The Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous

1885. Bolton offers a collection of inspirational profiles of famous men who have lived and achieved the American rags-to-riches dream intended to encourage the youth who read this book. She writes in the preface: If Lincoln and Garfield, both farmer-boys, could come to the Presidency, then there is a chance for other farmer-boys. If Ezra Cornell, a mechanic, could become the president of great telegraph companies, and leave millions to a university, then other mechanics can come to fame. If Sir Titus Salt, working and sorting wool in a factory at nineteen, could build one of the model towns of the world for his thousands of workingmen, then there is encouragement and inspiration for other toilers in factories. These lives show that without work and will no great things are achieved. I have selected several characters because they were the centres of important historical epochs. With Garibaldi is necessarily told the story of Italian unity; with Garrison and Greeley, the fall of slavery; and with Lincoln and Sheridan, the battles of our Civil War.