Rags To Riches
January 13, 1832 - Renown Author Horatio Alger Born
Horatio Alger, author and champion of the self-made man, was born on this day in1832. Wanting to be a poet, at age sixteen Alger enrolled at Harvard to study under the tutelage of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for the next four years. As the son of a Unitarian minister he attended divinity school, entering and then departing the clergy under a cloud of suspicion.
Three years after leaving the church Alger would publish his first rags-to-riches novel - Street Life in New York with the Bootblacks - in 1868. Over the next thirty years he would publish over 130 books in this genre, a few of them post-humously. As a best-selling author Horatio Alger's literary success rivaled his contemporary Mark Twain.
The term "Horatio Alger story" has become a compliment to describe a person who begins with very little and obtains a degree of success. Alger's characters do not usually become wealthy instead they achieve comparable success in life attaining personal stability but not great wealth or prominent position. Alger himself was never rich as he gave away most of the earnings from his books to the less fortunate and died nearly penniless.
Alger's books are no longer as popular as they once were, but the messages they convey were an important factor in popularizing the concept of the American Dream.
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