This level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The following Wikipedia contributor may be personally or professionally connected to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest, autobiography, and neutral point of view.
|
According to my history text book, Alger actually became quite rich. Edit? American History: A survey - Alan Brinkley
I don't see enough credit for the inspirational nature of his writings. In many ways, Alger defined steps to achieve the American Dream, which is a huge, formative philosophy of our nation. Honesty, hard work, determination. These are all foundational qualities of Alger's heroes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joe JHN (talk • contribs) 12:40, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
Half the information in this article appears to be based off of Mayes' fictional account of Alger's life, Horatio Alger: A Biography Without a Hero. Mayes himself has admitted that almost the entire biography was a hoax and pure conjecture. This article needs some major revising using a reliable source such as a Carol Nackenoff's Horatio Alger biography.
I will see if I can help in this regard...
128.103.151.106 16:59, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
There seems to be a problem in that, according to the works timeline, he continued producing books for 7 years or so after his death. -- Larry Bailey 18:27, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I edited some of the text of the biography to make it read cleaner, definitely needs to be re-drafted.
The birth date at the top doesn't agree with the birth date later in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.208.139.188 (talk) 06:51, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
This section needs to cleaned, I think the wiki links should be removed and only added when someone writes an article on a specific work. There were around 7 links, some were pointing to other peoples' works, and one was pointing to a basketball player. --White Pony |
It might be worth noting that it was not Alger's work but the times (and publishers) that have also led to his "rags to riches" reputation. His work became confused in the public imagination with the rise of Carnegie and Rockefeller and others. I believe his publishers (and copyright laws at the time may have led to many unauthorized publications) encouraged this confusion with their jacket art and language.
I removed 11 books that were just different titles of the same book, as well as adding 4 books not on the list. Here they are: Removed: Andy Gordon; or, The Fortunes of a Young Janitor (1909) Forging Ahead The Cash Boy; or Frank Fowler, the Cash Boy (1887) Frank Fowler, The Cash Boy Dan, the Newsboy Dan, the Detective Driven from Home (1889) The Odds Against Him; A Fancy of Hers (1892) The New Schoolma'am; Grit, The Young Boatman The Young Boatman of Pine Point Making His Way (1901) The World Before Him The Tin Box Finding a Fortune Tom, The Boot Black The Western Boy; Tony, The Tramp Tony, the Hero Wren Winter's Triumph A Rolling Stone;
Added: Frank Fowler, The Cash Boy In Search of Treasure. The Story of Guy's Eventful Voyage Life of Edwin Forrest Making His Mark —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.114.186.134 (talk) 17:56, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure how to do it, but someone should make a redirect page from Horaito Alger to this page. I've always known him as horaito alger (without the jr.) and I'm sure many others do as well. 74.140.50.141 18:45, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I thought there was a particular name for the brand of literature for which he became famous (rags to riches type stuff). I expected to find that word here, and I do not. Does anyone know what it is, or if I'm just smoking crack?
