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Brief History of Adolescent Literature

Brief History of Adolescent Literature. Chapter 2 P. 43 - 77. Books at any point in history show what adults want young people to know and reflect the attitudes of the times. Influence of Sunday Schools. 1824 – 1880s Moralistic fiction Virtues of dying child

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Brief History of Adolescent Literature

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  1. Brief History of Adolescent Literature Chapter 2 P. 43 - 77

  2. Books at any point in history show what adults want young people to know and reflect the attitudes of the times

  3. Influence of Sunday Schools • 1824 – 1880s • Moralistic fiction • Virtues of dying child • Disobedient child would get comeuppance • Primarily sugar-coated sermons • Did advance literacy

  4. The Converted Child. Philadelphia: American Sunday-School Union, circa 1830

  5. Children are mere adults and must accept the wrath of God Young People’s Books Prior to 1800s Primarily religious http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/exhibits/child/stories1.htm

  6. happy family life harsh, but honest still read today broken homes romantic fantasies “rags to respectability” hero rarely achieved riches barely read today 1800s Louisa May Alcott HoratioAlger Jr.

  7. Horatio Alger • http://www.horatioaler.com/junior.htm

  8. Four Basic Types of Books in 1800sp. 45-53

  9. 1. Series Oliver Optic Martha Findley Susan Coolidge Harry Castlemon

  10. Characteristics preached morality woman’s submission to man suffering, self-sacrificing, denying heroines different in name, not character most are orphaned girl meets handsome man, saved women were target audience Elizabeth Wetherell Wide Wide World “when [women] were not crying, they were cooking” Augusta Jane Evans Wilson St. Elmo 2. Domestic Novels

  11. 3. Dime Novels Librarians objected to their immorality • audience mostly men • cost $.10, dropped to $.05 • 100 pages; 7x5 • stock characters • melodramatic plots • rapid beginnings • cliffhangers • he-men • westerns

  12. aimed at youth • distributed in mass at newsstands and dry goods stores • lurid cover illustration • many genres represented • tales of urban outlaws, detective stories, working-girl narratives of virtue defended, and costume romances (west most popular setting)

  13. Established original attitude toward paperbacks and cheap books: “trash” evil; corruptive should be banned Beadle Brothers Malaeska: the Indian Wife of the White Hunter (Ann Stephens, 1860) Seth Jones: or The Captives of the Frontier (1860) Major Dime Novels Publisher

  14. Tough, imperfect boys Story of a Bad Boy (T. Bailey, 1870) Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain, 1876) Boy Emigrants (N. Brooks, 1876) Master Skylark (J. Bennett, 1898) Treasure Island (R. L. Stevenson, 1883) 4. Bad Boy Adventure

  15. Public Library Development 1731 - Benjamin Franklin started Philadelphia Library Company by sharing his books 1826 - New York state used school buildings for public libraries

  16. 1847 - Boston levied a tax for free public library the first publicly supported municipal library in America 1854 - Boston Public Library opened first public library to allow people to borrow books and materials 1876 - ALA founded and Library Journal published 1884 - first library school

  17. Problems early public libraries faced 1. Tax dollars for funding support 2. Purpose: scholarly or pleasure 3. Books to include: fiction or nonfiction

  18. 1896 - Melvil Dewey recommended NEA have library department for schools • 1900 - first library school graduate appointed to Boston high school • 1912 - stressed need for professionally trained librarians in high schools • 1916 - C. C. Certain standards • Depression slowed growth

  19. School Library Development • 1823 -Brooklyn’s Apprentice Library • boys over 12 were allowed in • girls were allowed one hour an afternoon once a week • 1853 - Milwaukee recommended • schools spend $10 a year for books • only children over 10 years old, parents, teachers and school commissioners could check out books • keep items for one week; fines charged

  20. Changes in English Classroom and National Council Teachers of English • 1860 - 1870 Harvard entrance exams forced English curriculum to be based on predetermined “classics” • 1894 - Committee of Ten on Secondary School Studies recommended English be studied five hours a week for four years and college entrance exams be established

  21. very few students enrolled in school but teachers were pressured to prepare students for college by dictating recommended reading • recreational reading considered waste of time • 1911 - in protest to college entrance exams, NCTE compiled list of books for home reading and included some “new” books

  22. 1917 - Hosic suggested teacher should make reading “unfailing resource and joy in lives of all” • 1936 - LaBant found students enjoyed reading if they chose what they read

  23. Interest of the reader is most powerful factor (Norvell, 1946) Voluntary reading rarely overlapped with required reading Sue Barton, Student Nurse (Boylston) most popular book in 1947 students read to reassure themselves about normality and role playing (Carlsen, mid 1950s) bibliotherapy was outgrowth Research Findings

  24. Seven Types of Books in the Early 1900sp. 421 - 429

  25. 1. Series • Edward Stratemeyer Library Syndicate • wrote dime novels under pseudonym, Oliver Optic • founded syndicate (factory of juvenile series books) in 1906 • criticized for literary quality

  26. he created plot sketches for each chapter advertised for authors; authors wrote under pseudonyms; writers paid a one-time fee, not including royalties; agreed to never reveal they had written for a specific series or under a particular author’s pseudonym “safe and sane” (moral) for children to read good always triumphed over evil sports produced real men; never trust a foreigner The Bobbsey Twins published in 1904.

