Scrooge McDuck's Childhood home

[Matilda]

FWIW, I've always assumed that Scrooge attended at least elementary school in Scotland. It never would have occurred to me to think that he was collecting and selling firewood or shining shoes full-time! I've always assumed those were jobs he did after school.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

I think the people who don't think he ever went to school justify this belief by the fact that school was expensive, and that a poor (and stingy) family like the McDucks couldn't/wouldn't make the expense.

[That Duckfan]

How common was schooling in working class 1880s Scotland, anyway?

[RobbK1]

Jul 19, 2016 17:51:51 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

I think the people who don't think he ever went to school justify this belief by the fact that school was expensive, and that a poor (and stingy) family like the McDucks couldn't/wouldn't make the expense.

I've done a little research on the subject, and found that free elementary schools were provided by public funding starting in the late 1800s (1880s).  I assume that Glasgow and Edinburgh would have been involved at the start of that process.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Well yes, but Scrooge would have gone to school in the early 1860's, which would be a tad too early. A possible way to circumvent this might be to have Scrooge's intelligence and skills with numbers be noticed by school teachers who decide to give this bright young fellow a basic education for free (or at least for a much smaller fee than usual).

[RobbK1]

In The Netherlands, we consider that Scrooge is alive today, and so, he cannot have been born in 1860. We don't subscribe to Rosa's theory that all the stories take place in the 1950s. Egmont doesn't want me clashing with Rosa historical facts. But, we can believe that Scrooge attended elementary school for a few years, if we can believe that a person who had a beak, webbed feet and huge eyes and had feathers instead of skin, met Theodore Roosevelt, Buffalo Bill Cody and other famous humans.

[That Duckfan]

See, that's always the trick with placing stories in Scrooge's childhood. You don't have to subscribe to Don Rosa's theories, but if you follow Barks's line that he gained his fortune in the Yukon Gold Rush of 1898, you're still stuck with the 19th century. Where else do you place Scrooge's youth? Chronologically, Scrooge should have attended primary school in the 1940s by this point -- but that doesn't fit his character at all. Besides, that'll be outdated before you know it.

So in what age WILL you portray Scrooge's childhood? You'll have to specify it a little bit, I imagine.

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Jul 19, 2016 12:18:37 GMT Scroogerello said:

In an interview by Wim van Helden, ("Carl Barks en de Mythe van Walt Disney's Donald Duck", page 16) Barks himself said he thought Donald is a teenager.

There's no way that's compatible with Barks' own portrayal of Donald as a working man with a family, a mortgage and a job. This statement by Barks is quite problematic, to say the least. What was the context in which it was made? I don't have access to the interview in question.

[That Duckfan]

I have the excerpt here. Translation's mine.

WvH: How old would you estimate Donald?
Barks: He's kind of hard to gauge. I would say he's a teenager.
Jippes and WvH (highly surprised): Really?
WvH: I would have said he was in his mid-twenties...
Jippes: He's an adult!
Barks: To me, Donald is more like a 15- or 16-year-old, who is suddenly confronted with all kind of responsibilities that he isn't ready for yet. He owns a house, has to bring up his nephews, go to work, but completely lacks the experience to know how.
Jippes: Most people see Donald and the nephews as a single-parent family, with Donald as the 25- or 30-year-old parent, but the way you look at it, Donald's more of an older brother to the nephews. Maybe that's why they can be so mean to one another...

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Jul 19, 2016 20:24:52 GMT RobbK1 said:

In The Netherlands, we consider that Scrooge is alive today, and so, he cannot have been born in 1860. We don't subscribe to Rosa's theory that all the stories take place in the 1950s. Egmont doesn't want me clashing with Rosa historical facts. But, we can believe that Scrooge attended elementary school for a few years, if we can believe that a person who had a beak, webbed feet and huge eyes and had feathers instead of skin, met Theodore Roosevelt, Buffalo Bill Cody and other famous humans.

Italian stories place the stories in the present day but still have him be born in 1867. It has always been my personal view, even before seeing enforced in some stories, that it was just that Scrooge, Donald and Co. were extremely long-lived; this was also Barks's opinion, and he gave us an explanation for it in Go slowly, sands of time, which he specifically said was meant to "make gold-rusher Scrooge still be a believable contemporary character to kids in a hundred years". I did a whole little essay about this on Disney Wiki, if you're interested.

