combination of factors like good moral character, determination and good luck. Alger's stories weren't autobiographical.
Who was Horatio Alger and what was his relation to the American Dream?
The "rags to riches" stories that Horatio Alger Jr. wrote in the late nineteenth century helped the population of the United States believe the myth that anyone could work hard and become rich, a "self made man". His readers ignored the moral qualities of his heroes and instead focused on their success.
What is the meaning of Alger?
Alger is both a given name and a surname. It originates from the Anglo-Saxon name Ælfgar, meaning “elf spear.” Notable people with the name include: Alger of Liège (1055–1131), French Roman Catholic priest.
What are the Horatio Alger books?
Ragged Dick1868Strive and Succeed1872Luck and PluckTattered Tom1871Adrift in New York1904Risen from the Ranks, Or, Harry...1874Horatio Alger/Books
How did the Great Depression influence the American dream?
During the Great Depression the highly polished American Dream became a dark and sorrowful nightmare. What might once have been considered a "land of opportunity" had quickly become a land of devastation. With much pain and tremendous efforts, the citizens of America stumbled through the dark years of the 1930s.
Was is the American dream?
No less an authority than the Oxford English Dictionary defines the American dream as “the ideal that every citizen of the United States should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.”
Was Horatio Alger a real person?
Horatio Alger was a real person. Born in 1832, Horatio Alger, Jr. grew up in a middle class Massachusetts family, attended Harvard, and worked briefly as a pastor before putting his pen to paper professionally in the early 1860s.
What is the Horatio Alger myth?
There is a "Horatio Alger myth" that the boy becomes wealthy through hard work, but this is inaccurate. In the actual stories, invariably the cause of success is an accident that works to the boy's advantage after he conducts himself according to traditional virtues such as honesty, charity, and altruism.
Where is Horatio Alger buried?
By the time he died in 1899, Alger had published around a hundred volumes. He is buried in Natick, Massachusetts. Since 1947, the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans has awarded scholarships and prizes to deserving individuals.
What is the name of the book that Alger wrote about the orphan rescuer?
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.
What did Alger do in 1864?
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.
Where was Alger born?
Childhood: 1832–1847. Alger was born on January 13, 1832, in the New England coastal town of 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, ...
What was the moral tone of Alger?
In the last decades of the 19th century, Alger's moral tone coarsened with the change in boys' tastes. The public wanted sensational thrills. The Protestant work ethic was less prevalent in the United States, and violence, murder, and other sensational themes entered Alger's works.
When did Alger come to California?
Profits suffered, and he headed West for new material at Loring's behest, arriving in California in February 1877.
What does it mean to be a Horatio Alger hero?
Referring to someone as a “Horatio Alger hero” means that person has overcome adversity and achieved success thanks to hard work and perseverance.
When did Alger die?
Alger died in 1899 but his books remained popular until the 1920s.
Why did Alger leave the Union?
Health issues prevented Alger from serving in the Union army during the U.S. Civil War. In 1864, he was hired as a minister at a Unitarian church in Brewster, Massachusetts; however, within two years he left the church following allegations of sexual misconduct and moved to New York City to write full-time.
What books did Alger write?
He quickly produced an entire series of Ragged Dick books, which included such titles as “Mark the Match Boy” and “Ben the Luggage Boy.”. The prolific author went on to produce a number of other books featuring similar themes and young heroes.
Was Alger an autobiographical writer?
Alger’s stories weren’t autobiographical. Born in 1832, he was the son of a Unitarian minister and graduated from Harvard in 1852. Afterward, he found employment as a teacher and writer before attending Harvard Divinity School. Health issues prevented Alger from serving in the Union army during the U.S. Civil War.
Who was Reverend Alger?
He had just started to manage the two careers of preacher and writer when catastrophe struck. It was of his own making.
What is the plot of Alger?
The classic Alger plot seldom varied: a youth of humble origins makes his way in the city by virtue of grit and toil. Luck usually plays its part, but to Alger, fortune was something to be enticed and manipulated. He would have agreed with Hector Berlioz's observation: "One must have the talent for luck.".
What was the name of the poem that Alger wrote about the abominable and revolting crime of gross familiar
Faced with charges of "the abominable and revolting crime of gross familiarity with boys," the accused was allowed to resign—with the proviso that he leave town at once. Some time afterward, Alger wrote a poem, "Friar Anselmo's Sin. ".
What was the impact of Alger's experiment?