~ender 2008-11-18 13:22:PM MST —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.240.12.86 (talk)
It was my understanding that it is offensive to gay people to confuse pederasty with homosexuality, considering that homosexuality as contemporarily defined is a relationship between two consenting adults of the same gender. It also seems that Alger's boy-obsessed writings betray a continued pederastic fascination throughout his life, and I'm not sure it's appropriate to consider those inclinations as LGBT. -- 18:50, 13 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moly (talk • contribs)
Pederasty is subsumed by homosexuality. Of course not all male homosexuals are pederasts, but certainly all pederasts are male homosexuals.TheScotch (talk) 16:43, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
Rearranged the list of works in chronological-by-publication order rather than alphabetical. Cactus Wren (talk) 11:19, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
The article says Alger was born in "what is now Revere, Massachusetts", but the Infobox shows Chelsea, Massachusetts, as his POB. Which is it?--ShelfSkewed Talk 19:57, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia's own article on the town of Chelsea, Massachusetts, it was formerly a section of Boston that eventually incorporated into its own city. What is known as Revere, Massachusetts was an area included within the boundaries of Chelsea, and did not become its own separate municipality until 1871. Although it would officially be called Revere within his lifetime, it was still a part of Chelsea at the time Alger was born. SeauxGood (talk) 03:16, 12 June 2010 (UTC)SeauxGood
The second paragraph starts “Scharnhorst describes six major themes in Alger's boys' books." Yet the third theme cited is “central to Alger's adult fiction”, not his boys' books, and the last 3 are not given at all! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gembaser (talk • contribs) 00:59, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
I am not seeing a citation for the John Geck sourcesPrions (talk) 01:41, 26 November 2017 (UTC)Prions
RE: Page being protected because of editing dispute on pedophilia accusations. In my opinion, user Cat Clean has been improperly deleting material that had proper sources. I am in the process of acquiring a copy of the book "The lost life of Horatio Alger." According to the Unitarian Universalist Association, this is "the only reliable biography" of Alger, or at least the only reliable biography concerning the incidents that led to him being forced out of his ministry position. Once I receive the book and the protection has been lifted I will work on the page using this source. Hopefully the use of this source will prevent any further accusations regarding the reliability of sources in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TerrierHockey (talk • contribs) 22:51, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
The section was quite appropriate and there was no reason to delete 95% of it. We've already hashed this out at length and came up with a very suitable compromise that took into account concerns similar to the ones you raise here. The page was briefly protected due to an "edit war" between myself and a user named Cat Clean. We talked it over and compromised in order to ensure that the section did not include unsubstantiated rumors and was based on the most reliable sources. These aren't "lurid unencyclopedic details." They are a crucial part of Alger's life and by deleting all but two sentences of it you have de-emphasized it to the point where it seems completely insignificant. I'm going to re-insert the portions that you improperly deleted.--TerrierHockey (talk) 03:03, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Actually it looks like you at least left more of the section in this time than the previous time, when you deleted 95% of it. I had this same dispute with another previous editor, and we ended up going with my version for the most part. The article is about a man known primarily for writing books about young boys and helping young boys succeed, and so I think the fact that he was forced out of a church position because church officials discovered he was molesting young boys is quite significant to the article. I don't feel like getting into this now in any detail but I'll take a look at this again later and perhaps we will discuss it more or get a third editor involved so this dispute doesn't keep happening over and over again. --TerrierHockey (talk) 02:45, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Was he born in 1832 or 1834? According to this, sources give both dates, and Google searches confirm that both dates are used. We shouldn't use both dates in the same article here, without any explanation. Art LaPella (talk) 23:35, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
A photograph of his actual tombstone can be viewed at findagrave.com by typing his name in the search box. It says he was born January 13, 1832. NYSleuth (talk) 15:30, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
Is he not better known as simply "Horatio Alger", and shouldn't that be the primary name? His father had the same name, but he was not notable and is never going to have an article here. The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans didn't see fit to include the "Jr.". I note that he did publish at least some of his works as "Horatio Alger, Jr.", but shouldn't modern appelations prevail for modern readers? -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ [your turn] 08:42, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Horatio Alger. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template ((source check))
(last update: 18 January 2022).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 19:00, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Horatio Alger. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
((dead link))
tag to http://www.playbill.com/news/article/62701.htmlWhen you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template ((source check))
(last update: 18 January 2022).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 05:03, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
The subject must have been a spendthrift as the article reads: “Alger once estimated that he earned only [emphasis mine] $100,000 between 1866 and 1896;[60] “ According to an inflation calculator I found online, this would equate to approximately $1.73 million today. Is there any information as to how he managed to go through such a relatively large sum to die in modest circumstances? Poor investments, perhaps? For a writer who preached so often the wisdom of savings, thrift and shunning vices such as tobacco and alcohol usage as exemplified by his rags to riches subjects, this seems rather incongruous.HistoryBuff14 (talk) 21:46, 4 August 2019 (UTC)