Girl Sleuth (32 page)

In any case, Mildred either gave false information to the
Times
reporter or simply didn't bother to correct it when she had the chance, and the idea that she was solely responsible for all of the Syndicate characters she had worked on was firmly established. Accompanying the piece was a photo of Mildred in her study at home, surrounded by the dozens of series books she had written and looking quite peppy in a striped shirt as she leaned over her typewriter to smile for the photographer.

In addition to the stacks of books testifying to a flourishing career, there was another reason for Mildred's cheery demeanor in the
Times
photo. She had fallen in love with George Benson, the recently widowed associate editor of the
Toledo Times,
and he with her. Something of a dandy, Benson was given to wearing a homburg and took Mildred dancing frequently at the Commodore Perry Hotel in downtown Toledo. An excellent writer who had come to the
Times
from the Washington bureau of the
Minneapolis Journal,
Benson was very politically engaged. He was also known for his love of the English language. “Generally
writers, eager for their daily bread, become craven collaborators of this cabal,” wrote one admirer in a piece about the decline of the vocabulary of the American writer. “But columnist and quidnunc Benson has refused to bow. From the great riches of the English language (the richest in the world) he draws such symbols and conjures up such images as are necessary to his thoughts.” An avid reader of everything from Chekhov and Camus to Roald Dahl and Jean Stafford, Benson was a perfect match for Mildred in other ways as well. He was “a gregarious soul, a ready wit, a fount of knowledge on almost any subject, a colorful speaker, an all-round newspaperman of great excellence, and, above all else, a very rugged individualist,” as described in his own newspaper. He and Mildred were married in the summer of 1950.

The effect of this newfound happiness was immediate and apparent to everyone. Even Harriet, who barely knew Mildred but had recently brought her back into the Syndicate fold once again, took note. “The new Dana book is being written by—of all people—Mrs. Wirt,” she wrote to Edna the following summer. “After trying out some new writers and not being satisfied with them, I began to wonder if perhaps she might be able to do it. Knowing that she had gone back to work and that her troubles of a few years ago were now sometime behind her, I decided to take a chance. To my amazement, she wrote that she had married again . . . The whole tone of her letter proved that she had regained her health and spirits, so I have high hopes [for] the new story.” Harriet's happy suspicions were confirmed when Mildred and George dropped by the Syndicate office on their way to a vacation in Nantucket. “I like him very much,” Harriet told Edna, “and she is so completely changed I would never have recognized her. You recall when she dropped in here before how thin and wan and listless she was in her plain black dress? Last week
she was dressed in a very becoming blue frock and a large hat. She had taken on some weight and looks very well. Furthermore she was very talkative and full of fun.”

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.