The first volume of this popular series, published in 1910, opens with Cora Kimball receiving a brand new automobile for her 16^th birthday from her mother, a wealthy widow. With maternal approval thus assured, Cora and her friends (twins Bess and Belle) are free to drive around the town, into the countryside, and even to New York without any adult chaperone. They often encounter Cora’s brother Jack and his friends, who are also auto enthusiasts: cars driven by both the girls and the boys end up in ditches, ponds, and hedges, narrowly avoiding hazards such as farm wagons and oncoming trains. Repeatedly, Cora’s deft and skillful driving saves the day.  The series continued until 1917, for a total of 10 volumes. -AJP

In this volume, published in 1914, Stratemeyer’s commitment to providing girl readers with outdoor adventures is on full display.  Written as the American scouting movements were first founded, The Campfire Girls series provides the protagonists with a thoughtful mentor in the form of the young leader of their local campfire chapter, Miss Elinor.  We are told that she encourages the girls to “[form] the habit of thinking things out for themselves and knowing the reason for things, as well as the facts concerned.” Some of the facts she brings to her girls, six years before the passage of the 19th Amendment, include information on local voting rights for women:

"Out west…if you notice, women play a much bigger part than they do here. Those states in the far west, across the Mississippi, give women the right to vote as soon as women show that they want it. They are more ready to do that than the states in the east."

Attributing this difference to a “pioneer” spirit lingering in the west, Miss Elinor and the girls are clearly in favor of bringing this trend to the East, as they ponder ways that girls and women can affect society in ways that benefit all. - AJP

The Motor Boys Across the Plains is the fourth volume in the boys’ series that Edward Stratemeyer began in 1907, several years before he launched his companion series for girls. Starring three “wide-awake American lads,” the books trace the adventures of Ned, Bob, and Jerry as they explore the United States and Mexico. Interestingly, they are often accompanied by the elderly Professor Snodgrass, whose absent-minded presence provides a mild form of adult supervision and knowledge. The author’s preface to this volume assures readers that the story is based on “facts” that he learned during “an automobilizing trip in the West.” As is the case with all the Stratemeyer books, this author is in fact an invented figure: “Clarence Young” is a house pseudonym, as was “Margaret Penrose.” The books were outlined by Stratemeyer and completed by anonymous contract writers (ghost writers). The cover of this copy can be compared to the Motor Girls cover to see how strong the parallels between the two series are.  Each features three chums arranged in a red car that appears to be driving off the cover of the book, directly at the viewer. Care is taken in both cases to advertise within the scene the extradiegetic information that this is a “series” – there will always be another book to buy! -AJP

Published in 1914, this is the only book on our Shelf that still retains its fragile paper dust jacket. Much can be learned from these wrappers; not only did they provide bright, eye-catching art, they also provided space for more extended advertising, offering a view into the values the publishers felt would resonate with Progressive Era purchasers and readers. In this case, the blurb emphasizes the “wholesome” tone of the series along with its “adventure” content:

A NEW Series of clean, wholesome books of adventure that will appeal to the girl who loves outdoor life. These charming volumes fill a long-felt want – they are healthy books for healthy girls.  The low price places these stories within the reach of all.  – Hurst & Company, Publishers, NY

Published in 1922, this second volume in the series is typical of Stratemeyer’s consistent attention to emerging technologies; leveraging the excitement generated by such advances, he constructed his girl protagonists as near-experts in these new fields (just as he did for the protagonists in his series for boys).  Radio girls Jessie, Amy, and their friends not only participate in broadcast performances in a time when receiving “sounds from the air” was still an amazing concept to most readers, they have also mastered the mechanics of transmission. Readers are brought “behind the scenes” and given the sense that they too can understand the mysterious and modern manipulation of the airwaves. At a turning point in the narrative, the girls’ ability to repair equipment, adjust porcelain insulators, and rewire aerials proves crucial.  By the end of the book, in line with the Progressive Era’s interest in social awareness, a benefit radio performance serves as a grand finale, bringing in much-needed funds for a local Women’s and Children’s Hospital.

