The Great Brain - Historical Context

Historical Context

Fitzgerald's books describe many issues regarding society and life in the context of the late 19th century, between 1896 and 1898 in the southwestern United States. Among the topics covered are the following:

• The small-town culture of long ago
• Diabetes as a fatal disease (before insulin)
• The banking system in the days before the Federal Reserve,
• Racism, intolerance, and indifference.
  • Although blacks do not appear, the issue of nativism arises when some of the kids torment the son of a Greek immigrant.
  • Native Americans and their lives on reservations
  • The second-class status of Jews
• Mormonism and Catholicism
• Modes of transportation, such as walking, riding horses, and (for longer journeys) trains.
• Sewage. Outhouses (referred to as "backhouses" in Utah at that time, due to the term "outhouse" being used in that region to refer to a storage shed, workshed, or other small out-building behind the main house) are not only the norm, they are a mark of social status. When Papa orders a flush toilet (called a "water closet") from Sears Roebuck and has a cesspool built, the whole town becomes fascinated. Tom charges a penny per person to see it flushed.
• Child discipline. Most families gave their children "whippings." In The Great Brain Reforms, Parley Benson says that his pa "horsewhipped" him for letting Tom cheat him out of his repeating air rifle. The better-educated, more progressive Fitzgeralds are a notable exception with their use of the silent treatment. This means that Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald will not talk to or acknowledge the boy or boys being punished for a day, a week, or longer depending on the circumstances. J.D. frequently describes the silent treatment as worse than a whipping because of the emotional impact of being ignored by his parents, and at times says that he wishes his parents would just give them a whipping and get it over with.
• Non-conformity. Tom and John's fear that they will be seen as cowards, sissies, or welchers by the other boys of the town is a driving factor in more than a few of the stories.
• Leisure time amusements and activities in the days before radio and television.
• Crime. This includes episodes such as the outlaw Cal Roberts escaping from prison and holding Frankie hostage, a bank robbery, a cattle buyer being robbed and murdered on a train, and the citizens of Adenville being defrauded by con men claiming to represent "Alkali Products, Inc." Tom becomes involved in solving these crimes because of the Fitzgerald boys' relationship with their Uncle Mark, the town marshal. In The Great Brain is Back, Tom also helps prove the innocence of three Native Americans framed for theft, breaks up a dogfighting ring, and escapes kidnappers.
• There is an anachronism in the series about Cracker Jack. In The Return of the Great Brain, Tom concocts a swindle using a "wheel of fortune," like a roulette wheel, where players win prizes depending on the number on which the wheel stops spinning. Half of the numbers win two boxes of Cracker Jack, with, as Tom says, "the usual prize in each box." However, prizes did not appear in Cracker Jack until 1912; the Great Brain series is set in the late 19th century.
• There are some chapters in the series involving the paranormal, although the events can be explained naturally.
  • In The Great Brain, Tom involves his friends in a plan to frame the new schoolteacher for being a drunk, and makes them swear an oath not to tell on the skull of a purported dead Indian chief, calling upon the chief's ghost to "come back to earth and cut out the tongue of anybody who tells."
  • In More Adventures of the Great Brain, the people of Adenville, including Papa and Uncle Mark, believe that a prehistoric animal is on the loose due to "monster tracks" leading from Skeleton Cave to the river and back. In reality, Tom has created those tracks to scare Parley Benson away from the cave and win a bet.
  • Later in the same book, Tom, John, Sweyn, and several of their friends encounter a ghost in the abandoned mining town of Silverlode; the "ghost" is really the uncle of one of their friends dressed in a sheet, for the purpose of scaring them away from the very real physical dangers of that place.
  • In Me and My Little Brain, John scares Frankie with a story about a ghost that preys on little boys sleeping alone in response to Frankie's attempts to steal his bed.
  • In The Great Brain at the Academy, Tom and his friend Jerry win a bet by making it appear that Jerry can read minds.
  • In The Great Brain Does It Again, Tom has Herbie Sties, the "greedy gut", take a "sacred oath" on the Bible to "stop eating ice cream and candy and more than one dessert a day", declaring that "if I break my sacred vow, my soul will belong to the Devil and I'll burn in everlasting Hell". When Herbie still does not lose even one pound, Tom and John investigate and secretly observe him consuming a bag-load of candy. Rather than denounce him on the spot, Tom has John dress up in a devil costume and knock on Herbie's window as he is getting ready for bed. Herbie believes for five days that a devil really has come to claim his soul, although the trick is eventually revealed.