by James Wallace Harris, 6/12/23
Over the years, my friend Linda and I have nostalgically recalled a series of books we both read in elementary school. They were biographies aimed at kids, but that’s all we could remember. We both wondered why we never saw them in used bookstores, or libraries, or met other people who fondly recalled them?
These books came up again on Sunday, and I did a Google search and discovered they were books published by Bobbs-Merrill starting in the 1930s. The series was called Childhood of Famous Americans. Linda and I remembered them being blue, but in my search, I found many people remember them as the “orange books.”
Well, this site solved that mystery, claiming there were 220 in the series, and showed photos of how they looked different over the decades. Some of them were orange and others were blue. They also had uniform dust jackets with numbers. Those numbers appealed to me. They made me want to read them all. However, I doubt I read more than 10-12 of them. Linda claims to have read far more, but then she was a much bigger bookworm in elementary school than I was. Linda and I both remember the yellow decoration about the blue book below.
Evidently, this series was intended to provide patriotic reading for young readers. I was already a patriotic little kid when I discovered them. My father was in the Air Force, and we were living on Homestead Air Force Base, and I discovered them in 1962 in the Air Base Elementary. I was in the 5th grade. My teacher was Mr. Granger. He was a WWII vet, who had been in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. Mr. Granger had lost a leg in the war and had a wooden one which the class found fascinating. Sometimes Mr. Granger would step on our feet not knowing it, and we all would never let him know. Mr. Granger told the class lots of interesting stories. It would have been interesting to have a biography of Mr. Granger.
I became a bookworm that year. Linda says she became a bookworm in the first grade, but I didn’t discover books until summer school between the third and fourth grades. I was sent there because they thought I couldn’t read. On the first day, the teacher said to pick out a book from a twirling wire rack and I found a kid’s version of Up Periscope. It turns out I could read. They just had never given me anything worth reading before.
In the fourth grade, I slowly started getting into books. I liked nonfiction books about war, planes, dogs, and nature. We moved to Homestead for the 5th grade and I had access to two libraries: the base library and the school library. I loved Homestead Air Force Base Library, and have written about it before. It was while I regularly used these two libraries that I became a bookworm.
The Childhood of Famous Americans was the first book series I got hooked on. They may have caused my lifelong love of biographies, or my biography-loving genes first discovered biographies there.
I remember reading bios of Ben Franklin, John F. Kennedy, Jim Thorpe, George Washington Carver, and I think Betsy Ross that are in the series. I’m pretty sure I read several others but don’t recall specific memories. I also remember reading a biography of Blackjack Pershing then but he doesn’t seem to be in the series, so maybe there were other biography series for kids.
This page at LibraryThing lists 208 books in the series, with links about them, and gives the totals for people owning them in their collection. Few people owned them, but some titles have huge numbers of likes. That suggests there are plenty of people like me and Linda who remember them.
The series ran for a long time, and have been reprinted in paperback, and inspired other series. Some publishers have even tried to restart the series.
I can’t remember any exact details from the books, but reading about them while researching this piece, it seems they were a mixture of fiction and nonfiction. Some writers have called them problematic for both conservatives and liberals. All this book banning is making people overly sensitive about books.
I’ll keep an eye out for Childhood of Famous Americans books at the library bookstore and see if I can find some to read. I wonder if I can document any instances of them that were the seeds of my current philosophy?
Did you read any of the Childhood of Famous Americans books? Leave a memory in the comments.
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 
I totally remember using these for middle school book reports!
When was that? Do you remember which bios you read?
in the 90s. Harriet Tubman I think
that’s a new one; reading generally wasn’t stressed in the catholic grade schools i attended, the exception being sixth grade at saint thomas in great falls. i remember an historical series known as landmark books which accounted for a number of the book reports that i composed , reading being graded as one or none getting you an f, two was good for a d, three for a c, four for a b, and five for an a,which wre supposed to consist of one from each of the following: fiction, history, biography, poetry, and religion (catholicism, not surprisingly-i turned in a book report on the life of martin luther and the old bitch wouldn’t give me credit for it until i pointed out that the reverend had gotten his start as a catholic.} i usually managed to get through three books every cycle. i might have read more but i was hung up trying to master long division.maybe i ought to be relating this to a therapist. at any rate, anybody out there ever read GENERAL BROCK AND NIAGARA FALLS ? only title that i recall offhand from those benighted days,outside of an anthology edited by phyllis fenner titled GIANTS AND WITCHES AND A DRAGON OR TWO , which might still be worth tracking down.
