The pages of the dime novel cling to the eroded staples with frail ambition. Vivid color which once lit eyes of the reader shows the fade of time, like a distant memory. And like a memory, it gives us a glimpse of the past and a chance to consider our history. To learn about this history, however, one must take an investigative eye to the contents of the novel.
Even a passing glance the banner for The Deadwood Dick Library beams at the reader. Just below the banner, a line of copyright information scrolls across the page. Upon inspection “Beadle and Adams” appear as the copyrighters (Wheeler 1900). The founders of Beadle and Adams, Erastus and Irwin played a pivotal role in the growth and popularity of dime novels. In the 1860s, when the Beadle Brother’s began publishing their dime novel “Beadle’s Half Dime Library”, the United States had a rapidly growing middle class with an interest in literature (Stanford Special Collections). To capture this audience, the brothers needed to be able to mass produce cheaply. Thus, the paper and printing process for the novels had little overhead, using only the cheapest materials (Stanford Special Collections). The piece under investigation today gives credence to this, it has incredible deterioration from age and low-quality materials.
Though the popularity of these novels has more to tell about the 19th century than a growing middle class. The subject matter of the especially of the Beadle brother’s dime novels, though varying weekly, focused adventures and romance in the frontier. Often, they would depict “Indians raiding white settlements… [and a] patriotic young man who tirelessly battled vice” and saved the day (Stanford Special Collections). The subject and popularity of novels with this content gives valuable insight into the societal racism of the time, when vilification of Indians was commonplace and accepted. With a bit of background knowledge, all this can be learned from just a line of text at the top of the page.
Moving down the page to the tricolor illustration which takes up much of the cover we see the main protagonist of this issue: Denver Doll (Wheeler 1900). The title clearly has a degree of sexism as one can tell from the use of “Doll” as a description for the main protagonist. Despite this the cover also represents a small yet important step for women. Although not the ideal portrayal, a female protagonist in a dime novel mostly consumed by young men represents a figurative foot in the door for more involvement in the future. In summary, Denver Doll as Detective has a bittersweet sentiment.
Given the audience of youthful males, the messages dime novels such as these send holds an importance in terms of adolescence. Most would agree that a malleable view of the world exists as a primary feature of adolescence. This makes the sentiments conveyed in the novel that much more potent due to the plasticity of the audience. However, it also suggests that the dime novels served an implicit propaganda like role for youth in the United States. The novels provided a platform whereby “Moral dilemmas could be repeatedly played out and brought to successful conclusions that affirmed the values and attitudes of an increasingly capitalist, urban, industrialist society” (Stanford Special Collections). In this way dime novels like Denver Doll as Detective could be used to mold the perceptions of youth with a simplistic and preprocessed morality. The novels held immense power and just the front cover of the novel elucidates much of the influence they had.
The pervasiveness of dime novels and their influence on youths could have had a damaging impact on the diversity of what young people read as well. One can see on the front cover of the provided novel that a yearly subscription cost only $2.50 cents (in 1900, adjusted for inflation that is around $77.74, reasonably priced for a yearly subscription today) (Wheeler 1900). With the relative cheapness of the novel I suspect that they would have an overwhelming presence in the lives of the youthful consumer. The over saturation of these novels may have displaced some of the other literature in an adolescent’s life, compounding the influential effects the authors intended. This is merely speculation however, the takeaway being that the novels were probably not the best material for an adolescent to be reading.
-Joe Flot
Works Cited
Stanford Special Collections. “Guided Tour of a Cover.” Dime Novels and Penny Dreadfuls, Stanford Special Collections Department, web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/library/prod/depts/dp/pennies/cover.html.
Wheeler, Edward L. Denver Doll as Detective. Vol. 5, New York : M.J. Ivers & Co, 1900.
Representing Adolescence @ Pitt 