was born on this date in 1832.
The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans provides this background.
Horatio Alger, Jr. was the author of over one hundred books that inspired young people from the post-Civil War era through end of the nineteenth century. His novels of courage, faith, and hard, honest work captured the imagination of generations of young Americans and gave them a model of hope and promise in the face of hardships.
Born in Revere, Massachusetts, on January 13, 1832, he was the son of a Unitarian church pastor who instilled a strong religious belief in his son. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard, Horatio Alger, Jr., studied under Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and had intended to become a poet. Alger worked at one time as a teacher and a newspaper correspondent for the Boston Transcript and the New York Sun. Affected by asthma, Alger was rejected by the Union Army and eventually became a minister on Cape Cod.
Horatio Alger, Jr., wrote more than 120 books with the inspiring theme of onward and upward. He began writing his rags-to-riches tales just after the Civil War. He patterned the hero of his book, Ragged Dick, after the homeless newsboys and bootblacks he observed in his neighborhoods in New York. The heroes of his books almost always had the same qualities-moral, brave, generous, kind, diligent, industrious, and persevering. His novels told everyone, no matter how poor, orphaned or powerless, that if they persevere, if they do their best, if they always try to do the right thing, they can succeed. Success was earned by hard work and right action. Alger trumpeted the doctrine of achieving success through self-reliance, self-discipline, decency, and honesty. His books were always best sellers and almost every home, school, and church library in America boasted a large collection of his works. Horatio Alger, Jr. died in 1899 of lung and heart ailments at the age of 67. More than 250 million copies of his books have been sold worldwide. Through his body of work, Horatio Alger, Jr., captured the spirit of a nation and helped to clarify that spirit.
MPR’s The Writer’s Almanac adds this to the story.
His career as a minister ended when he was accused of molesting two boys in his parish. He left New England, vowed to redeem himself by helping the poor, and set about writing novels about the homeless children who lived in the streets of New York City. His first novel, Ragged Dick; or Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks, was serialized in a magazine, where it picked up more readers with every issue. When it was published in book form in 1867, it became an instant bestseller. Groucho Marx once said, “Horatio Alger’s books conveyed a powerful message to me and many of my young friends—that if you worked hard at your trade, the big chance would eventually come. As a child I didn’t regard it as a myth, and as an old man I think of it as the story of my life.”