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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From House Towards dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: This is Molly and I'm Kristen. Kristen, I have a

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Speaker 1: mystery for you to solve. You get ready, here your clues?

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Speaker 1: What do Laura Bush, Diane Sawyer, Oprah's then friend Gail Yes,

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Speaker 1: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Hillary Roden Clinton have in common?

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Speaker 1: They're all women and and successful. Yes, but do you

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Speaker 1: know what, I bet a lot of them would say

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Speaker 1: their success is due to well, maybe not directly, that

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Speaker 1: might be a stretch. What's up reading Nancy Drew as

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Speaker 1: a child? These were all Nancy Drew fans, they are,

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Speaker 1: And Nancy Cher has really been uh in the headlines

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Speaker 1: a lot lately because during her confirmation hearings, Sonia sold

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Speaker 1: to Mayor has mentioned a fun us for Nancy Drew

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Speaker 1: and that's led to a lot of stories about you know,

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Speaker 1: what does the influence of Nancy Drew mean on these women? Right?

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Speaker 1: And I think I saw a recent article in the

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Speaker 1: Times about how Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor

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Speaker 1: were also big Nancy Drew fans. Yeah, so something about

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Speaker 1: being a judge and like needing the clues I come

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Speaker 1: from Nancy. But you know, I really identified with hearing

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Speaker 1: that these women liked Nancy Drew because I love Nancy Drew.

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Speaker 1: Fun fact about me. My cubicle is decorated in postcards

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Speaker 1: that are of the old Nancy Drew book covers. It's

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Speaker 1: a it's a lovely decorations, decorative touch. It's to remind

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Speaker 1: me to always dress fabulously, no matter what mysteries I

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Speaker 1: might be solving. We are always solving mysteries how stuff works,

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Speaker 1: so you should be dressed appropriately. Did you read the books, Christians?

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Speaker 1: I did read the books. Um My mom actually gave

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Speaker 1: me the when I was maybe I don't know, thirteen

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Speaker 1: or fourteen. She gave me the reprinted originals. I think

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Speaker 1: she was actually more excited about buying them and having

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Speaker 1: them in the house than I was. Because her name

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Speaker 1: is also Nancy. It was a very popular name thanks

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Speaker 1: to Nancy Drew. Yes, that's probably dating her a little bit, sorry, mom,

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Speaker 1: But yeah, she was a big Nancy Drew fan. And

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Speaker 1: then my older sisters read Nancy Drew, and then finally,

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Speaker 1: once I was eleven twelve, I was finally allowed to

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Speaker 1: start the Nancy Drew series. My mom was very particular

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Speaker 1: about when she wanted me to start reading Nancy Drew

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Speaker 1: so I could fully appreciate all of the careful nuances

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Speaker 1: of Nancy Drew's psyche. So it was a rite of passage.

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Speaker 1: It was definitely a rite of passage. You know, I had,

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Speaker 1: um my mom had both those yellow bound original books,

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Speaker 1: the old ones, but I also read sort of the

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Speaker 1: modern day um cool, and so Nancy Drew, whatever the

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Speaker 1: eighties version Nancy Drew was, I remember they were. You know,

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Speaker 1: Nancy always looked kind of saucier on the cover. But

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Speaker 1: I remember looking at those books and being like, wow,

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Speaker 1: Caroline Keane is really old because she's got these old

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Speaker 1: yellow books, she's got these new paperbacks like that lady

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Speaker 1: is old and probably tired and she has to be

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Speaker 1: a fast writer. But then, you know, I come to

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Speaker 1: find out there is no Carolyn Keane. Carolyn kan does

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Speaker 1: not exist. Um, which we are going to talk about today,

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Speaker 1: all the mysteries of Nancy Drew. But let's you know,

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Speaker 1: if if there are people out there who haven't read

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Speaker 1: the books. Let's talk a little bit about what they're about.

