Arts & Culture

Beyond the Pages: Mary Mapes Dodge

“On a bright December morning long ago, two thinly clad children were kneeling upon the bank of a frozen canal in Holland.”

Thus begins the tale of the life of a small Dutch family that has been told and retold for over a century. Amazingly, the story that illustrates so vividly the history and the culture of Holland was first imagined by a woman who was neither Dutch nor a visitor to this small European country. However, Mary Mapes Dodge accomplishes all of this in her heartwarming narrative of Hans Brinker, Or the Silver Skates.

Born in January 1831, Mary Mapes began her life in New York City, a small metropolis at the time. As part of a wealthy family, she and her two sisters were privately tutored in language, music, and art under the stern eye of their father, who believed in classic literature for children. He introduced them to large volumes such as Shakespeare at an early age, and by the time she was a teenager, Mary was assisting her father, a chemist, and inventor, in writing pamphlets.

At the age of twenty, the young writer married William Dodge, a lawyer who had done business with her father. Throughout the next four years, they rejoiced over the births of their sons James and Harrington, but Dodge’s husband had several financial problems that eventually compelled him to leave his family. A month later, his dead body was found, having apparently been drowned.

The tragedy left Dodge alone with two boys to raise and financial difficulties to overcome. In this moment of misfortune, the young woman resolved to do the best she could to take care of her sons and support them through writing. In addition to writing poetry, she continued to work with her father, together publishing two magazines. Later, after publishing two novels, Dodge worked with Harriet Beecher Stowe on another newspaper and eventually became the editor of her own magazine. Titled St. Nicholas, this would become one of the most popular children’s magazines of her time. In it, Dodge included stories from Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, Rudyard Kipling, L. Frank Baum, and Robert Louis Stevenson.

St. Nicholas appealed to its young audience in many ways. One of the most successful departments in her magazine was the story of “Jack-in-the-Pulpit.” Jack was a comical little minister, as witty as he was wise, who is said to reflect the nature of Dodge herself. Another way she appealed to readers was to invite them to send her their own stories. The “Letter Box” section of the magazine contained letters from numerous children to Dodge, including their own bits of prose and poetry.

Despite all this, the most well-known work of Mary Mapes Dodge was indubitably the tale of Hans Brinker. Dodge never visited Holland, where the story is set, but after reading the history of the country, she became fascinated with it and peppered her Dutch neighbors with questions. Through them, the writer learned of life in “the land of pluck” and began putting together the story that was slowly unfolding in her imagination.

Hans Brinker, Or the Silver Skates tells the tragic story of a family struggling to survive, accompanied by tales of a group of boys skating around Holland. Although the story is centered around a large sum of buried treasure, a pair of silver skates, and an injured father, the boys’ escapades provide a nourishing taste of Holland’s history and people. Additionally, the book introduced America to many Dutch customs, such as the sport of speed skating, and folktales, such as the story of the boy who stuck his finger in a dike to stop a flood. With interesting plot twists, adventures, and characters—including one bearing the terrific name of Voostenwalbert Schimmelpenninck—Dodge’s masterfully crafted tale has delighted readers of all kinds.

After she published Hans Brinker, Dodge was inspired to visit Holland and when traveling in Europe, met a design pioneer named Candace Wheeler. Wheeler invited her to a group that lived in cottages in the Catskill mountains during the summer, and Dodge accepted. She grew to love her new home and the surrounding wildlife, and there, at the age of 74, she passed away peacefully.

 

 

 

Picture Credit:

https://www.dodgefamily.org/Biographies/M/marymapesdodge.jpg

 

Sources:

https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/book-description/how-mary-mapes-dodge-came-to-write-hans-brinker-or-the-silver-skates/

https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/author-biography/dodge-mary-mapes/

https://hymnary.org/person/Dodge_MM

https://windowstoworldhistory.weebly.com/hans-brinker-the-dutch-hero-who-isnt-really-dutch.html

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