Edward Stratemeyer

Edward Stratemeyer (October 4, 1862 – May 10, 1930) was an American publisher, writer of children's fiction and founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate.

Stratemeyer created many well-known children's fiction book series, including The Rover Boys, The Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, The Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew, many of which sold millions of copies and remain in publication. On his legacy, Fortune wrote: "As oil had its Rockefeller, literature had its Stratemeyer."

Early life

Stratemeyer was born the youngest of three children in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to tobacconist Henry Julius Stratemeyer and Anna Siegel. They were both from Hanover, Germany, immigrating to the United States in 1837. Anna was first married to Henry's younger brother George Stratemeyer, with whom she had three sons. Following George's death in a cholera outbreak, she married Henry.

The Stratemeyer children were educated in English and spoke it to each other. In his childhood, Stratemeyer read the works of Horatio Alger and William T. Adams, writers who penned rags-to-riches tales of the hardworking young American, which greatly influenced him. He also listened to stories from his father, a former miner in the 1849 California gold rush.

As a teenager, Stratemeyer operated his own printing press in the basement of his father's tobacco shop, distributing flyers and pamphlets among his friends and family. His first story paper was Our American Boys which he published in January 1883. After he graduated from high school, he went to work in his father's store. At the age of 26, he sold his first story, Victor Horton's Idea, to the children's magazine Golden Days for $76, over six times the average 1888 weekly paycheck.