31 Days of Nancy Drew Topic #28 1950s Nancy Drew Books

31 Days of Nancy Drew Topic #28

1950s Nancy Drew Books

As we leave the first two decades of Nancy Drew and what some refer to as her heyday - the 1930s and 1940s, we segue into the 1950s and the post-war era. Lots of changes had come to women during the war years with so many men off at war. Women went to work in factories and other jobs to help support their families and the war effort, Post war saw a trend toward the typical 50s housewife and of course after the war there was the baby boom. Note on the cover of #31, The Ringmaster's Secret, Nancy looks very much like June Cleaver and sports a monogrammed purse. As always, very fashionable and stylish for the decade.

Yet regardless of what was happening in the real world, Nancy was still off racing around in her sporty roadster with lots of freedom to solve mysteries and find herself in further peril. By 1950, she had aged to 18 years of age, previously was 16 years old. This change came about due to driving laws and to be compliant with those in all states and she began to drive safer and as "fast as the law would allow." She was most respectful of law enforcement and authority figures - for the most part - and more reliant on her chums when sleuthing and the girls' dates Ned Nickerson, Dave Evans and Burt Eddleton become more of a feature and more help to solve the mysteries.

 

Briefly, I'll mention that the 1950s would usher in a new era of ghosting at the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Previously, they farmed their books out to ghostwriters, but by the 1950s most of this was now in-house and done by Syndicate staff and partners including Harriet Stratemeyer Adams. The change began with book #26, The Clue of the Leaning Chimney and books 26-29 & 31 were all written by new ghosts. Mildred Wirt Benson was not asked to continue writing the books until she was invited back to write #30, The Clue of the Velvet Mask, but it would be her last Nancy Drew. Near the end of this decade, at Grosset & Dunlap's insistence, the Syndicate also began a process of revising the first 34 Nancy Drew books to shorten them to 20 chapters which I discussed in a previous 31 days posting. You can learn more about these one-off ghosts and the revisions at my website. 

There was an effort by Grosset & Dunlap in the late 1940s to try and get the Stratemeyer Syndicate to hand over the writing of the series to their overseeing - and ghost George Waller , Jr. who wrote Leaning Chimney was caught up in that drama behind the scenes. Harriet, who saw a conspiracy brewing, would have none of it, and between a very trying time getting Waller to follow her instructions on writing Leaning Chimney and dealing with Grosset & Dunlap, she and others at the Syndicate changed up the process.

 

 

In the 1950s, Nancy began to travel more extensively around the USA and to other countries to real life sites including Boston in #27, The Secret of the Wooden Lady, Florida and Mexico in #28 The Clue of the Black Keys, New York and Montreal in #29 The Mystery at the Ski Jump, New York City and England in #31 The Ringmaster's Secret, Amish Country in Pennsylvania in #33 The Witch Tree Symbol, Charlottesville, VA in #34, The Hidden Window Mystery, New Orleans, LA in #35 The Haunted Showboat and Hawaii in #36 The Secret of the Golden Pavilion. These travelogue style mysteries involved Nancy going to these locations due to a mystery, we learned about the local culture and some historical information, Nancy would visit real life sites in these books and often buy souvenirs for friends and family all the while getting caught up in a mystery and spending most of her time sleuthing.

The Nancy Drew Sleuths organization, whose mantra at their annual conventions is to "Follow in Nancy Drew's Footsteps" has brought to life quite a few of these books and others, where they are set in real life sites so that members can visit places Nancy and her chums did.

 

Mysteries in the 1950s involved the search for an old wooden lady missing from its clipper ship, the search for a frog treasure in Florida and Mexico, a winter mystery involving fur thieves and stock swindlers, a gang of thieves who rob homes at  parties, circus drama, diamond & jewel smugglers, the search for an old stained glass window, pirate treasure hunting, and sleuthing and surfing in Hawaii - the location for the Nancy Drew Sleuths 90th Nancy Drew Anniversary in April 2020. The books featured a mixture of white and wrap spine dust jackets and the blue tweed style boards with 1940s silhouette. Artist Bill Gillies takes over for Tandy, illustrates books 27-29 and then revises covers for 1-9 and 11 as discussed in a previous posting on the classic Nancy Drew illustrators. Rudy Nappi begins illustrating with book #30 onward. It is Nappi who changed Nancy's hair color on the cover of #35, The Haunted Showboat, and  paints her as a red-haired sleuth instead of blonde. It takes a few books before they begin referring to her inside as being Titian-haired.

 

Here's but a few of the many things we learned about Nancy from the 50s books:

1. When tied up, she's handy with a chisel

2. Nancy keeps a tiny camera in her car.

3. Nancy carries chocolate bars in her purse.

4. Nancy can dance a breathless Samba.

5. She excels at trick riding.

6. Nancy can do ventriloquism.

7. She keeps a wrench in her car.

8. She likes to donate contest winnings to charity.

9. If a taken man whispers to Nancy, she finds that very inappropriate.

10. The third floor of the Drew home is not wired with a burglar alarm.

Here's some fun lessons we learned from Nancy:

No matter how much they torture you, a good sleuth never gives in to the dastardly villains!

Keeping an emergency $5.00 in your purse isn't too helpful when your purse is stolen.

Masquerading as a villain can lead to valuable clues being discovered.

Helping the police arrest someone can get you out of a speeding ticket!

Writers of anonymous notes are always cowards.

In case you're caught sleuthing where you shouldn't be, it helps if you've prearranged a ruse for being there as a cover.

If it's wearing a white sheet, it's probably not a real ghost!

In the comments, let us know if you've read any of the 1950s versions of books 27-34 and books 35 and 36. (Books 27-34 originally had 25 chapters, classic books 35 onward only 20, remember that tip!). Do you have a favorite among these books? When reading these, did you notice a change of writers between books 26 onward? (You would if you read them back to back.) Were there any particular mysteries in the 27-36 range that you preferred over the others?