Characters in Ragtime

Ragtime is famous for the number of its characters. Doctorow has borrowed a score of names from history, and added several more figures from his own imagination. The fictional characters belong to three different families who interact and ultimately become one family in the novel. At the beginning the parents of the narrator are only identified as Father and Mother. This family is a stereotype of self-satisfaction and patriotism in early twentieth-century America. Immigrants and minorities are beyond its field of vision. The second family is Tateh, Mameh, and their little girl: impoverished Jews who have recently come from Latvia to the tenements of New York City. Tateh is a man of fierce pride, integrity, and talent. The third family includes a black ragtime pianist, Coalhouse Walker, the woman he is never able to marry, and their illegitimate son. Coalhouse Walker becomes the dominant character in the second half of the novel when he threatens to destroy the Morgan Library in New York in order to protest racial injustice.
The characters with names like Henry Ford and J, P. Morgan are caricatures of history. Doctorow trades on the familiarity of their names, and connects them with the world of his fiction. Most of the historical figures only make cameo appearances in the novel, but a few like Emma Goldman and Houdini have important roles. Emma Goldman is agitating for a new kind of political and economic freedom, especially for women, and Houdini represents a tour de force of magic and illusion. Neither feels successful in the novel, but the narrator's mother does learn by reading a work, by Emma Goldman, and the narrator himself does meet and appreciate the great Houdini.