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Tom Swift

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For the West Coast Eagles AFL Player, see Tom Swift (Australian footballer).
Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope (1939), from the original Tom Swift series

Tom Swift is a fictional young inventor in five series of juvenile science fiction and adventure novels. The character was created by Edward Stratemeyer, the founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book-packaging firm, and have been written by a number of different ghostwriters over the years. The books are published under the collective pseudonym Victor Appleton (or, in one case, “Victor Appleton II”).

The character first appeared in 1910 and has appeared in new titles as recently as 2007. Each of the various series focuses on Tom’s inventions, a number of which pre-date actual inventions. The character has evolved over the years, but in general the books portray science and technology as wholly beneficial in its effects. The books have been translated into a number of languages and sold over 20 million copies worldwide. Tom Swift has also been the star of a board game and a television show, and a feature film is planned.

A type of pun, the Tom Swifty, is named for the character,[1] and a number of prominent figures, including Steve Wozniak and Isaac Asimov, have cited Tom Swift as an inspiration. Several inventions, including the taser, have been directly inspired by Tom’s fictional inventions.

Character and inventions

Tom Swift, in all his various incarnations, is a young inventor, usually in his teens. He is "Swift by name and swift by nature"[2] and is portrayed as a natural genius with little formal education. The character was originally modeled after such figures as Henry Ford,[3] Thomas Edison,[2] and aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss.[4] Each Tom Swift book focuses on Tom's latest invention and its role in solving a problem or gaining Tom a fortune. Often Tom must protect his new invention from villains "intent on stealing Tom’s thunder or preventing his success";[2] Tom is always successful in the end.

Many of Tom Swift's fictional inventions either mirrored or presaged actual technological developments. Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers (1911) was based on Charles Parsons's attempts to synthesize diamonds using electric current.[5] Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone was published in 1912; however, the process for sending photographs by telephone was not developed until 1925.[6] Tom Swift and His Wizard Camera (1912) features a portable movie camera, not invented until 1923.[6] Tom Swift and His Great Searchlight (1912) concerns an arc light, although the arc light was not invented until 1915,[7] and Tom Swift and His Electric Locomotive (1922) was published two years before the Central Railroad of New Jersey placed the first diesel electric locomotive into service.[7] The house on wheels that Tom invents in 1929's Tom Swift and His House on Wheels pre-dated the first house trailer by a year,[6] and Tom Swift and His Diving Seacopter (1952) features a flying submarine similar to one planned by the Department of Defense four years later in 1956.[7] Other inventions of Tom's have not come to pass, such as the device for silencing airplane engines that he invents in Tom Swift and His Magnetic Silencer (1941).[6]

Authorship

The character of Tom Swift was conceived in 1910 by Edward Stratemeyer, founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book-packaging company. Always aware of his market, Stratemeyer invented the series in order to "take advantage of the market for children's science adventure."[8] The Syndicate's process for creating the Tom Swift books consisted of creating a detailed outline, with all plot elements; drafting a manuscript; and editing the manuscript. The books were published under the house name of Victor Appleton. Edward Stratemeyer and Howard Garis wrote most of the volumes in the series; Stratemeyer's daughter, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams wrote the last three volumes in the series.[9]

The first Tom Swift series ended in 1941. In 1954, Harriet Adams created the Tom Swift, Jr., series, which was published under the name "Victor Appleton II." Most titles were outlined and written by Adams; other writers included William Dougherty, John Almquist, Richard Sklar, D. L. Lawrence, Tom Mulvey, and Richard McKenna.[10] The Tom Swift, Jr., series ended in 1971; a third series was begun in 1981 and lasted until 1984. The rights to the Tom Swift character, along with the Stratemeyer Syndicate, were sold in 1984 to publishers Simon and Schuster, who hired New York book packager Mega-Books to produce future series.[11] Simon and Schuster produced two other Tom Swift series: one, published from 1991 to 1993, and the Tom Swift, Young Inventor series, begun in 2006.

Series

Five different series featuring Tom Swift have been published in all: the original Tom Swift series, the Tom Swift Jr. Adventures, a third Tom Swift series known to collectors as "Tom Swift III," a fourth, known as "Tom Swift IV," and the most recent incarnation, the Tom Swift, Young Inventor series, begun in 2006.

