Top: Edward Stratemeyer, Mildred Wirt Benson, Russell H. Tandy, Edna Stratemeyer Squier
Middle: Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, Grace Horton
Bottom: Harriet Otis Smith, Walter Karig, Alexander Grosset & George Dunlap
31 Days of Nancy Drew Topic #23
Nancy Drew - History Behind the Mystery
Today's brief overview posting is a reprint of sorts -
most of this posting appeared here at this blog in 2015 during the 85th
anniversary of Nancy Drew and the year Nancy Drew Sleuths hosted 3 mini
conventions in three historic locations celebrating the history behind
Nancy Drew and The Stratemeyer Syndicate. I spoke briefly on this
content at the Maplewood Public Library during our convention in NJ in
2015 when we put on a library program there to celebrate The
Stratemeyer Syndicate and Nancy Drew and donated a full set of brand new
classic Nancy Drew books to the library. This is a brief post about these individuals, you can learn more at my website and check out my source page at my website for books that go more in-depth into some of these people and the history behind Nancy Drew.
The DREW Team
She's solved mysteries so baffling that the River Heights police force
couldn't ever solve. She's traveled far and wide to places like Turkey,
Peru, Kenya and Charlottesville, VA. She's been knocked unconscious
numerous times. Chloroformed. Kidnapped. Threatened with rocks, warning
notes, telegrams and menacing animals. Strangled, tortured, and
impersonated. Nothing foils Nancy Drew for too long, even the sometime
annoying antics of chums Bess and George the fraidy-foodie and the
tomboy-judo "master". She's even weathered the marriage and
disappearance of pal Helen Corning, her father nearly being in the
devious clutches of that sly Marty King, and numerous Emerson dances and
chats about football and insurance sales with her "special friend" Ned
Nickerson. With nary a retort at unruly suspects, grace under fire, and
often a wan smile after coming to from being knocked out, she always got
back in the saddle...er...roadster and eventually saved the day and
rounded up all the dastardly villains for the police. All in a day's or
vacation's work... To some, this might seem like perfection, but to
most, we wouldn't have had it any other way. So, I say cloche hats off
to Mystery's IT Girl and may Nancy Drew have many more mysteries to solve in her future!
When Nancy Drew debuted in 1930, she truly was in many respects a
trailblazer of series heroines and by the end of the year, sales were
going very well and steadily grew--by the first few books, she was quite
a success if you go by sales figures in the New York Public Library.
Considering the time period was during the Great Depression when many
series went out of print and faltered, just what was it about Nancy Drew
that helped her weather this dreary economic time and prepare her for
the war years to come and all the paper shortages which also caused
various series to take hits?
Before she became Mystery's IT Girl, there was the "Dream Team" or "Drew
Team" who guaranteed her success in life, as she morphed from "Stella
Strong" to "Nan Drew" to "Nancy Drew" and then got right down to
business solving mysteries in her first case, The Secret of the Old Clock. Without this dreamy "Drew Team," who knows what fate might have had in store for generations of readers, why Nancy Drew Sleuths might be the "Elsie Dinsmore Sleuths" and that would be, frankly, just too namby pamby for words!
The "Drew" Team, who helped create and produce Nancy Drew and who made
her the success she would become, is who we owe a hearty thanks to, for
without them, I don't think Nancy Drew would be the pop culture icon
that she is today. Let's take a moment and reflect on who helped make
Nancy Drew such a success in her early 1930s years, which guaranteed a
foundation that would transcend to her still today, modern-day
sleuthing.
The 1930s "Drew Team":
Edward Stratemeyer
Inventor of Nancy Drew. He brought to the table years of experience at
capitalizing on very popular themes with young people as he wrote and
produced many popular series like the Rover Boys, Ted Scott, Tom Swift,
the Bobbsey Twins and the newer Hardy Boys series which debuted 3 years
before Nancy Drew in 1927. He produced the outlines for the first four
books and edited on these. He also knew that his current Ruth Fielding
ghostwriter, Mildred A. Wirt, was just the right person to handle the
treatment of the Nancy Drew series and that with a little work and
adjustment, she'd turn out a fine story.
Mildred Wirt Benson
Iowa native, Mildred Wirt Benson, having grown up with a doting father and lots of
freedom like Nancy Drew, gave life to Nancy Drew with a bright, bold
fresh characterization and a snappy visualization of mid-western River
Heights. She had been writing since she was a child and had chanced up
on an advertisement Stratemeyer placed in a trade publication - The Editor - it led
to her ghosting the Ruth Fielding series. She had always preferred boys'
series books growing up as they were more exciting and adventurous. She
always felt that girls could do the same things boys could, and
therefore, so could Nancy. She wrote books 1-7, 11-25, and 30. I am currently writing a biography about Benson.
Walter Karig
Navy man and Syndicate ghost - when he stepped in to write #8 Nancy's
Mysterious Letter, it could have made or broken Nancy Drew. His amicable
style of writing with overtones of humor and drama--a dramedy of
thrills, that helped bring alive Ned Nickerson's world at Emerson
College, handle a family drama and darker twisted set of villains in The
Sign of the Twisted Candles and the dastardly doings in The Password to Larkspur Lane,
were such that no great continuity problems are to be found between Wirt
and Karig's Nancys--and the mysteries all flowed well together.
