Almanac of Story Tellers: Horatio Alger

  Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of January 13th.

_______________________________________________________________________________

     

    It is the 13th day of the year, leaving 352 days remaining in 2022. 

    On this date in 1832, the American author Horatio Alger was born.

    Yes, there really was an Horiatio Alger. And yes, his version of story telling -- indeed, the only stories he told -- was what became known as the "Horatio Alger story." It was, without fail, an easy tale to grasp -- a poor young boy, preferably a street urchin, through pluck, perseverance and good luck, became a wealthy man in good standing.

    The boy, of course, was without moral failings. As a matter of fact, it was often a good deed the boy did -- saving the life of another youngster, finding and returning a large sum of money -- that directly led to his future wealth and good fortune.

    Alger's books were perfect for the era after the U.S. Civil War -- the guilded age of the late 19th Century, a time of economic prosperity that coincided with the beginning of the industrial age and a time of staggering, if unequal, wealth. 

    Alger started his career as a minister outside of Boston, where he was accused of molesting young boys. He left the church and Massachusetts and settled in New York City. In 1867, he wrote the first of his stories, Ragged Dick, or Street Life in New York with the Bootblacks, first in serial form and later published as a book. The story told of a young shoeshine boy who rose to wealth and fame.

    Similar stories followed. Alger wrote more than 100 books with the same theme, so many that his publishers sent him out west in the hope he could change his tune. The only change he made was to set the stories in the small-town west instead of the urban northest.

    As the British encyclopedia Brittanica puts it: "His books sold over 20 million copies, even though their plots, characterizations, and dialogue were consistently and even outrageously bad."