Original series (1910–1941)

In the original series, Tom Swift lives in Shopton, New York. He is the son of Barton Swift, the founder of the Swift Construction Company. Tom's mother is deceased, but the housekeeper, Mrs. Baggart, functions as a surrogate mother.[8] Tom often shares his adventures with close friend Ned Newton, who eventually becomes the Swift Construction Company's financial manager. For most of the series, Tom dates Mary Nestor; his eventual marriage to her led to the series' demise, as young boys found a married man harder to identify with than a young, single one.[12] Other regularly-appearing characters include Wakefield Damon,

a neighbor of the Swift family, whose favorite expletives involve blessing a variety of objects;[13] Eradicate Sampson or Rad, Mr. Swift's black valet and the butt of jokes which are blatantly racist; and Koku, a gigantic South American prince rescued by Tom, his bodyguard and Rad's rival for Tom's attention and approbation."[8]

The original Tom Swift has been claimed to represent the early 20th-century conception of inventors.[14] Tom has no formal education past the high school level;[15] his ability to invent is presented as "somehow innate".[16] Tom is not a theorist but an experimenter who, with his research team, finds practical applications for others' research;[17] Tom does not so much think of inventions as find them by blind experimentation.[18]

"All right, Dad. Go ahead, laugh."
"Well, Tom, I’m not exactly laughing at you ... it's more at the idea than anything else. The idea of talking over a wire and, at the same time, having light waves, as well as electrical waves passing over the same conductors!"
"All right, Dad. Go ahead and laugh. I don’t mind," said Tom, good-naturedly. "Folks laughed at Bell, when he said he could send a human voice over a copper string...."

Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone[19]

Tom's inventions are not at first innovative: in the first two books of the series, he fixes a motorcycle and a boat, and the third book he develops an airship, but only with the help of a balloonist.[20] Tom is also at times unsure of himself, looking to his elders for help: "The early Tom Swift is more dependent on his father and other adults at first and is much more hesitant in his actions. When his airship bangs into a tower, Tom is uncharacteristically nonplussed and needs support." [21] However, as the series progressed, Tom's inventions "show an increasingly independent genius as he develops devices, such as an electric rifle and a photo telephone, further removed from the scientific norm."[22] Some of Tom's inventions are improvements of then-current technologies,[23] while other inventions were not in development at the time the books were published, but have since been developed. Tom's adventures are also sometimes closely tied to current events and public issues; he uses his Electric Runabout (1910), for example, to avert a run on a bank.

The series has been criticized for its portrayal of workers, Jews, and African-Americans. The books portray workers as happy to work on demand; the employees of Swift Enterprises "had no union, and were proud and happy to work around the clock for Tom."[2] Skilled in all known types of construction, they take pride in their achievements, prompting critic Arthur Prager to remark facetiously, "What a different place the world might have been if Nikolai Lenin had been born in Shopton, New York!"[24] Critic Steve Carr criticizes the series for its anti-Semitism, and singles out Tom Swift and His Talking Pictures (1928) in particular as "a compendium of anti-Jewish stereotypes."[25] Jews are continually compared to snakes, and portrayed as powerful moguls who communicate with secret signs while saving money.[26] The portrayal of Jews, as well as unions, seems to have been inspired by the attitudes of Henry Ford, on whom the character was largely based.[2] The series has also been criticized for racism in its portrayal of African-Americans.[27]

Second series (1954–1971)

Main article: Tom Swift, Jr.

"Did you have time to learn anything?" Bud asked the young inventor.

Tom shrugged. "A little. I was using my new gadget as a wave trap or antenna to capture light of a single wave length from certain stars so I could study their red shift."

From Tom Swift and His Polar-Ray Dynasphere (1965).[28]

In this series, the Tom Swift of the original series is now the CEO of Swift Enterprises, a four-mile-square facility where inventions are conceived and manufactured. Tom's son, Tom Swift, Jr., is the primary genius of the family. The new series was based "on scientific fact and probability, whereas the old Toms were in the main adventure stories mixed with pseudo-science",[29] and three Ph.D.s in science were hired as consultants to the series to ensure scientific accuracy.[12]Tom no longer tinkers with motorcycles; his inventions and adventures extend from the center of the Earth to the bottom of the ocean to the moon and, eventually, the outer solar system, with stops along the way at African antimatter volcanoes, lost New Guinea cities, and various wandering asteroids. Later volumes in the series focused increasingly on the extraterrestrial "space friends" who appear as early as the first volume in the series, Tom Swift and His Flying Lab (1954). The Tom Swift, Jr., Adventures were less commercially successful than the first series, selling 6 million copies in total, compared with the 14 million copies the first series sold.[30]

In contrast to the first series, most of Tom Jr.'s inventions are designed to operate in space,[8] and his "genius is unequivocally original as he constructs nuclear-powered flying labs, establishes outposts in space, or designs ways to sail in space on cosmic rays."[31] Unlike his father, Tom is not just an experimenter; he relies on scientific and mathematical theories: "Science is, in fact, understood to be a set of theories that are developed based on experimentation and scientific discussion. Rather than being opposed to technological advances, such a theoretical understanding becomes essential to invention."[32]