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Speaker 1: Who Nancy was Nancy Drew. She's kind of a stock

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Speaker 1: character if you think about it. She is uh from

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Speaker 1: a wealthy family. In the first series of books, she's sixteen,

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Speaker 1: and then she is eventually updated to be eighteen years old,

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Speaker 1: and she uh lives with her father, who I believe

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Speaker 1: as a lawyer, Carson Carson Drew. Nancy Drew's mother passed

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Speaker 1: away at three, and so she has Hannah Grew in

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Speaker 1: her German housekeeper kind of serves trusty fills and kind

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Speaker 1: of the more maternal role. She's got a boyfriend, Nickerson. Nickerson,

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Speaker 1: who is about, let's see, about as exciting as paint

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Speaker 1: drawing on a wall. He's very patient, though, you know,

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Speaker 1: if you're a young girl I'm scared about dating. I

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Speaker 1: think Ned can be very reassuring that the most that

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Speaker 1: will ever be expected of you as a peck on

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Speaker 1: the cheek before you run off to solve, you know,

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Speaker 1: save your friends from certain death. Yeah, but don't rely

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Speaker 1: on people like Ned to save you. Goodness, Yeah, usually

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Speaker 1: Nancy had to end up saving Ned. She's got two friends,

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Speaker 1: Best and George Best always a little concerned about her weight,

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Speaker 1: pleasantly plump, pleasantly plump, her plump chump, so she's often

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Speaker 1: referred to. And then there is her quote unquote tomboy friend, George,

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Speaker 1: also a girl um. But Nancy herself is just, you know,

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Speaker 1: every single good quality you can think in a person,

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Speaker 1: she has it. She's both athletic but dainty, so she's

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Speaker 1: not as tomboyish as George. She's very smart, you know.

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Speaker 1: She She's just like one thing on the street and

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden she knows like how to selve

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Speaker 1: the mystery. She's very observant. She has observant yes, And

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Speaker 1: so I think that this is why people sort of

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Speaker 1: hold her up as this kind of model of girl power.

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Speaker 1: She doesn't need ned to solve the cases. She just

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Speaker 1: you know, is very reliant on herself to get things done, right, Molly,

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Speaker 1: That aspect of her character being just very uh self

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Speaker 1: determined and independent, and I think it's one of the

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Speaker 1: main appeals of Nancy Drew. Sandra sing Low, a writer

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Speaker 1: in The Atlantic UM, put it very well when she

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Speaker 1: said that the real allure of Nancy Drew is that,

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Speaker 1: almost uniquely among classic or modern heroines, she can follow

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Speaker 1: and is allowed to follow a train of thought and

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Speaker 1: considering that Nancy. The first Nancy Drew book came out

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Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty. It was a pretty modern idea of

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Speaker 1: a young woman. It really was Nancy is filling this

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Speaker 1: whole in nineteen thirty that, um, you know, girls just

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Speaker 1: didn't have that kind of heroin to look up to. You.

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Speaker 1: We were reading about a character that was around at

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Speaker 1: the time of Nancy Drew, and she's described as being,

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Speaker 1: you know, a great person because she knows how to

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Speaker 1: do laundry because she watched her housekeeper all the time.

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Speaker 1: I think her name was Honey Bunch. Honey Bunch, which

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Speaker 1: I like, how to take care of a home. Whereas

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Speaker 1: Nancy knew how to fix her car and you know,

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Speaker 1: but she still knew how to tap dance and Morse code.

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Speaker 1: So she's very well balanced. An accessor rose. Yes, I

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Speaker 1: remember reading them being like, Nancy Drew is always so

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Speaker 1: smartly dressed. But was she too smartly dressed? Was she

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Speaker 1: too perfect? Some people are critical of Nancy Drew because,

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Speaker 1: you know, does this person even exist? And as time

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Speaker 1: of time has gone on, the new Nancy Drew has

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Speaker 1: been more like, oh, I can't hop this fence because

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Speaker 1: I'm wearing a skirt right, Uh, like you said. Some

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Speaker 1: people have have criticized this idea of Nancy Drew as

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Speaker 1: a feminist icon because they say, well, she's just a

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Speaker 1: wealthy girl living off of her father's money, who has

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Speaker 1: a housekeeper to take care of all of her chores,

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Speaker 1: and she just trots off and you know, State just

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Speaker 1: guides her through mysteries and it's completely unrealistic. And it

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Speaker 1: might not be realistic, but let's go back into time

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Speaker 1: to nine thirty and see just how Nancy came into

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Speaker 1: being who wore the people behind this Carolyn Keen woman. Yes,

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Speaker 1: the interesting thing about Nancy Drew is that she was

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Speaker 1: actually conceived by a man. That sounds odd to say,

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Speaker 1: but she was the brainchild of this huge publisher who

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Speaker 1: tapped into the children's kind of pulp fiction uh industry. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: His name was Edgar Stratemeyer and he was born in

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty two, and as he was growing up, he

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Speaker 1: liked to write stories, and eventually he realized that if

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Speaker 1: he just kept pumping out stories, that's how he could

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Speaker 1: make money. And he realized that he had a lot

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Speaker 1: of friends who could pump out stories just as fast

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Speaker 1: as he could. So he gathered all of them together

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Speaker 1: kind of formed like this um literary syndicate, this gang

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Speaker 1: of ghostwriters, and he would give them all three page

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Speaker 1: outline and you know, between fifty and two and fifty

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Speaker 1: dollars and say write me a book in a month.

