Helen Ford is one of only two novels by Horatio Alger, Jr. with a female heroine. Originally aimed at the adult market, Helen Ford found little commercial success. Helen has the responsibility of caring for her father, a typical Alger misfit, this one, widowed and estranged from his wealthy father, trying to invent a flying machine. What is particularly interesting about Helen Ford is how Alger treats a female heroine during times of rampant sexual discrimination.
Horatio Alger, Jr. (January 13, 1832 - July 18, 1899) was a prolific 19th-century American author, best known for his many juvenile novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of middle-class security and comfort through hard work, determination, courage, and honesty. His writings were characterized by the "rags-to-riches" narrative, which had a formative effect on America during the Gilded Age. Essentially, all of Alger's novels share the same theme: a young boy, or girl in Helen Ford, struggles through hard work to escape poverty. It is not always the hard work itself that rescues the boy from his fate, but, rather, some extraordinary act of bravery or honesty, which brings him into contact with a wealthy elder gentleman, who takes the boy in as a ward. The boy might return a large sum of money that was lost or rescue someone from an overturned carriage, bringing the boy, and his plight, to the attention of some wealthy individual
