1912. Jean Webster’s Daddy-Long-Legs was published in 1912 and has been widely translated. The novel has never been out of print since its original publication. Daddy-Long-Legs, which the author intended for all audiences, is generally considered to appeal to an audience of adolescent girls and has been adapted for Broadway (1914), a silent film (1919), a film (1931) and a musical (1955). It has also been adapted for the British stage (1952) and animation (1984). (Keely, 2004, p.363). The novel explores eugenic issues through unknown heredity and ancestry, and its possible effects on an individual.

The novel tells the story through epistolary form of an orphan girl named Judy, who attracts the attention of a wealthy benefactor. This benefactor anonymously sends her to college. Despite her social status being elevated by education, when faced with a marriage proposal, Judy declines because she does not know her own lineage. Afterwards she writes to her benefactor that “I hated to explain that I didn’t know who I was. I may be DREADFUL, you know. (Webster, 1912, p.84).

At varying points through the novel Judy wonders what her ancestry is. Although she claims to find the possibilities “sort of exciting and romantic” (Webster, 1912, p.37), it clearly troubles her as well, leading her to believe that she should not marry into a family as respected as her suitor’s because she may have a poor heredity that she would pass on to their children. (Webster, 1912, p.84). The burden of heredity as popularized during the early twentieth century is plainly dealt with by Webster through her protagonist.

Karen Keely has written an excellent analysis of Daddy-Long-Legs, and asserts that the author was “explicitly teaching her readers about eugenic family studies and implicitly supporting laws mandating the involuntary sterilization or segregation of the mentally disabled and some classes of criminals” (Keely, 2004, p.364).

Keely demonstrates the conflicted messages that the protagonist is forced to deal with ranging from her own worth with no known lineage, to what roles were proper for “womanly women” during an era of eugenics and amidst fears of “race suicide.” (Keely, 367).

Full text of Daddy-Long-Legs is available online through the Gutenberg Project.

-Leslie Baker

• Keely, K. A. (2004). Teaching eugenics to children: Heredity and reform in Jean Webster's “Daddy-Long-Legs” and “Dear Enemy.” The Lion and the Unicorn, 28(3), 363-389. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/221814261?accountid=12617

• Webster, J. (1912). Daddy-Long-Legs. The Century Company.