Horatio Alger was the best selling, most popular American author of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Why has he fallen into obscurity and should he be discussed about being admitted into the American Canon?
>>25166636>most popular American author of the late 19th and early 20th centuriesNever read this guy, but lemme guess,he's writings had themes of the American dream?
>>25166636Because of the uh, you know
>The man lived in Philadelphia who, when young and poor, entered a bank, and says he: “Please, sir, don’t you want a boy?” And the stately personage said: “No, little boy, I don’t want a little boy.” The little boy, whose heart was too full for utterance, chewing a piece of licorice stick he had bought with a cent stolen from his good and pious aunt, with sobs plainly audible, and with great globules of water rolling down his cheeks, glided silently down the marble steps of the bank. Bending his noble form, the bank man dodged behind a door, for he thought the little boy was going to shy a stone at him. But the little boy picked up something, and stuck it in his poor but ragged jacket. “Come here, little boy,” and the little boy did come here; and the bank man said: “Lo, what pickest thou up?” And he answered and replied: “A pin.” And the bank man said: “Little boy, are you good?” and he said he was. And the bank man said: “How do you vote?”—“excuse me, do you go to Sunday school?” and he said he did. Then the bank man took down a pen made of pure gold, and flowing with pure ink, and he wrote on a piece of paper, “St. Peter”; and he asked the little boy what it stood for, and he said “Salt Peter.” Then the bankman said it meant “Saint Peter.” The little boy said: “Oh!”>Then the bank man took the little boy to his bosom, and the little boy said, “Oh!” again, for he squeezed him. Then the bank man took the little boy into partnership, and gave him half the profits and all the capital, and he married the bank man’s daughter, and now all he has is all his, and all his own too.>My uncle told me this story, and I spent six weeks in picking up pins in front of a bank. I expected the bank man would call me in and say: “Little boy, are you good?” and I was going to say “Yes;” and when he asked me what “St. John” stood for, I was going to say “Salt John.” But the bank man wasn’t anxious to have a partner, and I guess the daughter was a son, for one day says he to me: “Little boy, what’s that you’re picking up?” Says I, awful meekly, “Pins.” Says he: “Let’s see ‘em.” And he took ’em, and I took off my cap, all ready to go in the bank, and become a partner, and marry his daughter. But I didn’t get an invitation. He said: “Those pins belong to the bank, and if I catch you hanging around here any more I’ll set the dog on you!” Then I left, and the mean old fellow kept the pins. Such is life as I find it.
>>25166653Rags To Riches stories were his bread and butter. Young men were his target audience who wanted to achieve Alger’s version of the American Dream.
