ORIGINAL 'NANCY DREW' AUTHOR DIES AT AGE 96

As a young girl, she didn’t always act the way that girls were supposed to. She was independent, confident, and brazenly intelligent. She set her sights on a career that was traditionally off-limits for women. Eventually, she would receive international recognition for her literary efforts, learn to fly, travel the world, and continue to push the boundaries of what women “could” and “should” do.

Sounds like Nancy Drew, you say? True –and it also describes Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson, the woman who first penned life into the Nancy Drew character in 1929. Benson died on May 28, at the age of 96. She wrote the first Nancy Drew mystery, and went on to write another 22 titles featuring the gutsy sleuth, under the pen name of Carolyn Keene. The Nancy Drew character was really developed by Benson, who borrowed liberally from her own life and aspirations when she fashioned Nancy’s persona. 

“In writing, I did feel as if I were she,” Benson said. Just like the famous teen detective, Benson always lived her life outside the envelope of traditional female roles. Born in 1905 in Ladora, Iowa, she was a bit of a tomboy, and she said to anyone who would listen that when she grew up, she was “going to be a GREAT writer.” Her first story appeared in St. Nicholas Magazine when she was 12.

Benson became the first female graduate of the journalism program at the University of Iowa. She began writing at a time when men wrote for newspapers and women did not. Unfazed by this convention, Benson began writing for the newspaper in Clinton, Iowa shortly after obtaining her bachelor’s degree in 1925. In 1927 she earned her master’s degree. 

That same year, she submitted her draft of the first Nancy Drew mystery, The Secret of the Old Clock. The publisher, Edward Stratemeyer, thought that Benson’s Nancy Drew was much too flip and fresh toward authority figures and would never be well received. Seventy years later, it’s apparent that Benson knew just what she was doing in creating a character that was far ahead of her time.

“It seems to me that Nancy was popular, and remains so, primarily because she personifies the dream image which exists within most teenagers,” Benson said. “She was what girls were ready for and were aspiring for, but had not achieved.”

Benson herself accomplished many things since she launched Nancy Drew into history 70 years ago. Adventure was always a part of Benson’s life, another attribute she shares with Nancy. As an adult, Benson became an avid swimmer and golfer. Her interest in archeology drew her to explore Maya ruins. She learned to fly, and became a commercial pilot. She wrote 136 books, hundreds of short stories, and thousands of newspaper articles and columns. At the time of her death, she still worked as a reporter for the Toledo Blade, a job she held for the past 56 years. During that time, she covered almost every beat, and for the past few years she wrote a regular column. 

Benson never looked back, didn’t re-read her old material, and was reluctant to do interviews about past accomplishments like the Nancy Drew books, saying, “That was SO long ago!” Her teenage heroine has appeared in hundreds of novels published in 20 languages, on television, in movies, and now stars in her own computer games. Girls around the world are still aspiring to the qualities exhibited by the Nancy Drew character Benson created all those years ago.

Everyone at Her Interactive feels a special connection to Mildred Benson. It was her genius that created the wonderful character of Nancy Drew, who serves as a constant inspiration to us, and a wonderful heroine for the games we create. A couple of years ago, we sent Benson a copy of our first game, Secrets Can Kill, with flowers and chocolates, thanking her for her inspiring work. She wrote a review of our game in her Toledo Blade column and said that our games did what she always strived to do with the Nancy Drew books, in that they made it seem like you were really Nancy Drew. That was one of the greatest compliments we ever received, and we still have the letter she wrote framed in our front office.

Thanks Mildred -- All of us at Her Interactive are dedicated to ensuring that your Nancy Drew lives on to inspire generations of girls to come.

Additional Coverage of Mildred Benson

Obituaries
Blade columnist, Nancy Drew author Millie Benson dies at age 96
Mildred Wirt Benson, Author of Nancy Drew Mysteries, Dies at 96 - THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Archive
Iowa Women's Archive - University of Iowa Libraries

Fan Sites
The Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson Website

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