Tom's Cold War-era adventures and inventions are often motivated by patriotism as Tom repeatedly defeats the evil agents of the fictional "Brungaria," "a vaguely Eastern European country, which is strongly opposed to the Swifts and the U.S. Hence, the Swifts' opposition to and competition with the Brungarians is both personal and patriotic."[8]

Third series (1981–1984)

The third Tom Swift series differs from the first two in that the setting is primarily outer space, although Swift Enterprises (now located in New Mexico) is occasionally mentioned. Tom Swift explores the universe in the starship Excedra, using a faster-than-light drive which he has reverse-engineered from an alien space probe. With him are "Benjamin Franklin Walking Eagle, a Native American Indian expert computer technician, [who] serves as Tom's co-pilot and best friend [and] Anita, formerly a rival and also a technician, [who] has had her right leg rebuilt so it contains a powerful miniature computer."[8]

This series maintains only an occasional and loose connection to the continuity of the two previous series. Tom is called the son of "the great Tom Swift"[33] and said to be "already an important and active contributor to the family business, the giant multimillion-dollar scientific-industrial complex known as Swift Enterprises."[34] However, it is not clear "whether eighteen-year-old, blond, and handsome Tom is the grandson of the famous Tom Swift of the first series or still Tom Swift Jr., the hero of the second. Tom is just Tom Swift; no Jr., II, or III follows his name. Victor Appleton II, the presumed author, also has disappeared, replaced by plain old Victor Appleton."[8]

The Tom Swift of this third series is less of an inventor than his predecessors. "Still, Tom the inventor is not ignored. Perhaps the most impressive of his inventions and the one essential to the series as a whole is the robot he designs and builds, Aristotle, which becomes a winning and likeable character in its own right."[8] The books are less fast-paced than the Tom Swift, Jr. adventures, and include realistic, colloquial dialogue. Each volume begins where the last volume ended, and the technology is plausible and accurate.[8]

Fourth series (1991–1993)

Main article: Tom Swift IV

The fourth series starring the young inventor is set entirely on Earth (with occasional space trips to the Moon) and makes some slight narrative reference not to the third series but rather to the Tom Swift Jr. series. It is not made clear, however, whether this Tom Swift is related to the original Tom Swift, Tom Swift, Jr., or the third version of Tom Swift. Swift Enterprises is now located in California.[35] The books deal with "modern and futuristic concepts" and feature a more ethnically diverse cast of characters.[6]

Like the Tom Swift, Jr. series, the series portrays Tom as a scientist as well as an inventor whose inventions depend on a knowledge of theory.[36] The series differs from previous versions of the Tom Swift character, however, in that Tom’s inventive genius is portrayed as problematic and sometimes dangerous. His inventions often have unexpected and negative repercussions. Among other inventions, Tom develops

a device to create a miniature black hole which casts him into an alternative universe; a device that trains muscles but also distorts the mind of the user; and a genetic process which, combined with the effect of his black hole, results in a terrifying devolution. Genius here begins to recapitulate earlier myths of the mad scientist whose technological and scientific ambitions are so out of harmony with nature and contemporary science that the results are usually unfortunate.[37]

The series features more violence than previous series; in The Negative Zone, Tom blows up a motel room to escape the authorities.[30]

Fifth series (2006–2007)

The fifth series returns Tom Swift to Shopton, New York, and Tom is the son of Tom Swift and Mary Nestor from the original Tom Swift series. The books in this series are written in first person narrative style, which is a break with the style of the previous series, but similar to the Hardy Boys: Undercover Brothers and Nancy Drew, Girl Detective series, also produced by Simon and Schuster and Mega-Books.

Books, television, and other media

In his various incarnations, Tom Swift’s adventures total over a hundred volumes that have been translated into numerous languages and published around the world. Parker Brothers produced a Tom Swift board game in 1966,[38] and the character has appeared in one television show and is to appear in a feature film. In addition, various Tom Swift radio shows, television shows, and films have been planned, but were not released or, in some cases, produced.

