The Syndicate was the brain-child of Edward Stratemeyer, whose ambition was to be a "paperback writer", a 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 acute business showed him, however, 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:
As it became apparent that mysteries were increasing popular (this is the Golden Age of the Detective Story), Stratemeyer determined to add mystery series to his repertoire. The Hardy Boys appeared in 1927, ghostwritten by Leslie McFarlane, and Nancy Drew 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), Judy Bolton (1932), and Tom Swift, Jr, as well as The Happy Hollisters, Trixie Belden, Cherry Ames, and Vicki Barr and many, 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 obligated 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, of course, lost the suit, and a few years later, in 1987, after Adams's death, Simon & Schuster purchased the syndicate from Nancy Axelrod, Adams's protege. The syndicate today, to all knowledge, works much as it always has, only with its energies concentrated on a very few series, most notably, of course, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.
Further Reading