Girl Sleuth (44 page)

“The average marriage age”:
“Estimated Median Age at First Marriage, by Sex, 1890-present” (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2004), p. 2.

“A strong religious undercurrent”:
“College Set on Many Hills,”
New York Sun,
February 26, 1911.

“$175 annual tuition”:
Wellesley College Calendar, 1910–1911,
Wellesley College Archives, Wellesley College, p. 145 (hereafter cited as WCA).

“In addition to making a flurry”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Ellen Fitz Pendleton, June 7, 1910, SSR/NYPL, box 21.

“Like any teenager”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Mrs. H. B. Lawrence, May 1910, SSR/NYPL box 21.

“A ‘combination' course”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Jonathan Meeker, September 3, 1909, SSR/NYPL, box 21.

“Appears to like the school”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Jonathan Meeker, October 19, 1909, SSR/NYPL, box 21.

“Yesterday Mrs. S and myself”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Jonathan Meeker, October 27, 1909, SSR/NYPL, box 21.

“Why is Nancy Drew so good”:
Margo Miller, “Nancy Drew Follows the Wellesley Motto,”
Boston Globe,
March 4, 1978.

 

CHAPTER TWO: MILDRED

“A most extensive”:
“Dr. J. L. Augustine Dies at His Home,”
Williamsburg (IA) Shopper,
November 11, 1937.

“The little town of Ladora”:
“The First 100 Years, Being a Historical Outline of the First Century of Ladora, Iowa,” published by the Ladora Centennial Committee, August 17, 1968.

“Though some mistook it”:
“Music Teacher Names Ladora from Music Syllable,”
Marengo (IA) Pioneer Republican,
October 1, 1931.

“My mother was quite”:
Mildred Benson interview by Sally Vallongo, May 8–10, 2001, Toledo, OH (hereafter cited as Vallongo).

“Into a traditional person”:
Mildred Benson press conference, University of Iowa Nancy Drew Conference, Iowa City, IA, April 17, 1993.

“A center for rather/typically American”:
“A Very Brief History of the Chautauqua Movement,” Colorado Chautauqua Association,
www.chautauqua.com/aboutus_movement.html
(hereafter cited as CCA).

“Chautauqua functioned for many”:
CCA.

“Instead of presenting her”:
Melanie Rehak interview with Kay Morgan, Ladora, IA, August 26, 2003.

“There was an awful lot of work”:
Vallongo.

“Ladora Presbyterian Ladies' Aid Society”:
Favorite Quotations
(Ladora, IA: Ladora Presbyterian Ladies' Aid Society, 1902), Iowa Genealogical Society, Marengo, IA.

“In the spring”:
Mildred Benson, “Simple Grand: Not Just Anybody Can Be a Grandparent,”
Toledo Blade,
September 6, 1991.

“Watched the firey beast”:
Mildred Benson, “Comet Sighting Still Memorable After 75 Years,”
Toledo Blade,
December 20, 1985.

“I had an affair”:
Vallongo.

“Coming upon a shelf”:
Lilac Inn
intro.

“I read everything”:
Vallongo.

“I craved to read/a single glass case”:
Lilac Inn
intro.

“[They] weren't very readable/according to their rules/We had a hut”:
Vallongo.

“In general, I preferred”:
Lilac Inn
intro.

“She was always trying”:
Vallongo.

“I . . . wanted”:
John Seewer, “Nancy Drew Author Still Working at 96,”
Worcester (MA) Telegram & Gazette,
January 3, 2002.

“My mother always encouraged me”:
Vallongo.

“The page announcing”:
St. Nicholas
XLVI, no. 8 (June 1919), p. 756.

“‘The Courtesy
'”: Mildred Augustine, “The Courtesy,”
St. Nicholas
XLVI, no. 8 (June 1919), p. 762.

“Her first big sale”:
Lilac Inn
intro.

“Like her creator”:
Mildred Augustine, “The Cross of Valor,”
St. Nicholas
LIII, no. 8 (June 1926), pp. 797–833.

“Luck was it”:
Mildred Augustine, “Wishbone Luck,”
Youth's Comrade
13, no. 52 (December 29, 1923), pp. 6–7.

“Code of a ‘Good Sport'/You have a rather/A child born on this day”:
memory book of Mildred Augustine, 1922–1928, Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson Papers, 1915–1994, Iowa Women's Archives, University of Iowa, box 2 (hereafter cited as MAWB/IWA).