Books

See also: List of Tom Swift books

The longest-running series of books to feature Tom Swift is the first Tom Swift series, which ran for 40 volumes. Tom Swift was also the hero of the Tom Swift, Jr. Adventures and three other series, including the most recent, Tom Swift, Young Inventor. In addition to publication in the United States, Tom Swift books have been published extensively in England and translated into Norwegian, French, Icelandic, and Finnish.[39]

Film and television

As early as 1914, Edward Stratemeyer proposed making a Tom Swift film; his proposals, however, seem to have fallen on deaf ears. A Tom Swift radio series was proposed in 1946; two scripts were written, but, for unknown reasons, the series was never produced.[40] A television pilot for a series to be called The Adventures of Tom Swift was produced in 1958, starring Garry Vinson. However, legal problems prevented the pilot's distribution, and it was never aired; no copies of the pilot or its script are known to have survived.[40] Twentieth Century Fox planned a Tom Swift musical in 1968, to be directed by Gene Kelly; a script was written and approved, and filming was to have begun in 1969. However, the project was canceled, due to the poor reception of Dr. Doolittle and Star,[2] and a $500,000 airship that had been built as a prop was sold to an amusement park. Yet another film was planned in 1974, but, again, was cancelled.[40]

A Tom Swift media project finally came to fruition in 1983 when Willie Aames appeared as Tom Swift along with Lori Loughlin as Linda Craig in a television special, "The Tom Swift and Linda Craig Mystery Hour", which aired on July 3.[40] In 2007, digital studio Worldwide Biggies, founded by Nickelodeon and Spike TV executive Albie Hecht, acquired film rights to Tom Swift. Following the model of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, the company plans to release a feature film and video game, followed by a television series. According to Hecht, the film will likely be produced in a combination of live action and CGI, or motion capture; the character will be set in the present day, with Tom Swift working for leading green company Swift Enterprises.[41]

Cultural impact

The Tom Swift books have been credited with "[laying] a foundation for the success of American SF. The series firmly established the edisonade as a basic cultural myth."[42] Tom Swift's adventures have been popular since the character’s inception in 1910: by 1914, 150,000 copies a year were sold[40] and in "a 1929 study [the series] was found to be second in popularity for boys in their early teens only to the Bible."[43] To date, Tom Swift books have sold over 20[41] to 30 million copies world-wide.[2] The series' writing style, which was sometimes adverb-heavy, gave rise in the 1960s to "Tom Swifties", a type of adverbial pun. Some examples are: "I lost my crutches," said Tom lamely; "I'll take the prisoner downstairs," said Tom condescendingly.[1]

Cover of Tom Swift and the Visitor from Planet X (1961), from the Tom Swift Jr. Adventure Series

Tom Swift's fictional inventions have directly inspired several actual inventions, among them Lee Felsenstein's "Tom Swift Terminal," which "drove the creation of an early personal computer known as the Sol,"[44] and the taser. The name "taser" was originally "TSER," for "Tom Swift Electric Rifle." The invention was named after the central device in Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle (1911); according to inventor Jack Cover, "an 'A' was added because we got tired of answering the phone 'TSER.'"[45]

A number of scientists, inventors, and science fiction writers have also credited Tom Swift with inspiring them, including Ray Kurzweil,[46] Robert A. Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov.[47] The Tom Swift Jr. adventures were Steve Wozniak's favorite reading as a boy[48] and inspired him to become a scientist.[49] According to Wozniak, reading the Tom Swift books made him feel "that engineers can save the world from all sorts of conflict and evil."[50]

The series has come in for its share of criticism. Robert Von der Osten argues that the books' view of invention is focused on the importance of novelty and money-making, rather than using technology for the social good:

Tom Swift's Ultrasonic Cycloplane is developed to break the sound barrier and fly by a different principle from traditional aircraft; his jetmarine is developed to go deeper and faster and use an unusual type of propulsion. The novelty of the invention is the focus; while the invention may in the end accomplish some good, that social end is usually far from the inventor's mind.... [Tom's] inventions seem to be either for the military, especially during World War I (giant cannon, aerial warship, war tank, and air scout) or for the wealthy, who buy the Swift Pigeon Special as a private plane, all contributing to the bottom line for Swift Enterprises.... invention is an avocation, a diversion, made possible by wealth and the already existing advanced technology.[51]

Von der Osten argues further that most Swift series view nature as a source of plunder. In Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle, the hero uses his invention to kill elephants for their ivory, and in Tom Swift and His Atomic Earth Blaster Tom plans to drill to the center of the earth for iron over the protests over people around the world. Inevitably, Von der Osten argues, Tom's drive to invent and harvest resources is proven right and any suggestion that he refrain from such activities portrayed as un-American.[52] The fourth series is an exception: only in this series "do Tom's friends become concerned about the dangers of his experiments and finally find themselves confronted by harmful consequences. By the 1990s we have lost our naivete about technological development. But here, too, despite the last Tom's abysmal safety record, his inventive fervor proceeds unchecked and without oversight."[53]

