From the Smithsonian:
Nancy Drew struggled this way and that. She twisted and squirmed. She kicked and clawed. But she was powerless in the grip of the man.
‘Little wildcat! You won’t do any more scratching when I get through with you!’
‘Let me go!’ Nancy cried, struggling harder. The man half-carried, half-dragged her across the room. Opening the closet door, he flung her roughly inside. Nancy heard a key turn in the lock. The sliding of a bolt into place followed.
‘Now you can starve for all I care!’ the man laughed harshly. Then the steady tramp of his heavy boots across the floor told Nancy Drew that he had left the house…
As any of the generations of fans of the fictional girl detective Nancy Drew—heroine of hundreds of serial novels published from 1930 to this day—can tell you, Nancy does not stay locked in the closet for long. She tries to pick the lock with a hairpin, then uses a clothing rod to pry off the hinges, while giving one of her trademark side lectures—this time, on Archimedes and the wedge.
This teenage detective became the archetype of a kind of tough American woman: smart and fierce in the face of violence, but also well-respected by police and her doting father. Fashionable, too. Even though she was just a fictional character, she was inspirational, and none other than Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Sonia Sotomayor have said she was a huge influence in their lives.
Over the course of more than 600 books, Nancy Drew’s adventures were often repetitive, and though her cars and clothes were frequently updated, she always remained the same age. Accompanied by her best friends Bess and George, she unearthed lost wills and heirlooms and found missing people. She explored hidden staircases and spooky haunted houses. Tenacious and plucky, Nancy had a boyfriend, the handsome Ned. She always fought to right wrongs, using her smarts to wriggle out of perilous situations. Nancy Drew got kidnapped. She was knocked unconscious. Foes threatened her to stay off cases (or else!).
What she offered American girls was a sense of resourcefulness. She taught us to signal SOS with a tube of lipstick, to break out of a window using spike heels, and to always keep an overnight bag in our car—a girl never knew when she’d encounter a sudden overnight sleuthing adventure. Real-life kidnapping victims have said that Nancy Drew stories inspired them to use their wits to escape; successful women in law enforcement say Nancy Drew led them to their careers.
The real mystery of Nancy Drew is how such a fictional character could inspire real women. Clues can be found in the woman who fleshed out the young detective’s personality, who was named Mildred Wirt Benson. Over the years many different writers worked on Nancy Drew’s stories, which were always published under the pen name of Carolyn Keene. But the very first books in the series, the ones that established her particular steely bravery, were written by Benson, who was just as tenacious and bold and independent as her heroine. Benson sought adventure and bucked conventions throughout her life. Once she was even locked in a room.
Mildred Augustine was born in 1905 in Ladora, Iowa, a rural farming community near Iowa City. An avid reader of children’s classics like Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, children’s magazines, and serial fiction, she preferred the books written for boys over those for girls, she said, because they focused on adventure and action.
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Benson’s original Nancy Drew, depicted in books such as The Hidden Staircase, The Secret at Shadow Ranch, and The Clue in the Crumbling Wall, was a brash and daring sleuth. The 1930s and 1940s, when this first Nancy Drew debuted, were a time when girls who liked to read were ready for something more than the norm—those books Benson described as “namby pamby” girls’ series of the time. Life was hard for kids during the Great Depression and World War II, and parents didn’t sugarcoat the evil in the world. Reading about an adventurous girl who faced down the dangers around her provided young readers a safe escape from the troubles of the day, while also offering a nod to difficult times. Benson’s Nancy Drew paved the way for all of the others that followed, though the character was softened in later years.
Link to the rest at the Smithsonian
Benson worked at The Toledo Blade newspaper until just a few months before she died at 96. There was a time when someone in the paper’s management (perhaps the publisher himself) tried to persuade her to retire. She responded by putting her lawyer’s card on her desk. The subject was dropped.
Wow! Now you’ve got me curious. I want to know more about this amazing woman.
Sounds like my kind of woman!
I have no active memory of reading the Nancy Drew books, but I must have done so. I read anything I could get my hands on, even venturing into the adult section to find more. I read at least some of the Hardy boys books, and the Boxcar Children books, as well as all of the Black Stallion books.
I’m another one who loved reading Nancy Drew growing up, and one of the first things I collected were those books (I think I had over 50 when I finally moved on to reading other things). Lately, I’ve been reading several contemporary fiction series, and they all involve a strong female involved with solving crimes/mysteries – so I’d likely enjoy re-reading them again today.
I remember that Archimedes line. When I first discovered Nancy, I had thought Archimedes must be an insufferable know-it-all she had gone to school with. But I filed away the lever idea. Nancy’s also the reason I knew what an SOS was. Her stories are one reason I look sideways at people who think kids should only read “educational” books. The thought processes and methods a heroine uses to solve problems will resonate (and more importantly, be remembered) in a way that a dry tome will not.
Real-life kidnapping victims have said that Nancy Drew stories inspired them to use their wits to escape
That’s amazing. It’s also vindication enough for giving kids — and adults! — fun stories with heroic protagonists they can look up to.
Many of the women scientists, including some I was sure were too young for Nancy Drew, also have fond memories of having been shown a model of a competent young woman, and credited the books with guiding them into their scientific careers.
Phsicists like me, chemists, a marine biologist – all remembered reading the books when they were teens. For many of us, it was literally all we had. Especially for me, growing up in Mexico, in Spanish, with no libraries. I received a new one from my godmother for my birthday, and one for Christmas, and reread the ones I had quite a lot.
Thank you, Ms. Benson. AKA Carolyn Keene.