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Speaker 1: And he just kept pumping them out and the kids

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Speaker 1: ate it up. He was responsible for the Hardy Boys,

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Speaker 1: the bobsy Twins, um Tom Swift books, like just these

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Speaker 1: books that you know our parents grew up with, right,

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Speaker 1: and these were a new kind of children's book for

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Speaker 1: the time because a lot of times what kids would

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Speaker 1: be reading would be, uh just moral lessons, more like

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Speaker 1: Sunday school type lessons. And that's why they were slightly

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Speaker 1: controversial for some people, because it was straying from uh

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Speaker 1: that that more moralistic tone. Yeah, they some librarians wouldn't

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Speaker 1: want to stock a book that the um Strata Meyer

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Speaker 1: Syndicate written because it just was gonna rot these kids imaginations.

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Speaker 1: And then you know, Stratemi was nothing if not a

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Speaker 1: good salesman. When the Boy Scouts were formed, he immediately

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Speaker 1: pumped out this series about Boy Scouts having all these adventures,

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Speaker 1: and the boy Scouts got mad at him because then

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Speaker 1: like the real boy Scouts didn't want to just like

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Speaker 1: do the boring boy Scout things. I want to have adventure. Um.

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Speaker 1: So you know, this guy was a good businessman and

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Speaker 1: he really seemed to understand children well. And at the time,

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Speaker 1: a lot of the thinking was that girls would just

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Speaker 1: read boys books, they didn't need their own characters. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they didn't think that they would sell very well, which

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Speaker 1: doesn't really make sense, and Nancy Drew proved them wrong. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Nancy Drew outsold all of them. Yeah. I think one

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Speaker 1: of the last steps that I saw, maybe from a

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Speaker 1: couple of years ago, was that there have been over

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Speaker 1: two hundred million Nancy Drew books sold since nine. It's

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Speaker 1: kind of unreal. But you know, like I said, he's

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Speaker 1: a good businessman. He has the right idea. At the

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Speaker 1: right time, detective fictions getting kind of big, and so

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Speaker 1: he started thinking of this girl detective character right in

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Speaker 1: nineteen nine, a year before the first book came out.

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Speaker 1: He described his vision of Nancy Drew as quote, an

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Speaker 1: up to date American girl at her best right, clever, resourceful,

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Speaker 1: and full of energy. Yes, that is Nancy and and

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Speaker 1: it worked. It did work. Um, originally he wasn't gonna

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Speaker 1: call her Nancy Drew. Yeah, they're all sorts of potential names,

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Speaker 1: such as Stella Strang and I think Nan Nune was

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Speaker 1: one of them. Diana Dare, Diana Dare, which which is good,

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Speaker 1: that's a that's a good one. I don't know if

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Speaker 1: I would have read his main books with Diana day

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Speaker 1: old cheesier. And but one of them was also Nan Drew,

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Speaker 1: which the publishers eventually lengthened to Nancy. But Stratemeyer did

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Speaker 1: not actually write the books. As I said, He's got

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Speaker 1: this big, you know, barn of ghostwriters. And he sends

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Speaker 1: the plot summary for Nancy Drew over to a writer

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Speaker 1: named Mildred Worked. Yes, and she's pretty impressive. She had

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Speaker 1: been like the first woman at her school to get

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Speaker 1: a master's degree University of Iowa. She was a pilot,

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Speaker 1: you know, she almost you know, is the spunky heroine.

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Speaker 1: She infused all of that into Nancy Drew. Even though

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Speaker 1: she really created the model of Nancy Drew that so

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Speaker 1: many girls have come to know and love, she didn't

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Speaker 1: really get to enjoy the fruits of her labor that much.

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Speaker 1: Because these things have sold like gangbusters. But she made

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Speaker 1: I think a hundred and twenty five dollars per book,

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Speaker 1: and she didn't have any kind of copyrights or any

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Speaker 1: thing to that, so she didn't get the profits that

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Speaker 1: were coming from all these books that that she wrote.

