Stratemeyer Syndicate

The Stratemeyer Syndicate was the producer of a number of series for children and adults including the Nancy Drew mysteries, the Hardy Boys, the various Tom Swift series, Dave Fearless and others.

The Syndicate was the brain-child of Edward Stratemeyer, whose ambition was to be a "paperback writer", à la Horatio Alger. He succeeded in this ambition (eventually even writing some books under the pseudonym "Horatio Alger"), churning out inspiring, up-by-the-bootstraps tales with titles such as "I Want to Be an Electrician".

Stratemeyer's business acumen, however, was in realizing that there was a huge, untapped market for children's books. Of course, boys devoured Horatio Alger, but they also read dime novels and penny dreadfuls. Here was an underground market waiting to be brought into the open and made even more profitable. In Stratemeyer's view, it was not the promise of sex or violence that made such reading attractive to boys; it was the thrill of feeling "grown-up," and the desire for a series of stories, an "I want some more" syndrome. Accordingly, Stratemeyer began writing a series called The Rover Boys, in which he established some key practices:

The books would, of course, be in a series; and to more quickly see if the series was likely to be successful, Stratemeyer had several volumes published at once (churning out multiple books posed him no problems).
The books would be written under a pseudonym. Edward Stratemeyer might die, but "Arthur M. Winfield" didn't have to -- and "Carolyn Keene" and "Franklin W. Dixon" were then still alive.
The books would look as much like contemporary adult books as possible -- same bindings, same type-faces.
The books would be of predictable length.
Chapters should end mid-situation, and pages too as far as possible, to increase the reader's desire to turn pages -- and thus his reading speed. Of course, one volume finished, one would want to turn to the next, assured it would be the same kind of thing ....
The books would be relatively expensive -- several dollars apiece. Once a demand was created, boys (and their parents) would shell out -- and indeed they did.

The Rover Boys was a roaring success, and Stratemeyer began writing other series books -- The Bobbsey Twins appeared in 1904 and Tom Swift in 1910. Some time in the first decade of the twentieth century Stratemeyer realized that he could no longer juggle multiple volumes of multiple series, and he began hiring ghostwriters, such as Howard Garis.

As it became apparent that mysteries were increasing popular (this was in the golden age of the detective story), Stratemeyer decided to add mystery series to his repertoire. The Hardy Boys appeared in 1927, ghostwritten by Leslie McFarlane, and Nancy Drew appeared in 1930, ghostwritten by Mildred Wirt Benson.

In 1930 Stratemeyer died and the Syndicate was inherited by his two daughters, Harriet and Edna (ironically enough, Stratemeyer had been a firm believer that a woman's place was in the home). Edna showed little interest and sold her share to Harriet within a few years. Harriet energetically took up the helm.

She introduced such series as The Dana Girls (1934), and Tom Swift, Jr., as well as The Happy Hollisters and many others, often short-lived. In the 1950s, Harriet (by now Harriet Stratemeyer Adams) began a project of substantially revising old volumes in the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series, mainly to bring them up-to-date by removing references to "roadsters" and the like (cover art was also completely re-done, several times for Nancy); racial slurs and stereotypes were also removed, and in some cases (such as The Secret of Shadow Ranch and The Mystery of the Moss Covered Mansion) entire plots were cast off and replaced with new ones.

In the early 80s, Adams decided it was time for Nancy and the Hardys to go into paperback; the hardcover market was no longer what it had been. Grosset & Dunlap, however, loath to lose massive profits, sued, and the ensuing case let the world know, for the first time, that the Syndicate existed. The Syndicate had always gone to great lengths to hide its existence from the public; ghostwriters were contractually obliged never to reveal their authorship, and when Walter Karig made sure his name appeared on the Library of Congress cards for the various early Nancy Drews he had written, the cards disappeared. Many ghostwriters remain unknown.

Grosset & Dunlap lost the suit, and in 1987, after the death of Adams, Simon & Schuster purchased the syndicate from her protegé, Nancy Axelrod. To all knowledge, the Syndicate works today much as it always has, though nowadays it concentrates its energies on only a handful of series, most notably Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.

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