Ragged Dick

The representations of young girls in nineteenth century literature are the complete opposite of young boys.  As we’ve seen in our previous readings this semester, young girls tend to inherit the same qualities as their mothers. Usually this entails being neat, proper, polite, innocent, religious, and all things deemed appropriate. In Horatio Alger’s, Ragged Dick, we see a young boy as the main character for the first time. Dick is a fourteen year old boy living on the streets of New York as A “Boot Black” AKA a vagabond. Although he lives a lifestyle that was very much frowned upon by people of that time period, Dick finds a way to win over the hearts of everyone he meets. Alger even considers Dick a hero at some points in the story. As he states on page 258, "He was above doing anything mean or dishonorable. He would not steal cheat, or cheat, or impose upon younger boys, but was frank and straight-forward, manly and self reliant." Here, Alger is glorifying all of Ragged Dick's valuable qualities. The fact that this representation of a homeless boy who is irresponsible can be seen as a hero is proof that standards for men were not as high as they were for women in the nineteenth century. Young boys did not have as many obligations as young girls did when it came to reputations and expectations. I'm sure the boy's opinion about this time period, looking back, would be much different than the girls. For instance, on of the female characters we read about would probably remember this time as a time of discipline, instruction, and working towards eventually getting married and becoming a housewife. Ragged Dick would probably look back and think, "Oh I was such a young independent boy, I learned so much from the streets, ahhh the good old days."