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Speaker 1: And she said one year she wrote thirteen full length

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Speaker 1: books while holding down another job. But she really wasn't

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Speaker 1: you know, she didn't become famous until much later. She

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Speaker 1: couldn't you know. There was a case later on to discover,

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Speaker 1: you know, who had actually written the books. But you know,

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Speaker 1: these books are selling like gangbusters, and everyone thinks it's

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Speaker 1: this girl named Carolyn Keene memhile you know, Mildred Worth's

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Speaker 1: making a five dollars a book and you think you're

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Speaker 1: underappreciated at your job. Talk about work. But then an

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Speaker 1: interesting conflict arose soon after the first Nancy Drew book

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Speaker 1: came out because Stratemeyer passed away and his daughter's took

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Speaker 1: over the business, and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams really took over

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Speaker 1: control of the company and overseeing um the production of

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Speaker 1: the Nancy Drew books. She would go in and start

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Speaker 1: to make edits and Mildred Word and her did not

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Speaker 1: get along that well. Their visions of Nancy drew we're

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Speaker 1: pretty different. I mean, you can't you can't fault Harriet

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Speaker 1: for some of the changes she made, because a lot

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Speaker 1: of those early books that Milder work did, right, had

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Speaker 1: these very racist to us today kind of stereotype, a

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Speaker 1: lot of you know, making the villains ethnic in some way,

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Speaker 1: and and just you know, for political correctness, you probably

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Speaker 1: don't want those carrying on. But she also kind of

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Speaker 1: softened Nancy. She wanted Nancy be the sweet and light

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Speaker 1: character who everyone loved. Right. Mildred were would complain that

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Speaker 1: when Harriet Stratemeyer was going through an editing, uh the copy,

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Speaker 1: she would add in little adverbs here and there to uh,

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Speaker 1: to try and soften her like Nancy said that laughingly

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Speaker 1: or Nancy softly side as she rode on horseback through

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Speaker 1: the green pasture. Yeah, I have an example from Salon

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Speaker 1: an article written by Amy Benfer, And here's the original sentence.

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Speaker 1: Nancy wrote along, glancing occasionally at the neatly planted fields

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Speaker 1: on either side. Nice suspective, straight to the point. Harriet's

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Speaker 1: version pretty. She commented to herself, Oh, why can't all

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Speaker 1: people be nice like the scenery and not make trouble.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's it's pretty fruit fruit for a girl detective.

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Speaker 1: She should be living off the trouble, right. And there

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Speaker 1: was also in Salon there was an interview with Mildred

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Speaker 1: word and Uh and she complained that, um, like her

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Speaker 1: conception of Nancy Drew was suposed to be a girl

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Speaker 1: who was really ahead of her time and kind of

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Speaker 1: this new idea of a female heroine. But but then

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Speaker 1: Stratemeyer went back and made her into just more of

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Speaker 1: a house type, you know, the she Nancy Dre would

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Speaker 1: probably grow up, marry her sad sack ned Nickerson boyfriend,

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Speaker 1: and moved to the suburbs and resent ned Nickerson for

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Speaker 1: the rest of her life while she was ironing every day.

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Speaker 1: That's true, although I will say that in that same interview,

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Speaker 1: you know, Mildred were made it clear that, you know,

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Speaker 1: she didn't think of Nancy as a feminist the way

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Speaker 1: other scholars were trying to pin this label on her.

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Speaker 1: Nancy would have never stood to be labeled like that.

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Speaker 1: Um and that you know, it might not have been

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Speaker 1: a bad thing if Nancy had got had settled down,

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Speaker 1: she said, you know, the lesson I want girls from

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Speaker 1: take to Nancy is to be free, but not to

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Speaker 1: take too much license with your freedom. Be responsible. It's

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Speaker 1: not a bad message for young girls, so of course

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Speaker 1: not so. Um Both Eldred and Harriet now passed away,

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Speaker 1: but the books keep on coming along with movies television series.

