"At the turn of the century, American textbooks were full of words. Excerpts from literature or Bible stories preached moralistic values, largely without the help of illustrations. By the 1920s, publisher Scott Foresman and Company's Elson Readers, edited by reading authority William Gray, had reversed the equation. Big, colorful illustrations told their own stories, and the words with the pictures were simpler and fewer." – Kismaric and Heiferman

The Elson readers were already an established series before Zerna Sharp conceived of the characters of Dick and Jane. In 1927, Elson revised its THE ELSON PUPIL'S HAND CHART (1921) and renamed it THE ELSON BASIC READERS PRE-PRIMER. Neither of those feature Dick and Jane. In their history of Dick and Jane, Kismaric and Heiferman give the context of the characters' conception by Zerna Sharp: "A reading consultant for Scott Foresman, Sharp believed that children would read even better if they identified with the characters in the illustrations and read words that sounded familiar. She has been listening to kids carefully – how they used a limited vocabulary, spoke with uninhibited energy and repeated words for emphasis." This new edition from 1930 was the first to introduce Sharp's ideas and concepts, beginning with an introduction to Dick: "See Dick. See Dick run." The popularity of the series steadily rose, perfectly timed with the post-war baby boom of the '40s and early '50s: by the mid-1950s, 80% of American first graders were being taught with the Dick and Jane curriculum (Kismaric and Heiferman). In dominating the reading education of an entire generation, Dick and Jane have become cultural icons and central figures in popular Americana.

Read more: Kismaric and Heiferman, Growing Up with Dick and Jane.