As Wirt later told the story, Stratemeyer liked her work but thought she had made Nancy too flippant. The publishers did not share his reservations, and the first three volumes were published in 1930 under the pseudonym "Carolyn Keene."
Stratemeyer died soon after Nancy Drew's debut, stricken by pneumonia, and the operations of his business fell to his daughters. Harriet Stratemeyer Adams and Edna Stratemeyer assumed control of newborn Nancy Drew. Between their plots and Mildred Wirt's prose, the characteristics that made Nancy Drew popular took shape. From the first, Nancy Drew was remarkable for her physical and mechanical acumen. She could row a boat to safety in a violent storm, change flat tires, and solve other automotive problems. In these respects she resembled the Hardy Boys, but Nancy was not merely a male character in the guise of a girl, she was popular because she performed manly tasks without losing her femininity. Sixteen-year-old Nancy wears lovely clothes, comports herself like a lady, and demonstrates skill in the domestic arts by running the Drew home and supervising housekeeper Hannah Gruen (Mrs. Drew died when Nancy was a child). By combining traditionally male and female behavioral traits, Nancy presented a model of womanhood radically different from what readers saw in other children's books.
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