Horatio Alger in Harlem: Manchild in the Promised Land

¹ Brown, Claude, Manchild in the Promised Land (New York: Signet, 1966). The hardcover edition was published in New York in 1965 by Macmillan.

² Cawelti, John G., Apostles of the Self-Made Man: Changing Concepts of Success in America (Chicago: 1965), 110, and Zuckerman, Michael, “The Nursery Tales of Horatio Alger,” American Quarterly, 24 (1972), 198–99 both make this point. The Alger books on which this paper is based include the following: Ragged Dick (Boston, 1868); Mark, the Match Boy (Boston, 1869); Slow and Sure, or, From the Street to the Shop (Philadelphia, 1872); Strong and Steady, the Story of a Successful Boy; The Young Miner, or Tom Nelson in California (Boston, 1879); Struggling Upward, or Luke Larkin's Luck; Phil, the Fiddler, or The Young Musician (Boston, 1872); Jed, the Poorhouse Boy (1892); Julius, or the Street Boy Out West (Boston, 1874); The Store Boy, or the Fortunes of Ben Barclay (1883); Brave and Bold (Boston, 1874).

³ See Baker, Houston A. Jr., “The Environment as Enemy in a Black Autobiography: Manchild in the Promised Land,” Phyhn, 32 (1971), 55–59. One should also note that the very last paragraphs of the book, the author's closing words to his readers, are a kind of recapitulation of the feelings he had as a boy, regarding the wonderful and exciting world of the Harlem streets.

⁴ Brown, , 21.

⁵ Ibid., 155.

⁶ For example, this happens to Ragged Dick, Mark, the Match Boy, and Phil, the Fiddler, the respective heroes of the books by those names. In fact, a large part of the aid which the benevolent elder provides the hero consists of making him aware that a better life is a real possibility.

⁷ Brown, , 271.

⁸ Ibid., 421.

⁹ Ibid., 424. In his review of Manchild in the Promised Land, Paul Goodman also stressed the educational value of Brown's street experiences. See “Growing Up Black,” New York Review of Books, 25 08 1965.

¹⁰ Scharnhorst, Gary with Bales, Jack, The Lost Life of Horatio Alger, Jr. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 127 and 149–65, and Scharnhorst, Gary, Horatio Alger, Jr., (Boston: Twayne, 1980), passim.

¹¹ Brown, , 300.

¹² For a particularly scathing example see Miller, Warren, “One Score in Harlem,” Saturday Review, 28 08 1965.

¹³ Nat Hentoff makes this point in his review of Manchild, “Sprung from the alley, a rare cat,” New York Herald Tribune Book. Week, 22 08 1965.