Social Morwinism: Horatio Alger, A Social Darwinist
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Horatio Alger, the author of Ragged Dick, claimed to be a Social Darwinist by the many people. Many people believed that his stories were supporting the theory of Social Darwinist. So, the question comes in. Was Horatio Alger a Social Darwinist? Or was he just using same plot over and over with his stories? The real question was how could we found if he was Social Darwinist or not by his books. Just judging by the book, Horatio Alger may be a Social Darwinist, but judging by the person, we don’t know if Alger was a Social Darwinist or not.
Social Darwinism was rising big during the 19th and 20th century. Social Darwinism was Darwin’s theory of evolution applied to humans. It believed that the strong thrive because they deserve to, and the…show more content… Competition did not make him a rich man, but being nice and helping people made him to rise up to the middle class. When Dick helped Frank to tour around the New York, Mr. Whitney thanked him by giving a suit. He did not hit or threaten Frank to hand the suit over to him. He never asked for the suit. When Dick’s fellow boot shiner was suffering from hunger, Dick bought the food for him and gave few tips of becoming a better boot shiner. He did not think any of boot shiners to be his competition. They were his family. The “Survival of Fittest” did fit somehow with Dick being hard working to make more money, but Dick was not a person who cared about his competition. He became rich because he was honest, nice, helpful, and also lucky.
So was Horatio Alger a Social Darwinist? The answer will be no. Horatio Alger was not a Social Darwinist. He may have liked the idea of “Survival of Fittest”, but he didn’t use the theory much in his stories. Most of his stories didn’t tell the young men to kick one of your opponents to get the job. He was telling that boys should strive to enhance their knowledge as working their job along with helping the people around. There were some “Survival of Fittest” in some part of the story, but the story was mostly about boys helping out each other to become a better