  27. “syndicate” still exists • In 1930, when Stratemeyer died, daughters Harriet Adams and Edna Stratemeyer took over • continued same series and characters • include Tom Swift, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Baseball Joe and Ruth Fielding

  28. Demise of Series • The great depression took its toll – Statemeyer series decreased from 27 to 7 • War created paper shortage • Readers became more sophisticated

  29. 2. Young child, usually girl, saves those around her • popular before WWI • Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (Wiggins, 1904) • Anne of Green Gables (Montgomery, 1908) • Pollyanna (Porter, 1913)

  30. 3. Girls’ and Boys’ books • up to mid 30s, girls’ books considered inferior to boys’ books • believed girls would read boys’ books, but boys would not read girls’ books • boys were allowed outside the house

  31. 4. Westerns

  32. 5. Sports Stories • Burt L. Standish introduced the character of Frank Meriwell • Half-Back (Barbour, 1899) • invented formula of boy attending school learning who and what he might become through sports

  33. 6. School Stories • Peggy (Laura Elizabeth Richard, 1899) • Jane’s Island (Marjorie Hill Alee, 1931) • Bright Island (M. L. Robinson, 1937)

  34. 7. Junior/Juvenile • “[this book] makes me ashamed of cussing about hard times and taxes” • Let the Hurricanes Roar (Rose Wilder Lane, 1933 • recently re-issued as Young Pioneers

  35. 1940s to 1965p. 63 - 75

  36. war gaps of all kinds: racial, technological, cultural, and economic civil rights school integration riots increasing violence assassination Changes Occurring in America

  37. Types of Books

  38. 1. Paper backs • Avon - 1941 • Bantam, Dell - 1943 • by mid 1960s - popular because of convenient size, cost, availability First introduced by Pocket in 1938

  39. Schools resisted paperbacks because: • difficult to catalog • easy to steal • covers considered lurid • contents thought to be “nothing short of pornography”

  40. 2. high school years • dating, parties, class rings, senior year, popular crowd • simple plots • exclusively white, middle class • taboo topics were avoided

  41. Florence Crannell Means (minorities) Seventh Summer by Maureen Daley (shy, innocent girls) Mary Stolz (focus on character, rather than incident) James Summers (young marriage from male view point) Paul Annixter (mixed animals, ecology, symbolism Authors who began to make changes in taboo topics

  42. 3. career books • Helen Boylston, (Nurse Barton books) • Peggy Covers the News (E. Bugbee, 1936) • Helen Wells, flight stewardesses • formulistic by late 1940s • character had minor setbacks but wins place in profession • glossed over daily grinds by glamorizing career

  43. 4. sports and car books • John F. Carson - basketball • Fear Strikes Out (1955) Jim Piersall • It’s good to be Alive (1959) Roy Campanella • Henry Gregor Felson (joys and dangers of cars) • John Tunis (sports)

  44. 5. Adventure/suspense • James Bond series (Ian Fleming) • Guadalacanal Diary (1943) R. Tregaskis • Here is Your War (1944) Ernie Pyle • The Raft (1942) Robert Trumbull • Adam of the Road (1942) E. J. Gray • The Innocent Wayfaring (1943) Marchette Chute

  45. 6. romance • Love is Forever (1954) M.E. Bell • Marriage (1954) Vivian Breck • Forever Amber (1944) K. Winsor

  46. 7. society’s problems • Of Mice and Men (1937); Grapes of Wrath (1939) Steinbeck • Cry the Beloved Country (1948) Paton • Invisible Man (1952) Ralph Ellison • Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) Haley & Malcolm X • Soul on Ice (1968) Eldridge Cleaver

  47. 8. personal problems and initiation • Married on Wednesday (1954) A. Emery • Divided Heart (1947) M. Lewiton • Too Bad about the Haines Girl (1967) Zoa Sherburne • A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943) B. Smith • Catcher in the Rye (1951) J.D. Salinger • Lord of the Flies (1955) Golding • A Separate Peace (1961) Knowles

  48. Mood in the 1950s • Magazines, paperbacks, and comic books were targeted for censorship • comic books were cheap - $.25 a book • main objective was to “protect adolescent, weak and susceptible” • Gathings and McCarthy hearings

  49. Examples of Hysteria • Texas passed a bill requiring all authors to sign a statement that they never had been a member of the Communist Party before the text would be adopted or used in the state • San Antonio wanted to “red stamp” any book by an author who had Communist affiliation or was pro Communist • bill submitted, but never passed, that Library of Congress mark all “subversive” matter

  50. “Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go into your library and read every book as long as any document does not offend our own ideas of decency…even if they think ideas that are contrary to ours, they have a right to have them, a right to record them and a right to have them in places accessible to others. It is unquestioned, or it is not America.” Dwight D. Eisenhower, June 14, 1953

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