Author: Ryan K. Anderson
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
ISBN: 1557286825
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 319
Book Description
Gilbert Patten, writing as Burt L. Standish, made a career of generating serialized twenty-thousand-word stories featuring his fictional creation Frank Merriwell, a student athlete at Yale University who inspired others to emulate his example of manly boyhood. Patten and his publisher, Street and Smith, initially had only a general idea about what would constitute Merriwell’s adventures and who would want to read about them when they introduced the hero in the dime novel Tip Top Weekly in 1896, but over the years what took shape was a story line that capitalized on middle-class fears about the insidious influence of modern life on the nation’s boys. Merriwell came to symbolize the Progressive Era debate about how sport and school made boys into men. The saga featured the attractive Merriwell distinguishing between “good” and “bad” girls and focused on his squeaky-clean adventures in physical development and mentorship. By the serial’s conclusion, Merriwell had opened a school for “weak and wayward boys” that made him into a figure who taught readers how to approximate his example. In Frank Merriwell and the Fiction of All-American Boyhood, Anderson treats Tip Top Weekly as a historical artifact, supplementing his reading of its text, illustrations, reader letters, and advertisements with his use of editorial correspondence, memoirs, trade journals, and legal documents. Anderson blends social and cultural history, with the history of business, gender, and sport, along with a general examination of childhood and youth in this fascinating study of how a fictional character was used to promote a homogeneous “normal” American boyhood rooted in an assumed pecking order of class, race, and gender.
Frank Merriwell and the Fiction of All-American Boyhood
Author: Ryan K. Anderson
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
ISBN: 1557286825
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 319
Book Description
Gilbert Patten, writing as Burt L. Standish, made a career of generating serialized twenty-thousand-word stories featuring his fictional creation Frank Merriwell, a student athlete at Yale University who inspired others to emulate his example of manly boyhood. Patten and his publisher, Street and Smith, initially had only a general idea about what would constitute Merriwell’s adventures and who would want to read about them when they introduced the hero in the dime novel Tip Top Weekly in 1896, but over the years what took shape was a story line that capitalized on middle-class fears about the insidious influence of modern life on the nation’s boys. Merriwell came to symbolize the Progressive Era debate about how sport and school made boys into men. The saga featured the attractive Merriwell distinguishing between “good” and “bad” girls and focused on his squeaky-clean adventures in physical development and mentorship. By the serial’s conclusion, Merriwell had opened a school for “weak and wayward boys” that made him into a figure who taught readers how to approximate his example. In Frank Merriwell and the Fiction of All-American Boyhood, Anderson treats Tip Top Weekly as a historical artifact, supplementing his reading of its text, illustrations, reader letters, and advertisements with his use of editorial correspondence, memoirs, trade journals, and legal documents. Anderson blends social and cultural history, with the history of business, gender, and sport, along with a general examination of childhood and youth in this fascinating study of how a fictional character was used to promote a homogeneous “normal” American boyhood rooted in an assumed pecking order of class, race, and gender.
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
ISBN: 1557286825
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 319
Book Description
Gilbert Patten, writing as Burt L. Standish, made a career of generating serialized twenty-thousand-word stories featuring his fictional creation Frank Merriwell, a student athlete at Yale University who inspired others to emulate his example of manly boyhood. Patten and his publisher, Street and Smith, initially had only a general idea about what would constitute Merriwell’s adventures and who would want to read about them when they introduced the hero in the dime novel Tip Top Weekly in 1896, but over the years what took shape was a story line that capitalized on middle-class fears about the insidious influence of modern life on the nation’s boys. Merriwell came to symbolize the Progressive Era debate about how sport and school made boys into men. The saga featured the attractive Merriwell distinguishing between “good” and “bad” girls and focused on his squeaky-clean adventures in physical development and mentorship. By the serial’s conclusion, Merriwell had opened a school for “weak and wayward boys” that made him into a figure who taught readers how to approximate his example. In Frank Merriwell and the Fiction of All-American Boyhood, Anderson treats Tip Top Weekly as a historical artifact, supplementing his reading of its text, illustrations, reader letters, and advertisements with his use of editorial correspondence, memoirs, trade journals, and legal documents. Anderson blends social and cultural history, with the history of business, gender, and sport, along with a general examination of childhood and youth in this fascinating study of how a fictional character was used to promote a homogeneous “normal” American boyhood rooted in an assumed pecking order of class, race, and gender.
Frank Merriwell's Cruise
Author: Burt L. Standish
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
ISBN: 1434462226
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 178
Book Description
Frank Merriwell was the fictional creation of Gilbert Patten, who wrote under the pseudonym Burt L. Standish. The model for all later American juvenile sports fiction, Merriwell excelled at football, baseball, crew, and track at Yale while solving mysteries and righting wrongs. He played with great strength and received traumatic blows without injury. A biographical entry on Patten noted that Frank Merriwell "had little in common with his creator or his readers." Patten offered some background on his character: "The name was symbolic of the chief characteristics I desired my hero to have. Frank for frankness, merry for a happy disposition, well for health and abounding vitality." Merriwell's classmates observed, "He never drinks. That's how he keeps himself in such fine condition all the time. He will not smoke, either, and he takes his exercise regularly. He is really a remarkable freshie." Merriwell originally appeared in a series of magazine stories starting April 18, 1896 ("Frank Merriwell: or, First Days at Fardale") in Tip Top Weekly, continuing through 1912, and later in dime novels and comic books. Patten would confine himself to a hotel room for a week to write an entire story.
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
ISBN: 1434462226
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 178
Book Description
Frank Merriwell was the fictional creation of Gilbert Patten, who wrote under the pseudonym Burt L. Standish. The model for all later American juvenile sports fiction, Merriwell excelled at football, baseball, crew, and track at Yale while solving mysteries and righting wrongs. He played with great strength and received traumatic blows without injury. A biographical entry on Patten noted that Frank Merriwell "had little in common with his creator or his readers." Patten offered some background on his character: "The name was symbolic of the chief characteristics I desired my hero to have. Frank for frankness, merry for a happy disposition, well for health and abounding vitality." Merriwell's classmates observed, "He never drinks. That's how he keeps himself in such fine condition all the time. He will not smoke, either, and he takes his exercise regularly. He is really a remarkable freshie." Merriwell originally appeared in a series of magazine stories starting April 18, 1896 ("Frank Merriwell: or, First Days at Fardale") in Tip Top Weekly, continuing through 1912, and later in dime novels and comic books. Patten would confine himself to a hotel room for a week to write an entire story.
Frank Merriwell's Rescue
Author: Burt L. Standish
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Adventure stories, American
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Adventure stories, American
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
Frank Merriwell's Own Company
Author: Burt L. Standish
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
Frank Merriwell's Power
Author: Burt L. Standish
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Adventure stories, American
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Adventure stories, American
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
Frank Merriwell's Opportunity
Author: Burt L. Standish
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Adventure stories
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Adventure stories
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
Frank Merriwell’s Son
Author: Burt L. Standish
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3752423404
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 197
Book Description
Reproduction of the original: Frank Merriwell’s Son by Burt L. Standish
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3752423404
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 197
Book Description
Reproduction of the original: Frank Merriwell’s Son by Burt L. Standish
Frank Merriwell's Danger
Author: Burt L. Standish
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Adventure stories, American
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Adventure stories, American
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
Frank Merriwell's Backers, Or, The Pride of His Friends
Author: Burt L. Standish
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dime novels, American
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dime novels, American
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
Frank Merriwell's Chums
Author: Burt L. Standish
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Boys
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Boys
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description