Girl Sleuth (45 page)

“I am just back from Wellesley”:
Edward Stratemeyer to F. S. Grow, June 22, 1914, SSR/NYPL, box 23.

“Everything in Newark is War”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Will Vroom, August 7, 1914, SSR/NYPL, box 23.

“He felt that as long as”:
Secret of Nancy Drew.

“Instead, written at the top”:
Secret of Nancy Drew.

“On another”:
Sandy Rovner, “Growing Up with Sensible Nancy,”
Washington Post,
March 30, 1982.

“On the 20th, my older daughter”:
Edward Stratemeyer to St. George Rathbone, October 11, 1915, SSR/NYPL, box 23.

“An elaborate dress”:
“Adams-Stratemeyer,” unnamed newspaper clipping, October 20, 1915, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams Collection, WCA.

 

CHAPTER FOUR: HAWKEYE DAYS

“Frosh Women”:
All headlines from the
Daily Iowan,
fall 1922, memory book of Mildred Augustine, 1922—1928, MAWB/IWA, box 2.

“Perhaps the most prominent”:
Hawkeye,
1924, University Archives, University of Iowa, p. 259 (hereafter cited as UA/UI).

“The feature event”:
“Hawkeye Swimmers Give Exhibitions at the Big Dipper,”
Daily Iowan,
n.d., memory book of Mildred Augustine, 1922—1928, MAWB/IWA, box 2.

“Swimsuits themselves/Ederle”:
Collins, pp. 345—46.

“The University of Iowa”:
Much of the information about U of I in this chapter comes from the
University of Iowa Handbook,
vol. XXXIII, 1922—1923, UA/UI.

“Above all in the 1920s”:
Deutsch, p. 413.

“Women who were daring”:
Collins, p. 300.

“At one point during the fighting”:
Manners Smith, pp. 406—7.

“In New York, where many women”:
Deutsch, pp. 416—17.

“Margaret Sanger”:
Manners Smith, pp. 402—3.

“What was the point”:
Collins, p. 312.

“I always voted”:
Vallongo.

“Popular magazines”:
Deutsch, pp. 419—20.

“Modern new Currier Hall”:
Florence Livingston Joy, “In and Around and About Currier Hall,”
Iowa Alumnus
XI, no. 6 (March 1914), pp. 10–12, UA/UI.

“Today's woman gets what she wants”:
Collins, p. 335.

“I see in your books”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Howard Garis, April 17, 1919, SSR/NYPL, box 24.

“The president of Mount Holyoke College”:
“Young People Less Superficial Than Twenty Years Ago,” n.d.,
Daily Iowan,
memory book of Helen Andrews Brown, Helen Andrews Brown Papers, 1924–1927, IWA, box 1.

“The National Woman's Party”:
Deutsch, p. 422.

“In a
Harper's Magazine
article”:
Deutsch, p. 424.

“An impudent”:
Vallongo.

“Hawkeyes Beat Yale”:
This and all other
Daily Iowan
quotes in this section are from the memory book of Mildred Augustine, 1922–1928, MAWB/IWA, box 2.

“Athena Literary Society”:
Mildred Chant, “History of the Literary Societies of the State University of Iowa” (Ph.D diss., University of Iowa, 1944), p. 144, UA/UI.

“I always had one or two”:
Vallongo.

“Among the offerings”:
State University of Iowa News Letter
3, no. 57 (December 19, 1918), p. 2, UA/UI.

“We Never Sleep”:
Iowa Journalist,
February 1926, p. 16, UA/UI.

“The most gory”:
Mildred Benson press conference, University of Iowa Nancy Drew Conference, Iowa City, IA, April 17, 1993.

“Our Sardines”:
unsigned editorial, “Our Sardines,” n.d.,
Daily Iowan,
MAWB/IWA, box 2.

“Faults in Expression”:
Iowa Journalist,
October 1925, p. 13, UA/UI.

“Advice to the Young Reporter”:
Iowa Journalist,
July 1925, pp. 10–11, UA/UI.

“‘Wanted—An Idea
'”: Mildred Augustine, “Wanted—An Idea,”
Youth's Companion
20, no. 23 (June 9, 1923).

“I think you need”:
Vallongo.

“Echoed the enormously”:
Deutsch, pp. 435–36.

“I enjoin”:
Arthur F. Allen, “On the Need of Being Exact,”
Iowa Journalist,
September 1925, p. 1, UA/UI.

“I came from the town of”:
Mildred Benson press conference, University of Iowa Nancy Drew Conference, Iowa City, IA, April 17, 1993.