Harriet Otis Smith
Stratemeyer's very capable assistant, Smith, who assisted Edward on
volumes 1-3, was heavily involved on volume 4 during Stratemeyer's
illness, is often unknown and uncredited for all her hard work at the
Syndicate. It was Smith who wrote the outline for book 5, The Secret at Shadow
Ranch, and who most likely created the mostly beloved characters of Bess
and George. It was also through her efficient management, that once
Stratemeyer passed away on May 10, 1930, that the publishing of
Syndicate series didn't grind to a halt and the transition to
Stratemeyer's daughters would be reasonably successful.
Nancy Drew's Early Success Then & The Legacy
It shouldn't go without being mentioned, that by 1934 and through the Great Depression and when many series came and went, Nancy Drew series had became a hit - and this was recognized in an article in the April 1934 issue of Fortune Magazine - an Ayers Brinser profile on Stratemeyer, "For It Was Indeed He". A famous quote from this article is this one - "As oil had it's Rockefeller, literature had its Stratemeyer." Brinser wrote of the Nancy Drew series, "Nancy is the greatest phenomenon among all the fifty-centers. She is a best seller." What Edward Stratemeyer helped create would go on today to still be a very long running popular series still in print and new books being published and a character that has resonated with millions of fans over the years. I think Edward would be most proud of that legacy and that his own daughters continued the business for many years after his death.
Edna Stratemeyer Squier
Edna's huge contribution to Nancy Drew's early success is frankly often
forgotten and little is mentioned about her in the mainstream. It was
Edna who plotted and wrote the outlines for most of the early Nancy Drew
books after she and her sister Harriet took over the Syndicate fall of
1930. Her interest in mysticism and spiritualism inspired some
interesting plots and characters too. Previous to her, as noted above, books 1-5 were handled by her father Edward and then his assistant Harriet Otis Smith. Once the sisters took over running The Syndicate, until 1940, Edna handled most of the Nancy Drew outlines/editing with the exception of four that her sister Harriet did. Edna plotted books 6, 7, 8, 11,
12, 13, 14, 16, 18 before she left the Syndicate to move to Florida in
the early 1940s. It was Edna, who truly had an influence on Nancy's
character during the early years on the creative side of things along
with Wirt. She later said to her sister Harriet about Wirt, "Her style
made the Nancys!"
Harriet Stratemeyer
Harriet, like her sister Edna, knew the Syndicate must go on after they
couldn't find a suitable buyer - Great Depression and all - but her
function for the early Nancy Drews was mostly as editor. She did outline
2 of ghostwriter Walter Karig's books--books 9 and 10 and then also outlines for books 15
and 17 before taking over with book 19 after Edna left in the 1940s. It
was Harriet's outlines that especially became voluminous by the 1940s
and it was Harriet who got Nancy through the war years and other trials
and tribulations in the years after that. By the 1950s, she eventually began writing the books after the ghostwriting was brought in-house instead of being farmed out to other ghostwriters. Harriet's time with Nancy spanned generations, a testament
to her dedication to her father's business and his work. She oversaw the revisions process for the first 34 books, and weathered the storm of transitioning from one long term publishing relationship with Grosset & Dunlap to a new publisher in Simon & Schuster and a stressful courtroom battle over that. Her ghost is said to haunt her NJ farm today, where she outlined and wrote some of her Nancy Drew books.
Russell H. Tandy
Commercial illustrator, Russell H. Tandy, won out for the job of
bringing Nancy Drew to life over fellow illustrator Frank Townsend, when
Edward sent samples of both Townsend and Tandy's work to Grosset &
Dunlap. Tandy was a master at series illustration and was adept at
giving Nancy Drew a very sophisticated style with boldness and lovely
expressions. He also tended to use very patriotic colors like red, white
and blue by the 1940s too, during the war years. Nancy Drew may have
been 18, but she appeared very mature and capable--even a bit
mysterious, as a plucky sleuth should be. He illustrated covers and
internal illustrations through the late 1940s. His covers, almost like
cliffhangers unto themselves, would have led kids to judge the books
very well indeed by their appealing, almost beckoning scenes.
Grace Horton
She may have grown up on Horton Ice Cream, but her figure, like Nancy's,
was just the look to bring Nancy Drew alive on the cover of the Nancy
Drew books. Her up-to-date blonde all-American looks were just what
Edward Stratemeyer had stated Nancy Drew to be, on the outline for The
Secret of the Old Clock, and she was a match made in literary dreams.
She would go on to be Tandy's muse for the duration of his time working
on the series.
Grosset & Dunlap
A powerhouse publisher compared to smaller publishers, Grosset &
Dunlap must be credited too, with the publishing end of the deal for it
was their very aggressive and well funded sales force whose distribution
was key to ensuring that Nancy Drew might be found in every corner of
the US, certainly eventually as sales and print runs began to grow great
guns even that first year of publication! They also possibly chose the
name "Nan Drew" from Stratemeyer's list of character names and
lengthened it to Nancy Drew - a name that will forever remain infamous
and our Mystery's IT Girl!
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