Tip Top Weekly: 
An Ideal Publication for the American Youth

Billed as “An Ideal Publication for the American Youth,” Tip Top Weekly featured the adventures of prep-school- and  Yale-educated Frank Merriwell and his younger brother, Dick.  The weekly began publication in 1896 under the auspices of Street and Smith, a New York firm that published several dime novel series.  Running for more than 800 issues, Tip Top Weekly exemplifies ideals of athletic, clean-cut young manhood which were also being touted by Theodore Roosevelt, G. Stanley Hall, and others at the turn of the twentieth century.