Alger, Horatio, Jr.

1832–1899

Author

The author of over one hundred novels, Horatio Alger, Jr., has come to be associated with a rags-to-riches narrative that combines moral uplift with social mobility. In the majority of his novels, a young, destitute street boy is discovered by an older, wealthy man who enlists the boy's services, offers assistance and guidance, and enables him to ascend the social ladder. Alger's novels address the consequences of urbanization and economic transformation for changing notions of manhood in Gilded Age America.

Alger's emphasis on paternalistic relations as a means of uplift may have a biographical background: In 1866, Alger had to leave his post as minister of a Unitarian church in Brewster, Massachusetts, over charges of having sexually abused young boys. Upon arriving in New York, Alger befriended several of the street urchins that served as inspiration for his novels. Later in his life, Alger appears to have assumed the role of wealthy patron of street boys, entertaining and helping hundreds of these boys.

Alger's stories present a concept of republican manhood that predates the emergence of market capitalism. As such, they emphasize homosocial, paternalistic nurture, rather than celebrating the ideals of self-made manhood and entre-preneurial masculinity encouraged by the laissez-faire capitalist marketplace of the late nineteenth century. Lacking in formal education, Alger's protagonists have a strong moral sense and work ethic, and they tend to disrespect any social hierarchy not based on merit. Frequently defying an arrogant superior, Alger's protagonists willingly and eagerly respond to the offer of guidance and assistance from nurturing wealthy men, usually business owners.

On the other hand, Alger, his stories, and the model of manhood he represents are implicated in the late-nineteenth-century capitalist marketplace. As an author of popular fiction, Alger's own livelihood was uncertain, and he had to cater to mass-marketing structures and an emerging commodity culture in order to succeed. While his stories often celebrate the small producer values of a bygone past, the sentimental relation between the wealthy patron and the plucky boy in Alger's stories, which have a decidedly homoerotic tone, can be read as a support of capitalist class and market structures. By providing guidance and counsel and opening a path toward economic opportunity, the businessmen in Alger's stories almost always uplift and assimilate the “gentle boys” (who are also potential future members of “the dangerous classes”) into the ranks of the petit bourgeoisie. As their reward, the protagonists achieve a modest degree of social mobility offered by an emerging corporate, capitalist order, but never gain great wealth, for which they do not express a desire. Excluding women from the plots, Alger's stories affirm capitalism as a male enterprise and the marketplace as a male domain. The masculine bond between patron and street boy follows capitalist structures of exchange, while protecting both from the marketplace's exploitative aspects.

Alger's tales reflect the close relationship between economic change and shifting articulations of masculinity in Gilded Age America. Torn between a celebration of pre-market small-producer values (and paternalistic nurture) and an acceptance of capitalist market structures, Alger's narratives exhibit an ambivalent relation to capitalism and its mechanisms of exchange.

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