A pity: for Alger was at the forefront of a phenomenally successful experiment in social reform and improvement, a broad movement that inspired poor kids to take advantage of America's social mobility and that led tens of thousands of New York's post-Civil War juvenile delinquents into productive lives.
Why was Horatio the smallest student in his class?
The sickly child of a Unitarian minister in Marlborough, Massachusetts, Horatio, born in 1832, was always the smallest in his class and far from an academic star—mainly because, a stutterer, he hated to recite the answers even when he knew them. Still, his record was good enough for admission to Harvard.
Who believed that the color of one's skin mattered?
But to anyone familiar with urban poverty, the Alger novel was a blueprint of salvation a century before Martin Luther King stated his belief that what mattered was the not the color of one's skin but the content of one's character. Many of Alger's contemporaries shared this belief, including, manifestly, Theodore Roosevelt.
Is Alger an orphan?
He is an orphan, but is better than the other, having older brothers who took care of him.". In the 1880s, he informally adopted three orphan boys and incorporated their stories into his novels. Alger's writings caught the attention of Joseph Seligman, one of the city's most prominent financiers.
What is the Horatio Alger myth?
In its portrayal of perseverance, hope, optimism, possibility, and success, the Horatio Alger Myth is perhaps a uniquely American invention, mirroring closely the tenents of the American Dream and its promise of reward for dedication and tenacity.
Why did Alger's work slip from favor?
Alger’s work began to slowly slip from favor a few years prior to his death due in part to a shift in the tastes of the American reader, but also to a turnabout in the way Americans viewed the possibility for opportunity and success.
Was Alger a product of the Gilded Age?
Alger's success may have been a product of the Gilded Age. Alger’s work was the recipient of universal critical and commercial success from the 1860s through the 1880s and '90s, though today many scholars and academics believe this success was a product of a time in American history known as the Gilded Age.
Was Horatio Alger a real person?
1. Horatio Alger was a real person. Born in 1832, Horatio Alger, Jr. grew up in a middle class Massachusetts family, attended Harvard, and worked briefly as a pastor before putting his pen to paper professionally in the early 1860s.
Overview
Horatio Alger Jr. was an American author who wrote young adult novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of 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 during the Gilded Age.
Biography
Alger was born on January 13, 1832, in the New England coastal town of 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, Tho…
Legacy
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 1982, to mark his 150th birthday, the Children's Aid Society held a celebration. Helen M. Gray, t…
Style and themes
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.
Personal life
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 the elder Henry James 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, …
Citations
1. ^ THE LIBRARY JOURNAL. 1878. p. 299.
2. ^ Association, American Library (1908). Bulletin of the American Library Association. American Library Association. p. 160.
3. ^ Hoyt 1974, pp. 7, 9.
4. ^ Scharnhorst 1980, pp. 17–18.
General references
• Alger, Horatio Jr. (2015). Ragged Dick (Illustrated). Hermosa Beach, California: Sumner Books. ISBN 9781939104144.
• Alger, Horatio Jr. (2008). Hildegard Hoeller (ed.). Ragged Dick. Norton Critical Editions. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-92589-0.
• Alger, Horatio Jr. (1990). Alan Trachtenberg (ed.). Ragged Dick. Signet Classic. ISBN 0-451-52480-2.
Further reading
• Scharnhorst, Gary; Bales, Jack (1981). Horatio Alger Jr.: An Annotated Bibliography of Comment and Criticism. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-1387-8.
• 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. ISBN 1-881089-97-5
Horatio Alger Was A Real person.
The "Rags to Riches" Trope Got Its Start with The Novel, Ragged Dick.
- Published in 1868, Alger’s novel Ragged Dickwas his first major work and the one that started the “rags to riches” craze. The novel was originally serialized in several parts beginning in 1867 in a magazine called Student and Schoolmateand follows the story of Ragged Dick, a 14 year-old boy working as a shoe shine—also known as a blackboot in those days—trying to scrimp by on the st…
When Broken Down, The Myth Follows A Common Form.
- As evidenced by Alger’s debut novel—and reestablished time and time again by his subsequent works including the novel, The Brave and the Bold (1872)—the Horatio Alger Myth has a number of defined principles or characteristics. The protagonists are usually young, white males living in large urban areas—New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia are some of the most common setti…
Alger's Success May Have Been A Product of The Gilded Age.
- Alger’s work was the recipient of universal critical and commercial success from the 1860s through the 1880s and '90s, though today many scholars and academics believe this success was a product of a time in American history known as the Gilded Age. The country experienced massive industrial and economic growth from the end of the Civil Warthrough ...