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Speaker 1: There are constant updates. Harriet was certainly not the last

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Speaker 1: one to update. Nancy Drew. Currently, Nancy Drew has a

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Speaker 1: cell phone and drives a hybrid, and she's a lot

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Speaker 1: more slang, and she has a lot more doubts. You know,

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Speaker 1: there have been um a lot of articles about the

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Speaker 1: psychology of Nancy Drew and whether she's relatable, and so

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Speaker 1: now Nancy Drew is narrated in the first person, and

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Speaker 1: she's like, oh, I just don't know about myself. About Ned,

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Speaker 1: she's very more angsty, and I would say she's she's

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Speaker 1: probably a lot more true to life of an average

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Speaker 1: sixteen to eighteen year old girl. I do. I remember reading, uh,

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Speaker 1: the Nancy Drew books when I was younger, and she

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Speaker 1: was just always so calm and self determined and just

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Speaker 1: always seemed to know that everything was going to work out.

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Speaker 1: And when I was fourteen, and reading Nancy Drew couldn't

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Speaker 1: be farther from the truth in my you know, in

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Speaker 1: my head, right, you know, we were reading one passage

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Speaker 1: about how Nancy was had a crush on some rock star,

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Speaker 1: allowing herself a rare moment of humanity and when the

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Speaker 1: guy didn't like her back instead of you know, falling

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Speaker 1: on the bed and crying, you wanted to cry, but

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Speaker 1: she just filed her nails and wrote a letter instead,

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Speaker 1: or a letter to Hannah grew in her German housekeeper,

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Speaker 1: good old Hannah. But I mean, you know that's sort

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Speaker 1: of the paradox that people struggle with. Now, do you

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Speaker 1: want kind of that ideal woman to look up to,

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Speaker 1: you know, so that when you do face your own

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Speaker 1: heartbreak and kind of be like, you know what, it's

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Speaker 1: not worth cry. I'm just gonna file my nails. Or

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Speaker 1: do you want someone more relatable, someone angsty? Well, well,

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Speaker 1: like considering that that list of women, very successful women

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Speaker 1: that you ticked off at the beginning of the episode,

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Speaker 1: such as the three Supreme Court justices or well one nominee,

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Speaker 1: one nominee and to Supreme Court justices Hillary Clinton, Diane Sawyer,

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Speaker 1: Gayle King, etcetera. Seems like that that original Nancy Drew,

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Speaker 1: although slightly unrealistic, you know, worked as a role model

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Speaker 1: for them. I know, it's it's hard to argue with

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Speaker 1: her success, and you know, I look up to her

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Speaker 1: every day as a model of well dressed intelligence and

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Speaker 1: the wonderful cubicle decor She has wonderful cubicle decor um.

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Speaker 1: But you know, without even knowing that we were talking

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Speaker 1: about Nancy Drew today, we got a listener reading list,

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Speaker 1: you know, we love to do our listener reading lists

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Speaker 1: from Crystal, who is taking classes on elementary school libraries

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Speaker 1: and so she's reading a lot of graphic novels. But

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Speaker 1: she mentioned that the Nancy Drew series is being made

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Speaker 1: into a graphic novel, uh, to sort of bring more

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Speaker 1: readers in. You know, when we were doing our Chicklip podcast,

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Speaker 1: we talked about how something like a graphic novel could

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Speaker 1: really hook young readers and get them readings. So let's

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Speaker 1: take a look at what Crystal is reading. She says,

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Speaker 1: you know, because she's taking his class, he's dreading graphic novels.

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Speaker 1: She's reading The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett, The Fairytale

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Speaker 1: Detectives by Michael Buckley, Coraline by Neil Gaiman, and Captain

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Speaker 1: America by Ed Rup Baker. Sounds like a fun list.

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Speaker 1: It does sound like a fun list. I wish I

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Speaker 1: could take classes on stalking children's libraries. I'd bring my

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Speaker 1: postcards along to show them, little flash cards that might

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Speaker 1: be a little creepy, Molly probably. But on another note,

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Speaker 1: if you would like to stalk us, don't be weird

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Speaker 1: about it. Just send us an email at a at

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Speaker 1: mom stuff at how stuffworks dot com. If you have

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Speaker 1: any ideas or memories about Nancy Drew books, any favorite

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Speaker 1: or least favorite um Nancy Drew Books, feel free to

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Speaker 1: send him along or any other questions or comments. And

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Speaker 1: of course you can always check out what Molly and

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Speaker 1: I are digging into during the week on our blog

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Speaker 1: called how to Stuff. And you can find all of

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Speaker 1: this and much more information at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics because

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Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,

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Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot

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Speaker 1: com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two

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Speaker 1: thousand twelve Camray. It's ready, are you