[RobbK1]

I plan to portray Scrooge in elementary school somewhere during the period ages 6-9 (unspecified). I won't need to get into the question of whether or not this public school is free of cost, or not. If it was during the 1860s in Scotland, it was likely not free of charge. if it was past 1880, it probably WAS free. The readers can decide whether or not Fergus would have paid money for Scrooge to go to school (as Rosa showed him telling Scrooge that he was the family's ONE CHANCE to escape poverty). So, he MAY have scraped up the money for that schooling from his little extra savings, and Scrooge's shoe shining and wood sales.

Barks HAD to be wrong about Donald being 15 or 16 years old. In NO country in which I dwell, or have familiarity (Netherlands, Canada, USA, Belgium, Great Britain, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Sweden, France...and, Indeed, most "Western Countries", would someone that young have been allowed to be the "custodian" of little children. He could have only done that in secret, without local government and social authorities knowing about it (e.g. he would have had to keep them hidden, and not send them to school, nor attend Junior Woodchuck meetings, etc.). As portrayed in even Barks stories, Donald implicitly HAD to be an adult, as even psychologists knew about him, giving him advice on raising children. It would have been their duty to inform government social authorities that he was an "unfit parent", as it already was, - and SURELY if Donald was only 16 years old.

Yes, Carl, himself, told ME (as well) that he considered Donald to have the age of a late teenager. But, when I made the argument I laid out above, he gave in and stated that he really meant that Donald had the "MENTAL AGE of 15 or 16). I don't think Barks wanted to go against Disney's quest for "decency" in their comic book stories. He knew that Disney would not have wanted it implied that a late teenager was allowed by local government officials to operate as a de facto "parent" to little children.

[That Duckfan]

For what it's worth, I consider Duckburg to be a semi-autonomous legal if not political exclave from the rest of Calisota/the USA, so different rules and laws may apply there.

[RobbK1]

Each State in USA has its own laws. There are Federal laws that apply to ALL states, but those are few in number, compared to all the States' laws and powers. Calisota is a state. So, it has laws that must be followed in ALL of its territory (including Duckburg). But, Duck County, a political division within Calisota, as are Goose Egg County, Webfoot County, Goose County and others, also has its own laws. Within Duck County, all its cities have their own city laws (Duckburg, Hentown, Catville, Pickleburg, Duckville, etc.). Within Duckburg (City), there are districts (Downtown (centre), South Duckburg, North Duckburg, Shacktown, etc.). But the districts do NOT have their own laws. So, there are 4 levels of government in Duckburg (Federal - USA), (State - Calisota), (County - Duck County), and city - (City of Duckburg).

I don't assume that Duckburg is so special that it is exempt from Calisota state laws, or from US Federal laws. European nations have something similar, but usually only on 3 levels, rather than 4. In The Netherlands, we have National laws, Provincial laws and City laws. In Germany, they have National laws, State Laws, and city laws.

[That Duckfan]

Jul 20, 2016 10:58:58 GMT RobbK1 said:

Each State in USA has its own laws. There are Federal laws that apply to ALL states, but those are few in number, compared to all the States' laws and powers. Calisota is a state. So, it has laws that must be followed in ALL of its territory (including Duckburg). But, Duck County, a political division within Calisota, as are Goose Egg County, Webfoot County, Goose County and others, also has its own laws. Within Duck County, all its cities have their own city laws (Duckburg, Hentown, Catville, Pickleburg, Duckville, etc.). Within Duckburg (City), there are districts (Downtown (centre), South Duckburg, North Duckburg, Shacktown, etc.). But the districts do NOT have their own laws. So, there are 4 levels of government in Duckburg (Federal - USA), (State - Calisota), (County - Duck County), and city - (City of Duckburg).

I don't assume that Duckburg is so special that it is exempt from Calisota state laws, or from US Federal laws. European nations have something similar, but usually only on 3 levels, rather than 4. In The Netherlands, we have National laws, Provincial laws and City laws. In Germany, they have National laws, State Laws, and city laws.

Yeah, it's more of a personal headcanon belief more than anything. I was thinking about something in the trend of places like Shanghai and Hong Kong (especially the past) or the City of London, you know, places with all those kinds of special rights. D.C. is another one, I guess.
It's my little way of justifying the discrepancies between Duckburg and the the rest of the United States. I mean, they house the (two) richest duck(s) in the world! They've got a billionaires' club, for crying out loud! There has to be some sort of special tax regulations, or the place would look like Dubai or Brunei or so.

But let's not delve any deeper into this.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

About Duckburg's semi-independance, this is supported by there being a "Duckburg Embassy" in Unsteadistan in Barks's 'Treasure of Marco Polo' story.