“The Stratemeyer Syndicate”:
advertisement in the
Editor,
April 10, 1926, SSR/NYPL, box 15.

 

CHAPTER FIVE: NELL CODY, HELEN HALE, DIANA DARE

“I wish it understood”:
Edward Stratemeyer to John Rhidabeck, April 19, 1914, SSR/NYPL, box 23.

“This is my machine”:
All excerpts from the Motor Girls in this section come from Margaret Penrose,
The Motor Girls; or, A Mystery of the Road
(New York: Cupples & Leon, 1910).

“Forty-six new girls' series”:
Carol Billman,
The Secret of the Stratemeyer Syndicate: Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys and the Million Dollar Fiction Factory
(New York: Ungar, 1986), p. 57 (hereafter cited as Billman).

“Comes of my ignorance”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Gabrielle Jackson, October 26, 1906, SSR/NYPL, box 20.

“Among other things, we want”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Gabrielle Jackson, October 18, 1906, SSR/NYPL, box 20.

“Dorothy Dale”:
Margaret Penrose,
Dorothy Dale, a Girl of Today
(New York: Cupples & Leon, 1908), p. 3.

“I have too much good sense”:
Margaret Penrose,
Dorothy Dale's Engagement
(New York: Cupples & Leon, 1917), p. 161.

“Must appeal to children”:
Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, “Hint on Procedure for Writing Children's Books,” n.d., Harriet Stratemeyer Adams file, Class of 1914 Collection, WCA.

“To get good books written for girls”:
Edward Stratemeyer, advertising copy, n.d. (early 1900s), SSR/NYPL, box 329.

“I have never permitted a murder”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Lillian Garis, November 7, 1911, SSR/NYPL, box 21.

“It is the Century of the Child”:
Ernestine Evans, “Trends in Children's Books,”
New Republic,
November 10, 1926.

“By 1927 nearly two-thirds”:
Collins, p. 335.

“One middle-class woman”:
Deutsch, p. 438.

“A large part of this”:
For much of the information in this section, I am indebted to Paul Deane,
Mirrors of American Culture: Children's Fiction Series in the Twentieth Century
(Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1991); and Cornelia Meigs et al., eds.,
A Critical History of Children's Literature
(New York: Macmillan, 1953).

“A well-known child psychologist”:
G. Stanley Hall, “What Children Do Read and What They Ought to Read,” cited in Gwen Athene Tarbox,
The Clubwomen's Daughters: Collectivist Impulses in Progressive Era Girls' Fiction, 1890–1940
(New York: Garland, 2000), p. 46 (hereafter cited as Tarbox).

“Much of the contempt for”:
Walter Taylor Field,
The Guide to Literature for Children, 1915
(Boston: Ginn and Company, 1928), cited in Tarbox, p. 46.

“127,000”:
A Virtual Boy Scout Museum,
www.boyscoutstuff.com
.

“‘Blowing Out the Boys' Brains
'”: Franklin K. Mathiews, “Blowing Out the Boys' Brains,”
Outlook,
November 16, 1914.

“Personally, it does not matter much to me”:
Edward Stratemeyer to chairman, Book Committee, Newark Public Library, November 11, 1901, cited in Abel, p. 294.

“Maybe I'll scare her into something”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Magdalene Stratemeyer, May 16, 1921, cited in Abel, p. 295.

“Indeed, the following year”:
Tarbox, p. 45.

“He has probably influenced”:
Corey Ford, “The Father of the Rover Boys,”
Reader's Digest,
May 1928, p. 58.

“Boys had paper routes”:
David Nasaw, “Children and Commercial Culture,” in
Small Worlds: Children and Adolescents in America, 1850–1950,
ed. Elliott West and Paula Petrik (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992), p. 18.

“The names and Addresses”:
“Best Books for Boys and Girls,” Cupples & Leon catalog, 1923, private collection of Geoffrey S. Lapin.

“Too busy shooting marbles/an insidious narcotic”:
“For It Was Indeed He,” pp. 89, 193.

“No matter where you are”:
Bobby Miles to Stratemeyer Syndicate, n.d., SSR/NYPL, box 56.

“If I had enough money”:
Maurice Brasel to Stratemeyer Syndicate, March 29, 1933, SSR/NYPL, box 56.

“During adolescence”:
Leslie McFarlane,
Ghost of the Hardy Boys
(New York: Methuen/Two Continents, 1976), p. 13 (hereafter cited as GHB).

