Girl Sleuth

by Melanie Rehak

  Mildred had been transferred to the courthouse beat at the paper, and she and George coexisted happily at the Times, working, as one colleague recalled, “only ten feet away [from each other]. He was the editor of the editorial page. So she would stay until the first edition, until around 7:00 P.M., and her husband was responsible for closing his page. They were entirely separate—that was church-and-state separation!” George was also a great help with Peggy, who adored him. An inspired cook, he was often the one who went home and made her dinner while Mildred, ever the hard-bitten reporter, stayed late at the office. With George to help out, Lillian Augustine had gone back to Ladora, where she would live until her death in 1971. Unlike many housewives of the time, who were finding that their reliance on motherhood as a means of self-fulfillment was not working out quite the way they had imagined it would—“I feel quite stale as though I don’t use my mind enough,” one of them told a researcher—Mildred was managing to have it all.

  But though she had been assigned more work by Harriet, what was to be her final tenure with the Stratemeyer Syndicate was short-lived. Harriet’s wrangles with Grosset & Dunlap intensified throughout the early 1950s. “They expect us to hop around, but on their side they do things just like any other corporation,” she wrote to Edna. “If you argue too much, there’s always someone to take your place . . . The old spirit is gone. Everything is just for money.” Slowly she was become aware that the party losing out the most in the new world of big business was the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which was still earning the old five-cents-a-copy royalty on its books even as rising prices helped Grosset earn more and more. “Last fall I took up with Mr. O’Connor the matter of increased royalty after our books had sold over a large sum. He refused . . . All other publishers pay on a gradually increasing scale, and I do not see why G&D cannot follow suit. Ever since the new regime came in there, they have gone the way of big business—asking for as much as possible, and giving us as little as possible,” she wrote at one point, continuing her train of thought in another letter later that month: “The attitude over at G&D’s is certainly a most undiplomatic one. They take the position all the time of doing us a great favor. This morning when Mr. Juergens recommended that the Syndicate not kill the goose that lays the golden egg, I reminded him that after all it’s the Syndicate who is supplying them with the golden eggs.”

  In response, she developed a new model for getting manuscripts written, one that she hoped would give her the best possible chance of meeting Grosset’s deadlines. “We have had so much trouble with writers that I am trying out a new plan—that of doing more of the work in the office,” she wrote to Edna in the fall of 1952. For the rest of her life, almost all the writing would be done in-house, with Harriet taking over some of the series herself, and Andy Svenson coming up with several more new series. The rest would be done by a staff of writers whom Harriet could influence and keep an eye on when in the office. Skeptical as always, Edna was at least willing to give Harriet’s method a whirl. “Apparently you expect . . . to speed up and ease the story telling problem. I do hope it does, but I admit I hate to see the old policy of getting talent from various states to carry on the books go. Guess we’ll just have to see the results.”

  Among the victims of this new policy was Mildred, who had just written Nancy Drew number thirty, The Clue of the Velvet Mask, for the Syndicate. Published in 1953, the manuscript traveled to New York on the same train as George Benson, who was going there to screen nominations for the Pulitzer Prize in journalism. It would be her last Nancy Drew. Apparently, Harriet never informed Mildred of her new plan—she simply stopped writing with assignments, and with that the relationship was effectively severed.

  Immediately Harriet had her staff compile character sheets on all the Syndicate heroes and heroines, so that characters and the details of their adventures, which had for so long been stored in the memories of ghostwriters, would be gathered all in one place. For Harriet, who was about to take over the writing of the Nancy Drew books herself, there were reams of information about the sleuth, her various friends and family members, and her surroundings.

  Though they were intended as reference sheets, these summaries often read like the résumé of a real person. “DREW, NANCY, daughter of Carson Drew, famous criminal lawyer; mother deceased; lives in River Heights, U.S.A.,” one began. It then listed all the relevant information under the appropriate headings “Education”; “Career” (amateur detective, of course); “Avocations”; and “Honors.” Drawing on the plots of all the Nancy Drew Mysteries, it painted a neat portrait of the girl sleuth, who by this time seemed to be practically generating her own personality. Another key piece of paper, separate from the brief summary, was entitled “DETAILED INFORMATION AND DATA ABOUT NANCY DREW HERSELF.”

  She is pretty, blond, about sixteen. Has shiny, golden curls, is resourceful and alert. Enjoys all types of games, especially golf. This shows her lively spirit, She has attended River Heights High School. Nancy is generous to a fault. Is the most popular young person in River Heights.

  Nancy has that intangible something, making one never forget her face. Pretty in a distinctive way. She speaks forcefully, but never thinks of thrusting her opinions on others. In any crowd she unconsciously assumes leadership. Sometimes her father calls her “Curly Locks.” She is the apple of his eye.

  Nancy, a true daughter of the Middle West, takes pride in the fertility of her State, and sees beauty in a crop of waving green corn as well as in the rolling hills and the expanse of prairie land.

  Carson Drew finds it necessary to maintain a certain social position, and accordingly Nancy was frequently called upon to entertain noted professional men.

