Laura Lee Hope. Carolyn Keene. Franklin W. Dixon. Do you
recognize the names? You might if you were an avid reader of The Bobbsey Twins,
Nancy Drew and/or The Hardy Boys. What do the names have in common? I was
surprised to recently learn they are all pseudonyms for a cadre of writers who
worked for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book packager founded in the early
1900s.
Edward Stratemeyer’s career began as a writer for the
magazine
Good News. In 1899, he
created a series called
The Rover Boys.
Selling over five million copies, the series was wildly successful. Stratemeyer
quickly realized there was an untapped market for children’s books that were
primarily entertainment rather than the usual stories focused on moral
instruction.
The Bobbsey Twins appeared
in 1904 and
Tom Swift in 1910.
The Hardy Boys series was not written
until 1927.
Nancy Drew followed in
1930. According to several accounts, Stratemeyer felt that a woman’s place was
in the home, but he wanted to capitalize on the fact that the Hardy Boys books
were incredibly popular with girl readers.
Stratemeyer initially wrote all the Rover Boys, Bobbsey
Twins, and Tom Swift books himself, but wanted to publish more than feasibly
possible for one person to produce. At that point he hired ghostwriters. He
continued to author some of the stories, but was primarily responsible for
creating the outline for each book and editing the final product.
I was fascinated to discover that for many decades libraries
refused to carry any Syndicate books, considering them to “cause mental
laziness, induce a fatal sluggishness, and intellectual torpor.” In fact,
psychologist G. Stanley Hall wrote that “series books would ruin girls in
particular by giving “false views…which will cloud her life with discontent in
the future.”
Interesting viewpoint considering that many well-known women
from Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Sonia Sotomayor to Secretary
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former First Lady Laura Bush indicate the
strong positive influence Nancy Drew had on them.
What childhood books influenced your life?
Laura Lee Hope. Carolyn Keene. Franklin W. Dixon. Do you
recognize the names? You might if you were an avid reader of The Bobbsey Twins,
Nancy Drew and/or The Hardy Boys. What do the names have in common? I was
surprised to recently learn they are all pseudonyms for a cadre of writers who
worked for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book packager founded in the early
1900s. 
Edward Stratemeyer’s career began as a writer for the
magazine Good News. In 1899, he
created a series called The Rover Boys.
Selling over five million copies, the series was wildly successful. Stratemeyer
quickly realized there was an untapped market for children’s books that were
primarily entertainment rather than the usual stories focused on moral
instruction. The Bobbsey Twins appeared
in 1904 and Tom Swift in 1910. The Hardy Boys series was not written
until 1927. Nancy Drew followed in
1930. According to several accounts, Stratemeyer felt that a woman’s place was
in the home, but he wanted to capitalize on the fact that the Hardy Boys books
were incredibly popular with girl readers.
Stratemeyer initially wrote all the Rover Boys, Bobbsey
Twins, and Tom Swift books himself, but wanted to publish more than feasibly
possible for one person to produce. At that point he hired ghostwriters. He
continued to author some of the stories, but was primarily responsible for
creating the outline for each book and editing the final product.
Interesting viewpoint considering that many well-known women
from Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Sonia Sotomayor to Secretary
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former First Lady Laura Bush indicate the
strong positive influence Nancy Drew had on them.
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