STEPHEN W. MEADER

328 Pages·2005·0.82 MB·English

ABSTRACT
Title of Dissertation: STEPHEN W. MEADER: HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO
AMERICAN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
Chesley Howard Looney, Doctor of Philosophy, 2005
Dissertation directed by: Professor R. Gordon Kelly
Department of American Studies
Stephen W. Meader published forty-four books of adventure for children from
1920 through 1969. His books successfully captured important aspects of American life
and values, and were very popular across these very different decades of American
history. This dissertation examines each of Meader’s books at least briefly while paying
special attention to questions of values and formula in key and representative works.
Meader wrote both historical tales and stories with contemporary settings, set in many
regions and most historical eras of the United States; his heroes mature in some way
during the course of his books. Meader emphasized important American values: self-
reliance, honesty, community, courage, loyalty, friendship, and clear thinking. He used
formulas, especially the ordeal, in which the protagonist is separated from responsible
adult leadership, faces a challenge, and successfully meets that challenge. This approach
allowed him to test his protagonists to see if they would stay true to their values.
Meader’s heroes usually had sidekicks and often had mentors as well. They often tangled
with memorable villains, received rewards, and sometimes found romance. Meader had
an interest in entrepreneurial themes which he expressed most memorably in four
contemporary novels in which the young hero starts a business. Along with the fictional
story, Meader provides information to the reader in both general approach and specific
costs, on how to start certain business ventures: trucking (T-Model Tommy 1938), fruit
cultivation and production (Blueberry Mountain 1941), earthmoving (Bulldozer 1951),
and ski resort management (Snow on Blueberry Mountain 1961). The protagonists of
most of Meader’s books are good at making do with what they have and at thinking on
their feet. Two illustrative examples of his many historical novels are Boy With a Pack
(1939), whose protagonist is a Yankee peddler and for which he won a Newbery honor
award, and Red Horse Hill (1930) based on his New Hampshire boyhood. Meader wrote
many historical stories of the sea in various eras. He also wrote on environmental themes
throughout his career. Meader’s work during World War II stood out among American
juvenile authors because he confronted the war directly as it was happening while most
such writers avoided the war until after it was over. An example is The Long Trains Roll
(1944).
STEPHEN W. MEADER: HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO AMERICAN
CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
by
Chesley Howard Looney
Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the
University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
2005
Advisory Committee:
Professor R. Gordon Kelly, Chair
Professor Barbara Finkelstein
Associate Professor Myron Lounsbury
Associate Professor Jo B. Paoletti
Assistant Professor Elizabeth Marshall
©Copyright by
Chesley Howard Looney
2005
DEDICATION
For my father, Chesley Hall Looney, and my mother Ida Ruth Courtright Looney, who
first introduced me to the books of Stephen Meader, and who first enjoyed them
herself as a young woman.
And for my wife Leslie Ann Ruby, and our children, Sarah Elizabeth Looney and Eric
Chesley Looney, who, especially Eric, endured hours of listening to me read
Stephen Meader’s books aloud.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people have assisted me in completing this project. I am especially
indebted to John H. Meader, son of Stephen W. Meader, for his time, and for generously
providing me with publisher’s correspondence, unpublished manuscripts, and other
documents relating to his father’s career. Peggy Meader Hofmann, daughter of Stephen
Meader, was also very helpful in taking the time to speak with me about her father.
I am grateful to Professor R. Gordon Kelly for the large amount of time, effort,
and patience he has invested in my doctoral studies and in this project. I appreciate the
willingness to serve on the committee of the other members: Professors Barbara
Finkelstein, Myron Lounsbury, Jo B. Paoletti, and Elizabeth Marshall.
My wife, Leslie Ann Ruby, and our children, Sarah Elizabeth Looney and Eric
Chesley Looney, have suffered my absences and distractions as I wrote this dissertation
as well as my passionate discussions of Stephen Meader’s work.
My brother J. Jefferson Looney and my friend Bob Zeller each read sections of
my early efforts and provided extremely helpful suggestions. My friend and colleague
Donita McGeary brought two errors to my attention just in time for me to correct them.