The character has also been criticized for anti-intellectualism. Though an indefatigable inventor, Tom is "made handy with his fists" in order to "make absolutely sure no intellectual taint clings" to him.[54] Tom "enjoys the titillating attractions of thought without seriously risking its arduousness. Here lies the key to his easy popularity suggesting at the same time the kind of inventor the public is prepared to embrace without reservation."[55]

Some contend that, with the advent of computers, Tom Swift is no longer a relevant figure. A boy genius might be able to tinker with a motorcycle, but he is "not likely to be running a biotech or nanotech lab in his garage. Meanwhile, the great engine of entrepreneurial activity these days is in software and Web site development, an occupation that (no offense meant to its practitioners) doesn't make for terribly lively fiction. Tom Swift and the Blue Screen of Death?"[56] Marah Gubar, director of the children's literature program at the University of Pittsburgh, suggests that the Tom Swift character can no longer be relevant because children today do not work, as they did in the past.[56]

Others disagree, finding in Tom Swift a sense of the power of intellectual achievement: "the moral of these tales was simple: the right idea had the power to overcome a seemingly overwhelming challenge."[57]

Notes

  1. ^ a b "Season for Swifties" (1963).
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Prager (1976).
  3. ^ Burt (2004), 322.
  4. ^ Dizer (1982), 35.
  5. ^ Hazen (1999), 30.
  6. ^ a b c d e Pyle (1991).
  7. ^ a b c "Tom Swift, Master Inventor" (1956).
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Molson (1985).
  9. ^ Johnson (1982), 23.
  10. ^ Johnson (1982), 26-27.
  11. ^ Plunkett-Powell (1993), 29.
  12. ^ a b "Chip off the Old Block" (1954).
  13. ^ On page 26 alone of Tom Swift and His Electric Locomotive, Mr. Damon cries, "Bless my brakeshoes!" and "Bless my vest buttons!" (quoted in Prager [1971], 136).
  14. ^ Molson (1999), 9-10.
  15. ^ Prager (1971), 131.
  16. ^ Von der Osten (2004), 269.
  17. ^ Molson (1999), 10.
  18. ^ Von der Osten (2004), 278-279.
  19. ^ Quoted in Prager (1976).
  20. ^ Von der Osten (2004), 269.
  21. ^ Von der Osten (2004), 271.
  22. ^ Von der Osten (2004), 270.
  23. ^ Sullivan (1999), 23.
  24. ^ Prager (1971), 133.
  25. ^ Carr (2001), 134.
  26. ^ Carr (2001), 134-135.
  27. ^ Carr (2001), 135. See also Molson, Prager.
  28. ^ Appleton II (1965), 4.
  29. ^ Andrew Svenson, quoted in Dizer (1982), 45.
  30. ^ a b Disch (2007).
  31. ^ Von der Osten (2004), 270.
  32. ^ Von der Osten (2004), 279.
  33. ^ Appleton (1981), 38.
  34. ^ Appleton (1981), 10-11.
  35. ^ Davis (1991), 73.
  36. ^ Von der Osten (2004), 279.
  37. ^ Von der Osten (2004), 270.
  38. ^ Erardi (2008).
  39. ^ Fowler (1962).
  40. ^ a b c d e Keeline.
  41. ^ a b Hayes (2007).
  42. ^ Landon (2002), 48.
  43. ^ Von der Osten (2004), 268.
  44. ^ Turner (2006), 115.
  45. ^ Sun Wire Services (2009).
  46. ^ Pilkington (2009), 32.
  47. ^ Bleiler and Bleiler (1990), 15.
  48. ^ Kendall (2000), 4.
  49. ^ Linzmayer (2004), 1.
  50. ^ Comment published on the blurb to Nitrozac (2003).
  51. ^ Von der Osten (2004), 273-274.
  52. ^ Von der Osten (2004), 275-276.
  53. ^ Von der Osten (2004), 277.
  54. ^ Gurko (1953), 56.
  55. ^ Gurko (1953), 57.
  56. ^ a b Virgin (2007), E1.
  57. ^ Kurzweil (2005), 2.

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  • Turner, Fred (2006). From counterculture to cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the rise of digital utopianism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226817415. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  • Virgin, Bill (19 July 2007). "The Call of Wizardry is a Sign of the Technological Times". Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA). {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  • Von der Osten, Robert (April 2004). "Four Generations of Tom Swift: Ideology in Juvenile Science Fiction". The Lion and the Unicorn. 28 (2): 268–283. doi:10.1353/uni.2004.0023. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)


External links

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