  In the first book of the series, Nancy has a blue roadster. Then, in “The Mysterious Letter” Nancy gets a new car—a smart maroon roadster. In “The Password to Larkspur Lane” Mr. Drew tells Nancy he is giving her a new car, which makes the third one so far. The new car [is] a beauty and handles marvelously. Powerful engine. A powerful black and green roadster. Even so, she rather hates to part with her maroon roadster.

  Nancy likes to sew, and does considerable sewing, curled up on the davenport in the living room of her home.

  Nancy also likes to draw, and attends art school in River Heights.

  A number of times Nancy had been present at interviews which her father had had with noted detectives who desired his aid in solving perplexing mysteries, and those occasions stood out as red letter days for her.

  The responsibility of the household might have weighed heavily upon Nancy, but she was the type of girl who is capable of accomplishing a great many things in a comparatively short time. She takes plenty of time, even so, for sports, clubs and parties. In school, Nancy had been very popular and boasted many friends. She had a way of taking life seriously without impressing one as being the least bit serious herself.

  Nancy possesses her father’s liking for a mystery, and delights in a battle of wits when championing a worthy cause. Carson Drew had often remarked that he enjoyed the detective work of his cases better than the court work. He was so busy at times with legal matters that Nancy would have to do most of the mystery work.

  Since Carson Drew knew that Nancy could be trusted with confidential information, he frequently discussed his cases with her.

  Nancy wears the color blue a great deal.

  Mrs. Drew died when Nancy was ten [circled, with “3” written in on one draft] years old.

  Nancy very much dislikes to eat squash.

  Carson Drew gives Nancy a generous clothing allowance. Nancy is a very wise buyer. There was not a year in the three during which she had enjoyed the allowance but that showed a surplus.

  There would be no more haggling with Mildred over her characterization or which points in a plot to emphasize. From then on, these sheets of information would be consulted exhaustively when it came to deciding where to send Nancy on her next trip and how she should be dressed for it, or what she might or might not eat in a
foreign country. Nothing would be left to chance or the creative process of anyone other than Harriet.

  By 1954 the new order was up and running in East Orange, and the Syndicate had moved beyond making character and data sheets for each series to promulgating an all-encompassing theory of book writing. Andy Svenson announced to a reporter from the New Yorker magazine: “Whether we do yarns about Ubermenschen or pigtailed Philo Vances, we subscribe to the Stratemeyer formula . . . A low death rate but plenty of plot. Verbs of action, and polka-dotted with exclamation points and provocative questions. No use of guns by the hero. No smooching.” The reason for the reporter’s visit was the debut of a new series starring Tom Swift Jr., son of Edward Stratemeyer’s beloved Tom Swift, inventor extraordinaire. Upon arriving at the office to see Harriet, the writer “found her, a pert, gray-haired lady in a green dress, sitting in a pleasant office, surrounded by hundreds of books for children. Tom, Jr., books, she informed us happily, are running neck and neck with the latest titles in the two most popular current series—the Nancy Drew mysteries and the Hardy Boys, both Syndicate properties.”

  Though she stuck to her guns about the moral aspects of her stories, Harriet had clearly learned her lesson about relying on her own instincts for what was new and fascinating. “‘In the old days,’ said Mrs. Adams, ‘we used to treat scientific data rather simply. Now a battery of specialists goes over everything to eradicate the slightest error.’” Her right-hand man, sitting in on the interview, confirmed the approach. “‘Scientifically, the kids are hep,’ Mr. Svenson boomed.”

  Indeed, the kids of 1950s America were a whole new breed. By the end of the decade, with allowance in their pockets and time to spare, they were spending $50 million a year on 45s of their favorite rock-and-roll songs alone. Gyrating in basements all through suburbia to the scandalous sounds of Elvis Presley, they ushered in a new age of permissiveness. What Calling All Girls had started, Seventeen magazine now perpetuated. With stories about cosmetics and fashion and boys, “the publication that virtually invented the teenage girl” had been an immediate hit when it debuted in 1944. All four hundred thousand copies of its first issue sold out in two days, and a year later its circulation had broken one million. By the 1950s it was essential reading for the bobby-soxer set, who consulted it for information on everything from their favorite crooners to how big or short or stiff to wear their skirts. In addition to magazines, there was television, which had exploded on to the family scene and replaced radio as the most popular means of entertainment. I Love Lucy was first broadcast to great adoration in 1951, and The Mickey Mouse Club and Captain Kangaroo both debuted in 1955, followed by Leave It to Beaver and Perry Mason in 1957. By then, forty-one million American homes had television sets, and black-and-white was fast being replaced by color. When Dick Clark took over American Bandstand in 1956, American teenagers were hooked immediately, helping to seal television’s dominance.