When listening in on a thrilling recitation or a superb concert number who of us has not longed to “look behind the scenes” to see how it was done? – Cupples & Leon, Publishers, advertising blurb. - AJP

The Moving Picture Girls Series presents girls in motion in multiple ways: they drive cars, they travel to exotic film locations, they use gestures and movement to “register” various emotions in front of the camera as actors in the new silent cinema; in addition, they are socially and economically mobile, entering a well-paying industry at a moment when a number of career paths were opening for women. The series also works hard (against centuries of antitheatrical prejudice) to present acting as a respectable career for women.  Sisters Ruth and Alice are given the aristocratic-sounding name of “DeVere,” and they perform in a film company alongside their father, a veteran of stage theatricals.  In a further endorsement of the desirability of their chosen profession, another member of their company turns out to be a long-lost heiress; upon suddenly learning of her wealth (a blow to the head cures her amnesia, as such blows typically do), she insists that she will continue to work in film, as its rewards can be found nowhere else. The copy on this month’s shelf also testifies to the movement of the book itself across time and owners. The first inscription in the book reads: “To Melissa, from Charlie, Dec 25, 1916.” Just below this, in different handwriting, a second inscription appears: “To Regina, From Melissa and Aunt Nell, March 27, 1922.”  Such information becomes part of the book’s record, helping us to construct its story.  In this case, the book appears to move within the family, seemingly from the initial reader to her cousin.  Melissa and her mother (Regina’s “Aunt Nell”) join together to give the book to another girl. Five years have passed since Melissa received the book, back when it was new; it is reasonable to assume that Melissa may have outgrown the series and is passing her copy to a younger reader. This also lets us know that Melissa valued the book enough to pass it on. More than that, we see that the transfer of this particular used book was seen as worthy of its own gift inscription, another indicator of value.  Finally, it is worth attending to the first giver, “Charlie.”  This book doesn’t solely move between girls and women. The absence of any honorific or title before his name (he isn’t “Uncle Charlie,” for example) suggests that Charlie was Melissa’s peer - a friend, brother, or cousin – who thought a girls’ book would make a suitable Christmas present. -AJP

This Stratemeyer series, The Outdoor Girls, generally focuses on girls in nature, highlighting skills of strength and woodcraft, moving the protagonists out of the domestic sphere by taking them into nature.  Many of their activities align with those of the newly-founded Girl Scout movement, begun in 1912 by Julia Gordon Low. In this volume, the third in the series (published in 1913), we see the influence of the increasing reader interest in automobiles. While the Motor Girls had been on the road since 1910, this book, which functions as a kind of crossover in terms of its topic, depicts Mollie and her friends just as they are first learning to drive. Like Cora, Mollie is the daughter of a widowed mother, and her car also appears as a birthday gift. The copy of The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car on our Shelf also bears evidence of maternal affection and approval, as evident in its elegantly written inscription, “Flora from Mother, 1929.”  Flora’s mother clearly felt comfortable giving her daughter a book whose cover and illustrations show independent girls out driving, camping, canoeing, and exploring. We can’t know, however, whether Mother read enough of the book to encounter the ghost, haunted house, missing girl, and thunderstorm that also add excitement to this selection! -AJP

The second installment of the Motor Girls takes Cora and her friends on further automotive adventures.  In the book’s opening sentences, the car gets top billing and a name: “The big maroon car glided along in such perfect rhythm that Cora Kimball, the fair driver of the Whirlwind, heard scarcely a sound of its mechanical workings.  To her the car went noiselessly - the perfection of its motion was akin to the very music of silence.”  Observers respond to this “handsome machine” with admiration, and we learn that the folks in Cora’s hometown are “becoming accustomed to the sight of these girls in their cars, and a run of the of the motor girls was now looked on as a daily occurrence…Cora Kimball was considered an expert driver.”  By the end of the book, the Motor Girls thwart a swindling scheme, restoring funds to a disabled orphan who is then able to afford treatment for her condition. -AJP