I learned to love history and baseball and I remember Amelia Earhart doing something to fly off the roof of her house because she wanted to fly so bad. Lou Gehrig And Babe Ruth were my heroes. I read these books in elementary school in the 60s. They were blue bound and there were probably 30 of them.
SueWJohnson Utah
For some reason, I remember the series called, “When the Great were Small.” But I loved them and read all of them in my Catholic school library.
Does Dear Mr. Henshaw count?
I didn’t read this series, but did read all the Andre Norton SF books in our school library. Loved STORM OVER WARLOCK with its cool EMSH cover artwork! Other Young Adult books I remember from those days are William Campbell Gault’s sports/racing series:
Backfield Challenge
The Big Stick
Bruce Benedict, Halfback
The Checkered Flag
Cut-rate Quarterback
Dim Thunder
Dirt Track Summer
Drag Strip
Gallant Colt
Gasoline Cowboy
The Karters
The Last Lap
Little Big Foot
The Lonely Mound
The Long Green
Mr. Fullback
Mr. Quarterback
The Oval Playground
Quarterback Gamble
Road-Race Rookie
Rough Road To Glory
Showboat in the Backcourt
Speedway Challenge
Stubborn Sam
The Sunday Cycles
Sunday’s Dust
Super Bowl Bound
Thin Ice
Through The Line
Thunder Road
Trouble at Second
Two-Wheeled Thunder
The Underground Skipper
Wheels of Fortune
Wild Willie, Wide Receiver
Unlike George Kelly I can only remember a few books like the Jim Thorpe ,David Crockett and a few others…most are Lost to time… Unfortunately I touched base with some of these biographies years later, in a adult form, and found out that many of my superheroes were just regular people With above average human quirks… Like walking through the wilderness day after day ,twenty five miles each day, until they find some Interesting mountain or valley. I love reading Ed Czlapinski’s political philosophical debate with his Catholic school teacher. I would not had the self confidence to engage in such a conversation.
I I read all the Andre Norton books I could find. The biography series I remember were bound in orange and were illustrated with silhouettes.
I remember several of these books. My dad took me to the library every Saturday and I’d take two or three out. Mostly the female biographies: Harriet Tubman, Betsy Ross Julia Ward Howe, Clara Barton, Harriet Beecher Stowe…. I seem to remember one about Nellie Bly, too, but she wasn’t in the list. I also owned one, “Dolly Madison, Quaker Girl,” and must have read it fifty times. Wonderful memories. Thanks for your detailed research.
Read many of these in 4th grade. My teacher encouraged reading and allowed us to go to library for independent checkout after lunch. I have basic knowledge of many important people because of these books.
Carolyn, I also found these books in my 4th grade teachers classroom library. I am pretty sure I read all that she had. Mrs Willard was my favorite teacher and one of the reasons that I also became a teacher. I was in the class 1959-60. I remember:
Jim Thorp
Lou Gehrig
Thomas Jefferson
Judge Marshall- 1820 Era great high jumper
Paul Revere
Ben Franklin
George and Abe
Old Hickory, Andrew Jackson Survived sword swipe across face by English Soldier in War of 1812.
and a whole lot of others, but at 74, I can’t remember them all.
I found this page while researching these books. I remember them from
Elementary school, and omg, I loved them so much. Clara Barton, Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, Amelia Earhart, Florence Nightingale, I k ow I read many, many others but those are the first that come to mind. Our books were orange, this would have been in the early to mid 70s. They redrew district lines between my fourth and fifth year and I had to go to another, much smaller, elementary for 5th, and as I recall, they did not have the series there, much to my sadness. Glad to see others still remember these fondly. I wish I could own some of them.
If my memory serves me, I started reading a series of biograpies, they were small books maybe 8″x5″ that had a blue cover and the illustrations looked like like black silhouettes. It must have been around around 1956 or 57 I remember the librarian showing me the books and I loved them, I don’t know is they were the same ones you are referring to, I think I eventually read the whole shelf full. Reading and that librarian saved me, I was the only one that read much in my very disfunctional family, and they were my escape into what was possible outside the walls of my life.
For more information on this series, see the following two works:
“Fame Is Not Just for the Fellas”: Female Renown and the Childhood of Famous Americans Series (Studies in Print Culture and the History of the Book) – December 16, 2022
and
“From Boys to Men”: The Boy Problem and the Childhood of Famous Americans Series (Studies in Print Culture and the History of the Book) – July 1, 2024
Thanks, Greg.
