Frightened George: how the pediatric-educational complex ruined the Curious George series

Journal of Social History, Fall, 2005 by Daniel Greenstone

To contemporary tastes, the plot of the original Curious George story is astonishing. In the book by H.A. Rey (and Margret, his wife and uncredited collaborator), George, a small monkey and a childlike figure, is lured from his perch high up in the jungle of Africa, by a strange gun-toting man. The man springs out of hiding and binds George in a sack, up to his neck. George's kidnapper (the man with the yellow hat) then spirits him away to a boat, waiting off the coast, and ferries him across the ocean. After giving George a meal and plying him with tobacco and liquor, the man makes plans to deposit George in the local zoo. But while the man is off arranging the transfer, George plays with the phone, accidentally dialing the fire department. The firemen arrest George and detain him in a dank prison cell, overrun with mice. George escapes from prison, into the city, and rides a bunch of helium balloons through the sky. Later he is found by the man with the yellow hat and taken to the zoo, where the story ends, with George alone in captivity. (1)

A children's story with such a plot could not be published today. To begin with, current political sensibilities and social mores would obviously preclude the casual and generally positive portrayal of alcohol, tobacco and firearms. Nor would a responsible contemporary publisher be likely to flirt with the disturbing overtones suggested by George's capture, which is eerily reminiscent of Middle Passage slave narratives. But aside from these matters of taste and politics, the early George stories fundamentally reflect the beliefs and folkways of a bygone age. The first several volumes in the series portray a protagonist who eagerly, and almost entirely without apprehension, confronts some of the most profound childhood fears imaginable, including physical danger, illness, abandonment and exploitation by adults. This portrayal was neither an accident nor a mistake; in fact the early George's attitude toward the challenges put in front of him was an accurate reflection of the less anxious view of childhood that was common in pre-war America, and was more common still, in the Reys' home country of Germany. (2)

Of course social norms and mores change over time, so it is not surprising that the first several George books appear dated. Very few children's books from the 1940's are still in print. (3) But the Curious George series is remarkable because it did not remain static. By the final three books, both George and the man with the yellow hat have undergone complete transformations in their approach to the fears and dangers of childhood. This fact provides an unusual and revealing window into the profound changes in child-rearing that swept across middle-class America in the twentieth century.

The story of George's creators is at least as remarkable as any of his own escapades. Hans and Margret Rey were German Jews, born around the turn of the century. After World War I, Hans began a career in advertising, while Margret studied art at the Bauhaus, whose faculty at the time included Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. In 1935 she joined Hans in Brazil, where they founded the first advertising agency in Rio de Janeiro. The couple honeymooned in Paris and decided to stay. Hans soon published his first children's book, Ragi et les 9 Singes (Cecily G. and the Nine Monkeys). The most mischievous of the nine monkeys became a hit, and the Reys decided to devote a whole volume to him. But as the Nazis roared into France, the Reys concluded it was time to find safer ground. They loaded the drawings for George in a backpack, built improvised bicycles from spare parts and fled over the French border into Spain. From there they went to Portugal, back to Brazil and finally to America. (4)

The Reys arrived in an America that was undergoing dramatic change, as it completed its transition from a rural country into an urban and increasingly suburban society. Of the many changes in the United States, few were as profound as the revolution in the views of children, childhood and child-rearing. Peter Stearns' history of child-rearing practices in the twentieth century is entitled Anxious Parents, and the title aptly captures the percolating sense among middle-class American parents that their children were subject to increasing pressures and perils. Stearns convincingly shows that Victorian era parents generally thought of their children (particularly boys) as resilient, hardy and tough. (5) Because some fears could not be avoided, parents instructed their children to face and overcome them. "Train up your children to be virtuous and fearless," wrote one author of a Victorian era parenting manual. (6) "Fear existed," Stearns writes, "and its conquest was something boys at least should learn about; for the most part, simply presenting the standards and providing examples of appropriate reactions would do the trick." (7) As Stearns observes, pluck, a term that has largely disappeared from the lexicon, was one of the paramount virtues in nineteenth century children's literature. (8)