Nancy Drew, girl sleuth, still delivers the goods
By: Joan Ruddiman
Critics appear to be delighted with the new Nancy Drew movie, if only for the "adorable" Emma Roberts, who as they point out is a Hollywood prodigy as the daughter of Eric and niece of Julia.
But the actress is not the only draw. Last week, a local newspaper did a full fashion page on the Nancy Drew look cute skirts and sweaters and conservative penny loafers.
"Retro," as the kids call it, but they as well as adults are paying attention.
In a visit to a fifth-grade classroom in June, the read-aloud voted on by the entire class of girls and boys was "The Secret of the Old Clock" a Nancy Drew mystery first published in 1930.
Nancy Drew lives on … and on.
This is not surprising as many little girls now into the fourth generation have loved her take-charge attitude and her in-your-face intellect that she never apologized for not even to her cute boyfriend Ned. She ran the show with girl friends George and Bess willingly following her lead.
Nancy Drew is a powerful role model for girls who are driven to be the take-charge leader, but still yearn to be loved and accepted by friends.
She is also loved, accepted and empowered by her really cool lawyer dad who, even in the 1930s, treated her with total respect and no gender bias! It is interesting to ponder Carson Drew’s influence on the mothering styles of Nancy Drew’s fans that grew up to raise their own strong-willed little girls.
Melanie Rehak, in "Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her" (Harcourt, 2005), examined how Nancy Drew was a model for generation of girls. In this social history of the Nancy Drew era from 1930 onward, Ms. Rehak cites a number of really smart, successful women who confess to a childhood passion for the girl detective. This is understandable given the history of the series, which was lovingly tended by not one but two strong-willed women.
The first Carolyn Keene, the name attributed to the ageless "author" of the Nancy Drew books, was Mildred Wirt Benson, who went to court to prove she was the real woman behind Nancy Drew.
The woman who literally introduced herself as Carolyn Keene was Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, the daughter of Edward Stratemeyer, who founded the publishing empire he called The Stratemeyer Syndicate.
Nancy Drew was one of several popular "formula" written series developed by Mr. Stratemeyer. Other publications include Tom Swift, the Bobbsey Twins and the Hardy Boys. In 1906, he founded his Stratemeyer Syndicate with The Rover Boys, which he wrote himself. Ultimately, he would control 125 different series under 79 different pen names.
In the late 1920s, Mr. Stratemeyer developed the idea of Nancy Drew and outlined four of the first novels. When he died suddenly in 1930, his daughters Harriet and Edna took over the business. Edna bowed out, but Harriet (H.S.) became a major influence on the series.
Until 1948, Harriet (H.S.) Adams developed the outlines and edited. Ms. Wirt was credited as the author of most of the books during this period. In 1955, Ms. Adams took over the writing of the Nancy Drew books, a task that she continued until her death in 1979 at age 89.
Years ago, the cleverly written television show "Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" had Indy involved in a high school romance with Nancy Stratemeyer of Princeton. Young Indy trailed along as Nancy solved an espionage case.
Whatever else was happening with the series, Ms. Wirt and Ms. Adams both proudly proclaimed that the girl detective was a version of who they were. Years later, now as Mildred Benson, the long-time author of the series said in interviews that the 16-year-old Nancy, like herself, was able to fly a plane, speed in a "roadster" and out-think the most intimidating man.
Ms. Adams, however, also provided real life fodder for the Nancy Drew plots.
Nancy Axelrad, a long time employee of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, in a 1987 interview with Don Swaim reminisced fondly about Ms. Adams with no mention of Ms. Benson. She tells of travels with Ms. Adams as they gathered research for adventures Nancy would live out in the novels including chasing down a solar eclipse.
Ms. Axelrad gives Ms. Adams the credit for defining the character with her "sterling qualities," much like, she said, Ms. Adams’ own. Though the character over the years has become "a little more rough edged," in Ms. Axelrad’s opinion, Nancy Drew has not lost her "universal appeal." The "jeans may be tighter," but Nancy like Ms. Adams, says Ms. Axelrad is always the girl who "wants to blaze her own way."
It took a messy lawsuit to sort out who wrote what in the increasingly valuable series. The nature of producing "50 cent-ers" the term for the inexpensive adventure novels for kids Mr. Stratemeyer created demanded secrecy. The public was never to know about the stable of writers who turned out hundreds of titles.
Ms. Axelrad shared that she was amazed when she was hired (as a student from Drew University "It was fated!") to learn that Carolyn Keene was not a real person.
What seems clear is that Mr. Stratemeyer was the real Carolyn Keene. He came up with the concept, the storyline and the author’s name. However, there is no doubt that Ms. Benson had a strong hand in shaping the character of Nancy Drew, which was supported by Ms. Adams.
By the time Ms. Adams took over complete control in 1953, the series and Nancy Drew were too well established for her to have much creative influence. Not much was done to change the character or story lines, other than aging Nancy from 16 to 18, until 1960 when the whole series got a face lift. Nancy’s "roadster" became a convertible, for example, and details about her early life and her age were standardized.
In 1979, the series was sold to Simon and Schuster, which has published over 120 new titles as well as keeping all the Grossett and Dunlap titles in print. The estimate is that 200 million copies of Nancy Drew are in print worldwide.
The fashions certainly have changed, though Nancy still maintains her classic style. Ms. Axelrad noted that the series mellowed over time, with Nancy as crime fighter becoming more "a sleuth" that "put herself and her friends in less dangerous circumstances."
The intent, however, was always "to keep the books timely," but not faddish, so Nancy Drew could maintain her "universal appeal over time." Seems that the Stratemeyer objectives have been well met as Nancy Drew keeps on delighting readers now into the 21st century.
Joan Ruddiman, Ed.D., is a teacher and friend of the Allentown Public Library.