For people wanting to know more about these two books, read:
https://www.umasspress.com/9781625346926/fame-is-not-just-for-the-fellas/
https://www.umasspress.com/9781625347954/from-boys-to-men/
They both look interesting. A little more than I want to spend right now, but I’ll check my library.
Thank you for finding this book series! I have been looking for these for years! I read every single biography in the school library my fourth grade year (1963) and would love to get the entire set for my granddaughter. Our books were blue cloth and I devoured these stories about Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Harriet Tubman, Molly Pitcher, Amelia Earhart, etc. If anyone knows where I can purchase this set, please reply to my post. Thank you.
You should search abebooks.com or ebay.com
I remember reading biographies of Clara Barton, Jane Addams, and Florence Nightingale in the 1970s in elementary school. But I don’t recall if these were the books. Was there a different series that just focused on women? The Jane Addams one made a huge impression on me: she saw a poor child eating a rotten cabbage (Addams was wealthy) and vowed to devote her life to helping the poor.
The series I remember covered both men and women. However, I think there was another series that just covered famous American women.
I still have a few of these orange-colored books: Clara Barton, Nancy Hanks, Knute Rockne, and Pocahontas. I’ve been wondering what to do with them and it seems there is still an audience out there.
You can look them up on abebooks.com to see if they are valuable. If they are in good shape you might can put them on eBay.
I read Clara Barton, Nurse Extraordinaire.
I have grandchildren coming up to that age. I would be interested in buying some. Call me.
Don Jenkins
1 (720) 220-8477
I read every one of these biographies that my elementary school had, which was a wall from top to bottom in the corner of our library. I looked online and found one for sale that I purchased just now from the editions I read, which had the white banner coming in from the left but stopping shy of the right cover margin. They made me think that even famous people began somewhere, with childhoods maybe not so dissimilar from my own, so that maybe I could do something important in life, too. I am eager to reread one to see if that message comes through the way I remember it.
The problem with these books, which were quite popular with children, is that the biographies are not wholly accurate. Some of the details and description are invented, in order to advance the story or make them more interesting to readers. I could not understand why teachers would like using them when they contain such fictional inaccuracies. Some teachers reasoned that they got children to read, and that was the primary objective. But, in the future, wouldn’t a person feel betrayed when they find out some of the information was untrue? We got rid of them in our library and bought some of the Who Was and Who Is series. Not the greatest fan of those, either. Tend too much toward “ra ra” approach. Not all famous Americans, for example are deserving of the regard with which they are held.
I remember the series very well… just bought Washington Irving Boy of Old New York …for a friend .. no matter how many WI books she has I’m sure this one was not in her collection.
I loved the series and to this day remember exactly where they were in our library.
.
I absolutely loved these books. I can still visualize the row of orange books (in the 60s) in my elementary school. That bottom shelf was where I went first every week. And were they 100% accurate? Did I care? No. I still learned a lot from them.
Thank you so much! I have been trying for years to help my mom find the little blue books that turned her on to reading!
I remember a series from grade school in the 1960’s. However I recall sand colored covers (perhaps a different series). Read all of the series in my grade school library, including Amelia Earhart, Molly Pitcher, Clara Barton, Betsy Ross, Maria Mitchell, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Nancy Hanks, Mad Anthony Wayne, Juliette Low . . . Many more. Excellent entertainment and elementary insight into history. Would love to locate these for my grandkids.
I totally loved these books when I discovered them in our bookmobile in 6th grade. Our teacher had a contest for who could read the most books that year. I read far more than any other student..so many my teach didn’t believe me! And she called my mother to ask if I was lying! I wasn’t and I won the contest. But, I still don’t think I read EVERY book in the series. I also don’t know which I loved more, the biographies or the black silhouette illustrations. I still love both biographies and silhouettes and I just turned 74!
My dad was stationed in Germany from 1956 to 1960 when I was in 1st to 4th grade. I must have read every one in the series at least once. I think the library shared with other Army Base schools so we got a new influx every so often. What a wonderful memory! All thanks to there being no TV, and my being a nerd.
I am 85, a retired librarian, and I read many, many of these books in the 40s, fascinated by the silhouette illustrations.
Two giveaways that some of the books had the same author:
Anytime a parent would use the kids full name including their middle name, they would explain how that meant they were in trouble.
And anytime a kid would ask if they could go somewhere with another kid and the parents paused to think about it and the kid would take off real quick because the parent hadn’t said, “no.”