To all specifically named above, and to the many not listed who helped in
numerous ways, I acknowledge your efforts and patience, and I thank you.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter I Introduction........................................................................................1
Chapter II Meader Learns his Craft: 1920 to 1936............................................26
Chapter III An Entrepreneurial Emphasis Emerges (1937-1941).......................95
Chapter IV Stephen Meader and World War II................................................155
Chapter V War’s End to Retirement From Advertising (1946-1957).............200
Chapter VI Final Published Books (1958 to 1969) and Unpublished Works...250
Chapter VII Conclusion.....................................................................................287
Bibliography .......................................................................................................301
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CHAPTER 1
Introduction
In a long and productive writing career, Stephen Warren Meader published forty-
four books of adventure for children, aimed primarily at boys. Meader’s books were very
popular, both with the children for whom he wrote, and with librarians serving those
children. Phyllis Fenner, librarian and anthologist, noted that Meader’s many excellent
books appealed to both boys and girls, that “the children begin with one title and go right
through everything he has written.” During Meader's heyday, children would just say to
librarians “Give me another Meader.”1 Meader’s books successfully captured important
aspects of American life and values, and were popular across five very different decades
of American history and life during which Meader wrote: 1920 through the end of the
1960s. Meader emphasized in his young heroes what he described as “the old-fashioned
virtues of honesty, loyalty, and self-reliance”2 as they confronted problems of coming of
age and finding their place in the world. Meader wrote both historical tales and stories
with contemporary settings, set in many regions and most historical eras of the United
States. Meader’s heroes start successful businesses from scratch (rags-to-
1Phyllis Fenner, The Proof of the Pudding: What Children Read (New York: The
John Day Co., 1957), 93-94.
2Cecile Magaliff, The Junior Novel: Its Relationship to Adolescent Reading (Port
Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1964), 40, quoting Meader.
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entrepreneurship), support widowed mothers, sail on all manner of vessels, participate in
most American wars, foil spies, learn various occupations, receive rewards for their
efforts, win football and basketball games, capture the affections of attractive young
women, and always succeed, usually spectacularly. Meader’s heroes mature in some way
in his stories and, concerned throughout with notions of fair play and doing the right
thing, demonstrate tolerance for people of different backgrounds. Meader painted such a
compelling picture of the American way of life that his Red Horse Hill (1930) was
translated into German and distributed in post-World War II Germany as an introduction
to the American way of life for German children.
Stephen Meader was born on May 2, 1892, into a Quaker family in Rhode Island,
and moved to New Hampshire when he was 12. He attended the Quaker college
Haverford in Pennsylvania, married, and raised two sons and two daughters in
Moorestown, New Jersey. In addition to his successful writing career, Meader worked
full-time, first in publishing, and then for most of his career in the advertising business.
He broke into print in 1920 with the newly formed publishing house of Harcourt, Brace
and Howe, soon to become Harcourt, Brace and Company, which published all but one
of his forty-four books. His writing career thus began at the start of a decade that became
known as a golden age of publishing for children. His first book, The Black Buccaneer, a
pirate tale, fit right into a decade also known for sea stories. During the 1930s, the
decade of the Great Depression and economic worries for most Americans, Meader
published his first contemporary tales. T-Model Tommy (1938) posed an entrepreneurial
approach to making a living during rough times, and Meader produced a similar
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entrepreneurial book in each of the next three decades, culminating in the 1960s with
Snow on Blueberry Mountain (1961). By that time the entrepreneurial approach seemed
to be giving way to the idea of fitting into a large corporation, and teenagers, including
several of Meader’s protagonists, were more likely to be earning spending money than
money to support a family. During the World War II years, Meader was one of the rare
American authors of high-quality fiction for children who addressed the war directly in
his writing (as opposed to an allegorical or indirect approach). He used his books to
communicate basic information to his readers about the war and how they should behave
during wartime. Meader continued writing contemporary and historical stories through
the 1950s and 1960s, but by the end of the latter decade was perceived as increasingly
out of touch. Children’s literature was becoming “relevant” and confronting society’s
problems, after a long period in which juvenile writers to a large extent ignored such
problems. After his long and distinguished writing career, Meader began to receive
occasional negative comments in reviews. When he submitted “The Hawley House
Mystery” on his regular schedule to his publisher, Harcourt, Brace, that firm rejected it.
Meader reacted by attempting to make his work timely and relevant, but he never
published again. Both Harcourt, Brace and Dodd, Mead (which had published Trap-Lines
North [1936]), declined to publish his “The Fight for the Marsh,” which contained both
an anti-drug message and a pro-environment theme that was by no means new to his
work. By 1990, all of Meader’s books were out of print.
Very few works of scholarship have even touched on the work of Stephen Meader
and not one has concentrated on him, though some briefly mention him as one of many
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