“Write a mystery about”:
unknown to Stratemeyer Syndicate, n.d., SSR/NYPL, box 56.

“You will perhaps be interested”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Cupples & Leon, May 14, 1926, SSR/NYPL, box 26.

“Dear Sirs”:
Mildred Augustine to Stratemeyer Syndicate, April 17, 1926, SSR/NYPL, box 14.

“I have looked over these stories”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Mildred Augustine, May 10, 1926, SSR/NYPL, box 26.

“A bitter rival”:
Edward Stratemeyer, advertising matter for
Ruth Fielding and Her Great Scenario; or, Striving for the Motion Picture Prize,
February 16, 1927, SSR/NYPL, box 258.

“Through all her”:
All excerpts from
Ruth Fielding and Her Great Scenario
in this section come from Alice B. Emerson,
Ruth Fielding and Her Great Scenario; or, Striving for the Motion Picture Prize
(New York: Cupples & Leon, 1927).

“Many Americans had begun to fear”:
This quote, plus much of the other information in this paragraph, comes from Deutsch, pp. 428, 435–36, 438, 453.

“What do the neighbors think”:
Deutsch, p. 438.

“The number of women who never/Most college women”:
Deutsch, p. 439.

“Vassar College”:
Deutsch, p. 441.

“Can the devoted wife and mother”:
Ladies' Home Journal,
March 1929, p. 247.

“What had looked”:
Deutsch, pp. 441, 447.

“Fought her on”:
Mildred Wirt Benson, “The Ghost of Ladora,”
Books at Iowa
19, November 1973.

“Dear Mr. Stratemeyer”:
Mildred Augustine to Edward Stratemeyer, October 6, 1926, SSR/NYPL, box 14.

“I think you can”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Mildred Augustine, September 29, 1926, SSR/NYPL, box 26.

“Two brothers of high school age”:
GHB,
p. 62.

“As McFarlane later joked”:
introduction to GHB.

“By mid-1929”:
Marvin Heiferman and Carole Kismaric,
The Mysterious Case of
Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), p. 20 (hereafter cited as Heiferman/Kismaric).

“For this series I have in mind”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Barse & Hopkins, June 27, 1927, SSR/NYPL, box 27.

 

CHAPTER SIX: NANCY DREW LAND

“Stratemeyer thought her accomplishment”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Mildred Augustine, June 8, 1927, SSR/NYPL, box 27.

“Attempt[ing] to improve”:
Mildred Augustine to Edward Stratemeyer, June 6, 1927, SSR/NYPL, box 27.

“A few months ago”:
Mildred Wirt to Edward Stratemeyer, May 16, 1928, SSR/NYPL, box 117.

“As perhaps you know”:
Edward Stratemeyer to L. F. Reed, July 19, 1929, SSR/NYPL, box 27.

“Suggestions for a new series of girls books”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Grosset & Dunlap, September 20, 1929, SSR/NYPL, box 320.

“If the titles are acceptable”:
L. F. Reed to Edward Stratemeyer, September 26, 1929, SSR/NYPL, box 27.

“I have just succeeded”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Mildred Wirt, September 29, 1929, SSR/NYPL, box 27.

“I trust that you will give”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Mildred Wirt, October 3, 1929, SSR/NYPL, box 27.

“Between 1929 and 1933”:
Collins, p. 313.

“Ten million women”:
Eunice Fuller Barnard, “And After All, It Is Still a Man's World,”
New York Times,
November 23, 1930.

“Seven out of ten”:
R. L. Duffus, “Women Who Work Increase in Numbers and Influence,”
New York Times,
September 14, 1930.

“From 1930 to 1940”:
Deutsch, p. 453.

“I know now”:
Deutsch, p. 454.

“A party frock”:
All excerpts from
The Secret of the Old Clock
in this section come from Carolyn Keene,
The Secret of the Old Clock
(New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1930).

“Even as Eleanor Roosevelt”:
Collins, p. 359.

“Dear Mrs. Wirt”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Mildred Wirt, December 11, 1929, SSR/NYPL, box 27.

“At the end of
The Bungalow Mystery”:
Carolyn Keene,
The Bungalow Mystery
(New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1930), pp. 137, 204.

“Selling like hot cakes”:
Henry Altemus to Harriet Adams, March 21, 1931, SSR/NYPL, box 17.

“We expect to publish a few juveniles”:
Laura Harris to Harriet Adams, May 8, 1931, SSR/NYPL, box 18.

“By Christmas of 1933”:
“For It Was Indeed He,” p. 88.