The Fictional Republic: Horatio Alger and American Political Discourse

377 Pages·1994·24.98 MB·English

by  Carol Nackenoff

THE FICTIONAL REPUBLIC
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The Fictional Republic
HORATIO ALGER AND
AMERICAN POLITICAL DISCOURSE
Carol Nackenoff
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1994
Oxford University Press
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Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
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without prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nackenoff, Carol.
The fictional republic : Horatio Alger and
American political discourse / Carol Nackenoff.
p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-507923-X
1. Alger, Horatio, 1832-1899—Political and social views.
2. Politics and literature—United States—History—19th century.
3. Political fiction, American—History and criticism. I. Title.
PS1029.A3Z73 1994
813'.4—dc20 93-18732
135798642
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For Jim Greer and Alexander Nackenoff,
who nurtured me through
this process of production
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Contents
Preface ix
1 Allegory of the Republic: On Interpretation and Method 3
2 A Unitarian Project for Moral Guidance 12
3 Republican Rites of Passage: Character and
the Battle for Youth 33
4 Guidebooks for Survival in an Industrializing Economy 53
5 Saved From the Factory 78
6 Technology, Organizations, Corporations, and Capitalists 93
7 Natural Aristocracy in a Democracy: Authority,
Power, and Politics 110
8 Money, Price, and Value: Alger's Interventions in the Market 133
9 Levelling and Its Limits 162
10 Reading Alger: Searching for Alger's Audience in the Literary
Marketplace 181
11 The Mass Fiction Writer As Producer and Consumer: Power,
Powerlessness, and Gender 206
12 Culture Wars 227
13 The Fictional Republic: Alger's Appeal to the American Political
Imagination 261
Notes 272
References 336
Name Index 354
Subject Index 357
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Preface
I began collecting and reading Horatio Alger novels years ago as I became
engrossed in a challenge offered by Louis Hartz's 'Fhe Liberal Tradition in
America. Hartz argued that all America had been captured by the Horatio
Alger, liberal Lockean dream; political thought became impervious to
transformations of the economic and social order. With this wedding of
Alger and Locke, "a new social outlook took shape, dynamic, restless,
competitive... its impact ultimately became enormous."1 Like everyone
else, I had heard the name " Alger"; it is part of the common vocabulary. But
I wanted to become better acquainted with the author's formula. From this
encounter developed a passion to write about Alger.
Hartz argued that American political ideology had been forged around
1840 and remained static ever since, much to the impoverishment of political
thought, since self-evident truths generate little debate. The ideology
combined fear of the state with limitations on state power; a desire to protect
minorities against a potential mob who would attack property; blindness to
sources of social and economicpower apartfrom thestate; and a "harnessing"
or channeling of the masses' ambitions into the race for acquisition of
property with the notion that by playing by the rules of the capitalist game,
they too could aspire to reap comparable rewards. The rules included self-
help and individualism. This ideology legitimated unequal outcomes and
made the farmer and the laborer believe all were of the same estate.
In this consensus view of American politics, homogeneity of opinion
reigns—or is enforced. Hartz believed that ideologies were the product of
the relationship between social classes. In the absence of a feudal aristocracy
against which the bourgeoisie could define itself, no self-conscious proletariat
was likely to emerge. No dass was likely to forge a socialist ideology to
challenge the dominant liberal ideology. This claim was American
Exceptionalism par excellence.
There were many defects in the Hartzian account and much fuel for
scholarly debate. Claims of near-homogeneity of thought were unsatisfactory.
There was no adequate explanation for the endurance of liberal Lockeanism
in the twentieth century, to say nothing of the problem of explaining the
Civil War. And even Hartz's understanding of Alger appears to have been
shaped by a notorious hoax biography. The Scottish Enlightenment