Horatio Alger, Jr.

Milestones

What were some important events in Horatio Alger's life?

1832 - Alger is born, Friday, January 13.
1833 - Birth of sister Olive Agusta.
1842 - Alger enters grade school at age 10.
1844 - Horatio Alger, Sr. has close brush with bankruptcy.
1847 - Passes entrance exam and enters Harvard. His nickname there is "Toodles".
1849 - Alger's essay "Chivalry" is published in Boston National Pictorial Review.
1852 - Alger graduates from Harvard, Phi Beta Kappa, eighth in class (out of eighty-nine other students).
1853 - Becomes a freelance journalist and enters and leaves Harvard Divinity School.
1854 - Teaches at boys' boarding school.
1856 - Alger's first book, Bertha's Christmas Vision, is published.
1857 - Re-enters Harvard Divinity School, writing pieces for magazines to pay for tuition.
1860 - Graduates from Harvard Divinity School and leaves for a tour of Europe.
1863 - Alger returns to America, becomes a Unitarian minister, and is rejected for military service in the Civil War because he flunks his induction physical (near-sighted, short, asthmatic). He becomes a contributor to Harper's Magazine, Putnam's, etc.
1864 - Frank's Campaign, Alger's first book for boys, is published.
1866 - Accused of sexual misconduct with thirteen-year-old and fifteen-year-old boys. Resigns from the ministry.
1866 - Goes to New York City as journalist. His publisher, Joseph H. Allen (a Unitarian elder), shields him. Horatio cultivates the street boys aged 12 to 16.
1867 - Alger raises money for Five Points Mission, Newsboys Lodging, YMCA, Children's Aid Society. Charles O'Connor gives Alger free access to Newsboys Lodging.
1867 - Ragged Dick, his eighth novel, is a best-seller.
1868 - Phil the Fiddler describes the plight of children as street musicians, attack on the padrone system.
1872 - Starts to work for the Seligman family, as a tutor and guardian for their boys, continued until 1877.
1873 - Goes on grand tour of Europe with his parents, his brother, his sister Augusta and her husband.
1877 - Life of Edwin Forrest (serious biography) published. Street boy fiction moves west.
1880-1890 - Alger informally adopts three street boys who serve as models for characters in his books: Charlie Davis (The Young Circus Rider, 1883); John Downie, a newsboy (Mark Mason's Mission, 1886, and Chester Rand, 1892), and Edward J. "Tommy" Downie (The Odds Against Him, 1889).
1880 - 1890 - Portrayal of Jewish money lenders and pawn brokers in his novels.
1881 - Alger publisher A.K Loring goes bankrupt.
1881 - Instant book, biography of James Garfield From Canal Boy to President.
1883 - Tutors young Benjamin and Elizabeth Cardozo. Benjamin Cardozo will go on to become a Supreme Court Justice.
1885 - Tutors Lewis Einstein.
1885 - 1899 - Liberal Republican (mugwump) themes in novels.
1886 - 1896 - Revival of Alger popularity, 39 serial novels.
1892 - Attends the 40-year reunion of his college class.
1896 - Leaves New York permanently.
1898 - Alger, ill, selects Edward Stratemeyer to complete the books he has started.
1899 - Alger dies; His sister Augusta destroys his personal papers.
1900 - 1910 - Many more Alger books sold (in cheap editions) than during his lifetime.
1926 - Alger all but unknown.
1940 - Resurrection of the Horatio Alger myth and canonization of his heroes.
1961 - The Horatio Alger Society is founded.