“Senior activities were dismal/a fantastic document/I tried to speak”:
Mildred Benson, “Latest Graduation Gets a Top Grade,”
Toledo Blade,
May 15, 1999.

“Their numbers had doubled”:
Sarah Jane Deutsch, “From Ballots to Breadlines: 1920–1940,” in
No Small Courage: A History of Women in the United States,
ed. Nancy F. Cott (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 429 (hereafter cited as Deutsch).

 

CHAPTER THREE: ALMA MATER

“The Higher Education of Women”:
Katherine C. Balderston,
Wellesley College, 1875–1975: A Century of Women,
gen. ed. Jean Glasscock (Wellesley, MA: Welles-ley College, 1975), p. 1 (hereafter cited as Balderston).

“Woman's brain was too delicate”:
Balderston, p. 8.

“Robert Hallowell Richards”:
diary of Robert Hallowell Richards, May 1873, Robert Hallowell Richards Papers, Institute Archives and Special Collections, MIT Libraries, Cambridge, MA, collection MC116.

“The so-called learned professions”:
Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, “The Great Debate on the Education of Women: President Eliot of Harvard and President Thomas of Bryn Mawr” (paper presented at the “Gender at the Gates: New Perspectives on Harvard and Radcliffe History” conference at Harvard and Radcliffe, Cambridge, MA, November 1998).

“Wellesley did not”:
Wellesley College,
President's Report,
1912, p. 9, WCA.

“Nearly a third”:
Collins, p. 292.

“Thought that homemaking was too complex”:
Manners Smith, p. 365.

“314 students were admitted”:
Balderston, p. 14.

“I am glad to report”:
Edward Stratemeyer to W. F. Gregory, September 29, 1910, SSR/NYPL, box 21.

“In the new code of laws”:
L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlander, and Mary-Jo Kline, eds.,
The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762–1784
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), pp. 121–22.

“By 1848”:
S. B. Anthony, M. J. Gage, and E. C. Stanton, eds.,
History of Woman Suffrage,
vol. 1 (New York: Fowler & Wells, 1881), p. 67.

“We will remain out of the union”:
Collins, p. 235.

“But this initial burst”:
Much of the information in this chapter and in this section, while not quoted directly, is taken from Nancy F. Cott, ed.,
No Small Courage: A History of Women in the United States
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

“Harriet May Mills”:
Select Committee on Woman Suffrage, Hearing on the Joint Resolution Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States Extending the Right of Suffrage to Women, February 18, 1902 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1902).

“I ask you to consider”:
“Inauguration of President Pendleton at Wellesley,”
Boston Evening Transcript,
October 19, 1911, WCA.

“Lack of knowledge”:
“Results of the Suffrage Vote,”
Wellesley College News,
February 15, 1911, WCA.

“But by 1912”:
Balderston, p. 412.

“White buckskin golf shoes”:
Alice Payne Hackett,
Wellesley: Part of the American Story
(New York: E. P. Dutton, 1949), pp. 192–93 (hereafter cited as Hackett).

“Can you dance the Boston”:
“Modern Dancing,”
Wellesley College News,
November 27, 1913, WCA.

“Be alive, be awake”:
“Editorial,”
Wellesley College News,
October 5, 1910, WCA.

“They were not allowed to go”:
Official Circular of Information: For the Use of Students, 1910–1911
(Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College, 1910), WCA.

“The precincts of any men's”:
Official Circular of Information: For the Use of Students, 1911–1912
(Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College, 1911), p. 7, WCA.

“Standing about”:
Student's Handbook,
presented by the Christian Association, 1910–1911 (Wellesley, MA: Wellesley Christian Association, 1910), p. 51, WCA (hereafter cited as
Student's Handbook).

“An activity referred to”:
Student's Handbook,
p. 196.

“To Boston, where”:
Student's Handbook,
pp. 193–96.

“One day to Boston I did go”:
“On the Sights of Boston,”
Wellesley College News,
December 18, 1913, WCA.

“The department of Hygiene”:
Wellesley College Annual Reports, President and Treasurer, 1910
(Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College, 1910), p. 9, WCA.

“If one strips each of the great religions”:
Harriet Adams, notes for luncheon speech delivered at the Wellesley Club, May 10, 1973, SSP/Beinecke, box 8.

