Stratemeyer Syndicate - History

History

Created by Edward Stratemeyer, the Stratemeyer Syndicate was the first book packager to have its books aimed at children, rather than adults. The Syndicate was wildly successful; at one time it was believed that the overwhelming majority of the books children read in the USA were Stratemeyer Syndicate books, based on a 1922 study of over 36,000 children country-wide.

Stratemeyer's business acumen was in realizing that there was a huge, untapped market for children's books. At a time when most children's books were aimed at moral instruction, the Stratemeyer Syndicate specialized in producing books that were meant primarily to be entertaining. In Stratemeyer's view, it was not the promise of sex or violence that made such reading attractive to children; it was the thrill of feeling grown-up and the desire for a series of stories. This desire for a series of stories could, Stratemeyer believed, be harnessed for profit. In founding the Stratemeyer Syndicate, Edward Stratemeyer aimed to produce books in an efficient, assembly-line fashion and to write them in such a way as to maximize their popularity.

The first series that Stratemeyer created was the Rover Boys, published under the pseudonym Arthur M. Winfield. The Rover Boys books were a roaring success - a total of 30 volumes was published between 1899 and 1926, selling over five million copies. Stratemeyer began writing other series books: The Bobbsey Twins first appeared in 1904, under the pseudonym Laura Lee Hope, and Tom Swift in 1910, under the pseudonym Victor Appleton.

Stratemeyer also published a number of books under his own name; however, the books published under pseudonyms sold better. Stratemeyer realized that "he could offer more books each year if he dealt with several publishers and had the books published under a number of pseudonyms which he controlled." Stratemeyer explained his strategy to a publisher, writing that "' book brought out under another name would, I feel satisfied, do better than another Stratemeyer book. If this was brought out under my own name, the trade on new Stratemeyer books would simply be cut into four parts instead of three.'"

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. Stratemeyer continued to write some books, while writing plot outlines for others.

While mystery elements were occasionally present in these early series, the Syndicate was later to specialize in children's series mysteries. This trend was begun in 1911, when, under the pseudonym Chester K. Steele, Stratemeyer published The Mansion of Mystery (which he had written himself). Five more books were published in that mystery series, with the last being printed in 1928. These books were aimed at a somewhat older audience than his previous series. After that, the Syndicate focused on mystery series aimed again at its younger base: the Hardy Boys, which first appeared in 1927, ghostwritten by Leslie McFarlane and others, and Nancy Drew, which first appeared in 1930, ghostwritten by Mildred Wirt Benson, Walter Karig, and others. Both series were immediate financial successes, prompting the Syndicate's continuing focus on children's mysteries.

In 1930, Stratemeyer died, and the Syndicate was inherited by his two daughters, Harriet Stratemeyer and Edna Stratemeyer Squier. Stratemeyer Squier sold her share to her sister Harriet within a few years. Harriet Stratemeyer introduced such series as The Dana Girls (1934), Tom Swift, Jr., The Happy Hollisters, and many others. In the 1950s, Harriet (by now Harriet Stratemeyer Adams) began substantially revising old volumes in the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series, updating them by removing references to "roadster" and the like. Racial slurs and stereotypes were also removed, and in some cases (such as The Secret of Shadow Ranch and The Mystery at the Moss-Covered Mansion) entire plots were cast off and replaced with new ones. In part, these changes were motivated by a desire to make the books more up-to-date; however, Grosset & Dunlap, the primary publisher of Stratemeyer Syndicate books, requested that the books' racism be excised, a project that Adams felt was unnecessary. Grosset & Dunlap, however, held firm; they had received an increasing number of letters from parents who were offended by the stereotypes present in the books, particularly the Hardy Boys.

In the late 1970s, Adams decided it was time for Nancy and the Hardys to go into paperback, as the hardcover market was no longer what it had been. However, Grosset & Dunlap sued, citing "'breach of contract, copyright infringement, and unfair competition'". 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 and ghostwriters were contractually obliged never to reveal their authorship.

Grosset & Dunlap was awarded the rights to the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys volumes that they had published, but the Syndicate was judged free to take subsequent volumes elsewhere. Subsequent volumes were published by Simon and Schuster.

Adams died in 1982. In 1987, Simon and Schuster purchased the syndicate from its partners - Edward Stratemeyer Adams, Camilla Adams McClave, Patricia Adams Harr, Nancy Axelrod and Lilo Wuenn - and turned to Mega-Books, a book packager, to handle the writing process for new volumes.