  They were also buying books in record numbers. “Even the proudest firms are titans leaning on tots,” wrote Time magazine’s book reporter in 1957. “At Grosset & Dunlap children’s books comprise two-thirds of the firm’s publishing operation; 35% of Random House’s sales volume is estimated to be in juveniles; fully $13 million of Simon & Schuster’s $18 million gross last year came from books for kids.” In a world this receptive to children’s literature, Harriet and her pet characters hit their highest sales numbers for more than a decade and even expanded into new areas. The first edition of the Nancy Drew board game appeared in 1957, complete with miniature roadsters for game pieces and a stack of cards that players drew from as they tried to solve mysteries while traveling to many of the locations named in Nancy Drew books. Nancy Drew and other Syndicate books were also being translated and sold overseas again. In Finland Nancy was known as “Paula”; in Sweden her name was changed to “Kitty Drew.” The United Kingdom and Denmark left her as Nancy, and France, where she was published under the name “Alice Roy”—possibly because the French had a difficult time pronouncing the name “Nancy Drew”—proved to be a huge market.

  Harriet felt more strongly than ever that she had to protect the integrity of her characters by being the sole person to authorize their use in any way. “I am constantly made aware of the fact that the publishers, producers and manufacturers are more interested in dollars and cents than in following any established precepts or formulas which I and those working for me insist upon in order to keep the books and corollary rights up to the high ethical standards to which they have always held,” she complained to Edna. “I have continual arguments along these lines with company officers, editors, and artists who are greatly swayed by present day trends toward gun play, the shading of the truth by characters, and deviations from the factual.”

  Nevertheless, her characters had survived, and Harriet herself had passed a milestone: the twenty-fifth anniversary as head of the Syndicate. Just how much she had relied on her own counsel when she insisted on taking over the business back in 1930 was brought home to her in a letter of congratulations from Hugh Juergens of Grosset & Dunlap. “As I sat there I couldn’t help thinking what the old gentleman would have thought of the picture of that G&D mob around that festive board with his daughter picking up the check,” he wrote after a celebratory party. “Just the same, I think he would have been rather proud to see how well the Syndicate he had built up was being carried on under his daughter’s administration.”

  There was one person, however, who refused to fete Harriet. Despite the fact that royalties were higher than ever, Edna was still refusing to authorize a higher salary for her sister. Her husband had passed away recently, and her daughter was grown, leaving her with even more time to obsess over her income and to heckle Harriet over even the tiniest things. “Better watch the office expenditure,” she wrote to her sister. “Last year you certainly went to town with new items—I’ll not agree to any such new gadgets this year, so watch out.”

  Harriet tried one last time to appeal to her sister’s conscience. “In your recent letter you mentioned Christmas, and the thought came to me that the best Christmas gift which you could give me would be a change in attitude towards your sister,” she wrote. Then, the decades of bad blood were aired at last as she cut straight to the heart of Edna’s years of suspicion and resentment.

  Perhaps you are not aware of how you have hurt me over a long period of years, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. Back in 1942, soon after I had suffered a tragic sorrow [Sunny’s death], you told me that in my whole life I had never done anything for you. Since in my own mind I felt that both Russell and I had done a great deal for you, I told you a few truths. The matter was entirely a personal one and had nothing to do with business, yet I heard from two relatives that you said I had forced you out of the office because I wanted to get the business away from you. That was utterly ridiculous of course. Since that time you have harassed me by suspicious remarks in letters, but even worse by asking secretaries to spy on me . . . You have been away from the office for fourteen years. In that time I have built up the business from an annual income of 20,000 in 1942 to 115,000 so far this year, yet no recognizance of this has been taken by you.

  She implored Edna to listen to her. “Now Edna, I bear you no malice for the rift and the hurts, and I hope you will forgive me for any hurts I have caused you. Let’s make this a happy Christmas! What say?”

  Edna said no. The following year, Harriet tried to buy her sister out of her share of the Syndicate for $75,000. Edna said no to that, too, and as the decade wound down, the two of them remained locked in disagreement. Harriet simply stopped consulting her unless it was absolutely necessary and focused instead on her work. But she could not hold on to her detective forever. Before long, Nancy Drew would get even further away from Harriet than the European continent, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  AFTER FORTY-FIVE YEARS of dominance, series books finally began to decline in the late 1950s. Television was just on the cusp of becoming the num
ber-one entertainment for kids, and the competition was too stiff for all of them—all of them, that is, except for Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. “Offhand I would say that the continuing volume of sales on your books is little short of miraculous,” John O’Connor, the president of Grosset & Dunlap, wrote to Harriet in 1958. In 1959 the year’s sales for the thirty-six volumes in the Nancy Drew series would be close to one and a half million, a number that was almost unfathomable considering that the trend in children’s books since the end of the war had been toward realism. With new fears about communism and nuclear bombs in the air, so the theory went, fantasy had fallen by the wayside. Books had to describe “the ‘here and now’ . . . in which nothing happens except what happens every day, from alarm clock to applesauce,” as one disapproving writer put it. “The fad reached some kind of climax,” he groused, “when [an eminent psychiatrist] declared that in the atomic age it is wrong to teach children to believe in Santa Claus on the ground that they will refuse to ‘think realistically’ when they grow up.” Newly attuned to the angst of their generation and worried about the future as they hid under their school desks during airraid drills, teenagers wanted books that dealt with their most delicate and all-consuming problems.