“An average student”:
Sidney Fields, “What Ever Happened to . . .?”
New York Daily News,
April 4, 1968.

“In any non-military country”:
“The Fifth Woman-Suffrage State,”
Wellesley College News,
November 30, 1910, WCA.

“Let us . . . be glad for them”:
“Suffragists!”
Wellesley College News,
March 29, 1912, WCA.

“Are you a suffragette”:
Edna Stratemeyer to Harriet Stratemeyer, n.d. (spring 1913), private collection of Cynthia Adams Lum.

“Scheduled to arrive”:
Much of the information in this section comes from Sheridan Harvey, “Marching for the Vote: Remembering the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913,” adapted from
American Women: A Library of Congress Guide for the Study of Women's History and Culture in the United States
(Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 2001) (hereafter cited as Harvey).

“Next Wednesday morning”:
Edna Stratemeyer to Harriet Stratemeyer, n.d., private collection of Cynthia Adams Lum.

“Those ideals toward which”:
Official program of the Woman March for Suffrage, pp. 14, 16, cited in Harvey.

“Suffragists are”:
Nellie Bly, “Suffragists Are Men's Superiors,”
New York Evening Journal,
March 3, 1913, cited in Harvey.

“Where are your skirts”:
Harvey.

“There would be nothing like this”:
Harvey.

“As for Wilson”:
Officers of the National Woman Suffrage Association to the Honorable Woodrow Wilson, February 12, 1913, National Woman's Party Records, Group I, box 2, cited in Harvey.

“As it was at all”:
“The Wellesley College Press Board,”
Wellesley College News,
April 17, 1913, WCA (hereafter cited as “Press Board”).

“The disconnected work”:
“Press Board.”

“Wellesley girl who ran”:
“Press Board.”

“When her first payment”:
Adams Lum.

“At that time Wellesley”:
The whole anecdote about the photographers is taken from Harriet Adams, notes for luncheon speech delivered at the Wellesley Club, May 10, 1973, SSP/Beinecke, box 8.

“Don't kiss each other”:
“New List of Don'ts for Wellesley Girls,”
Boston World,
n.d., scrapbook of Helene Fischer/Class of 1914 Collection, WCA.

“On Sundays”:
Official Circular of Information, 1912–1913
(Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College, 1912), WCA.

“Tomorrow night is the Glee Club Concert”:
Mary Rosa to her mother, February 6, 1913, Mary Rosa Papers, Correspondence 1912–1913/Class of 1914 Collection, WCA.

“Preventive of the ‘turkey trot'”:
“Wellesley Girls Decree That All Dancers Must Keep 3 Inches Apart,”
New York Herald,
n.d., Clippings on Wellesley, 1890–1919, WCA.

“Young men who call on”:
“Beaux Must Go to Church,”
Boston World,
n.d., scrap-book of Helene Fischer/Class of 1914 Collection, WCA.

“In the earliest hours”:
Much of the account of the Wellesley fire of 1914 comes from Hackett, pp. 167–81.

“What few words can picture”:
Hackett, p. 169.

“Miss Harriet Stratemeyer”:
Newark Evening News,
March 18, 1914.

“No one thought of Self”:
Wellesley College Bulletin Annual Reports, President and Treasurer 1913–1914
(Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College, 1915), p. 16, WCA.

“One cheery soul”:
Adams Lum.

“Attired in costumes”:
“Tells of Dash from Wellesley Flames,”
New York Herald,
March 17, 1914.

“This heroine”:
“Girls Flee $1,500,000 Wellesley Fire,”
Boston Traveler and Evening Herald,
March 17, 1914, College Hall Fire Collection, WCA.

“Not one girl”:
Adams Lum.

“Some style to Billie”:
unknown to Harriet Stratemeyer, March 23, 1914, private collection of Cynthia Adams Lum.

“Edward gave”:
Edward Stratemeyer to Dorothy Clark, April 3, 1914, SSR/NYPL, box 23.

“Whoever you inherited”:
Magdalene Stratemeyer to Harriet Stratemeyer, May 15, 1914, private collection of Cynthia Adams Lum.

“Commencement week”:
Wellesley College Bulletin Annual Reports, Dean, 1913–1914
(Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College, 1915), p. 22, WCA.