“Where there’s a will, there’s a way:” contingency, mobility, and subjectification at the Stratemeyer Syndicate

Abstract

This essay connects the mass-produced books of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, The Nancy Drew Mystery Stories since 1930 and the Hardy Boys Adventures since 1927, with the discourses of self-help and self-improvement and argues that the effects these books have on their young readers instigate the formation of a very specific (white, middle class) subjectivity. This modern mode of relating to oneself includes an adjustable, self-assertive, self-monitoring personality, which can be understood as an answer to the challenges of the Second Industrialization and the contingencies connected to the acceleration, fragmentation, de-familiarizations, and individualization of modernity. At the same time, the essay argues, the novels also include a very specific position in terms of gender, race, and class, which, in spite of the figure of Nancy Drew, remains fundamentally linked to the values of patriarchy, the middle class and whiteness.