{"id":689,"date":"2013-10-30T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-30T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/?p=689"},"modified":"2021-01-18T13:26:19","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T19:26:19","slug":"mildred-wirt-benson-iowas-most-successful-ghost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/2013\/10\/30\/mildred-wirt-benson-iowas-most-successful-ghost\/","title":{"rendered":"Mildred Wirt Benson, Iowa’s most successful “ghost”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\""Ghost<\/a><\/p>\n

\"tumblr_mvhqouvMBC1smqom2o3_r1_400\"<\/a> \"tumblr_mvhqouvMBC1smqom2o4_r1_400\" \"tumblr_mvhqouvMBC1smqom2o2_r1_400\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Welcome to Women\u2019s History Wednesday, now in our fancy new home at the Iowa Women\u2019s Archives tumblr!<\/p>\n

Despite our recent Mildred Wirt Benson gif-a-thon<\/a>, we couldn\u2019t resist one more post on Iowa\u2019s most successful \u201cghost\u201d for Halloween.<\/p>\n

In a 1973 essay for our Books at Iowa<\/em> journal, Benson described getting her start as a ghost writer. Soon after graduating from the University of Iowa in 1925, she was hired by Stratemeyer Syndicate as one of \u201ca few \u2018ghosts\u2019 who accepted a brief plot outline, vanished, and returned to the office weeks later with a finished manuscript.\u201d She eventually took on an assignment to launch the Nancy Drew series, and created a strong, independent heroine \u2014 one who \u201cmight rate as a pioneer of Women\u2019s Lib,\u201d according to Benson. The Syndicate was initially less than pleased:<\/p>\n

“Mr. Stratemeyer expressed bitter disappointment when he received the first manuscript, The Secret of the Old Clock<\/em>, saying the heroine was much too flip and would never be well received. On the contrary, when the first three volumes hit the market they were an immediate cash-register success for the syndicate. Over a thirty-eight-year period, the series was printed in seventeen languages and, according to a published report [from 1969], achieved sales of more than 30,000,000 copies.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Benson then states the most blood-chilling part of her tale: \u201cAs \u2018ghost\u2019 I received $125 to $250 a story, all rights released.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read Benson\u2019s \u201cThe Ghost of Ladora\u201d essay<\/a><\/p>\n

Browse the Mildred Wirt Benson digital collection<\/a><\/p>\n

*This post is duplicated from the Iowa Women’s Archives Tumblr<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

   Welcome to Women\u2019s History Wednesday, now in our fancy new home at the Iowa Women\u2019s Archives tumblr! Despite our recent Mildred Wirt Benson gif-a-thon, we couldn\u2019t resist one more post on Iowa\u2019s most successful \u201cghost\u201d for Halloween. In a 1973 essay for our Books at Iowa journal, Benson described getting her start as a ghost writer.Continue reading “Mildred Wirt Benson, Iowa’s most successful “ghost””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[329,330,70,71],"syndication":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1949,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions\/1949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689"},{"taxonomy":"syndication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/iwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/syndication?post=689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}