Bound to Rise

'Bound to Rise' is a musical comedy with a happy ending based on four of Alger's "strive and succeed" novels, in which the young, poor protagonists beat the odds in the New York City of the 1890s. But this was also the era of the robber barons, when thousands of children lived on the streets while the wealthy attended "poverty socials" dressed in rags. A time of striking contrast between the opulent mansions and the overcrowded tenements where three quarters of the city's people lived. This portrait of NYC a century and a quarter ago is even more relevant today in the era of the "one percent" and billionaire banksters.