Mystery Women, Volume Two (Revised): An Encyclopedia of Leading Women Characters in Mystery Fiction: 1860-1979

by Colleen Barnett

Overview

Many bibliographers focus on women who write. Lawyer Barnett looks at women who detect, at women as sleuths and at the evolving roles of women in professions and in society. Excellent for all women's studies programs as well as for the mystery hound.

Look at the popularity of such reading guides as Willetta Heising's Detecting Women (3rd ed. 0-9644593-7-X) or Amanda Cross' fiction (Honest Doubt 0-345-44011-0 11/00).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781615950096
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	12/31/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	492
File size:	803 KB

Read an Excerpt

Mystery Women

An Encyclopedia of Leading Women Characters in Mystery Fiction

---

By Colleen Barnett

Poisoned Pen Press

Copyright © 2002 Colleen Barnett
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61595-009-6

---

Chapter One

Review of Historic Aspects of Women in Mystery Fiction from 1860 to 1979

During the one hundred and ten years since American author Anna Katharine Green introduced the first female sleuth to make three appearances, women's status in society and in the mystery novel have undergone considerable changes. At times these changes paralleled one another; at times, they diverged.

In literature, as in nature, a species cannot develop and flourish except under conditions that support its existence. The more complex the species, the more intricate and sophisticated are the requirements for a hospitable environment. The historical perspective of the heroine in the mystery novel shows such complexity and development. A male fictional detective might transfer easily from the present to the nineteenth century with merely a change in clothes and mode of transportation. Few of the current female private investigators, police officers, attorneys, or other professionals could have existed in the Victorian period.

Genre writers, including such luminaries as Dorothy L. Sayers, Howard Haycraft, and E. M. Wrong, have identified conditions necessary for the development of credible fictional investigators of either sex, which include:

• Respect for the legal process, including police forces, because there has been-and remains in some communities-a belief that only the powerful receive justice (which in cases may be justified);

• Widespread literacy through public education;

• An inexpensive means of publication and freedom of the press

• The use of series. The popularity of sleuths was enhanced from the onset by the use of series, to which the readership became attached to a character, as in the case of Sherlock Holmes.

Initially the lack of literacy and cost of publications channeled mystery stories into magazines and newspapers in the form of short stories or serials. These proved so popular that circulation increased, which, along with cheaper forms of printing, led to the dime novel and inexpensive hardbound books. Compulsory education and the development of a public library system expanded the ability and opportunities for leisure reading. The acceptance of the legal system awaited the professionalization of the police forces, democratic selection of the judiciary, and constitutional protection for civil rights. The mystery story has traditionally flourished in those societies with broad personal freedoms. The amateur detective remained the sleuth of choice until these conditions were prevalent.

The development of mysteries featuring female investigators further required:

• The removal of legal and political barriers to women's advancement.

• Societal acceptance of women as intelligent, logical creatures;

• Personal freedom for women as shown in the clothes they wore and in their ability to move within the community;

• Access to an education equal to that provided for males and to employment based on qualifications, not gender; and

• Awareness that some, if not all, females enjoy risk-taking and adventure.

The Victorian Era—1860-1899

The budding feminist movement in the United States that emerged at the 1848 Seneca Falls Women's Convention waned under the more pressing problem of slavery. Progressive women turned their attention to the abolitionist movement, within which they were very effective. Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was credited with awakening its readers to the evils of slavery. When the war ended, only minor consideration was given to expanding the rights of females along with those of former slaves through the 15th Amendment. Married women during much of the Nineteenth Century were unable to contract, to make wills, to transfer property, and to manage what property they owned. Even the custody of the children and the wages of the wife were controlled by the husband at this time.

Changes to these onerous conditions came slowly and piecemeal through state, not federal, action. Beginning with the passage of the married Woman's Property Act in Mississippi in 1839, state legislatures expanded women's legal rights.

The voting franchise had been awarded to women in several Western states (Wyoming had granted women the vote while a territory) decades before the U.S. Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

Societal conditions were equally burdensome. Marriage or spinsterhood were the only acceptable possibilities for proper young women. The spinster, unless she was wealthy enough to command respect, was a figure of ridicule, condemned to live upon the charity of male relatives. Indeed most women worked. They have always worked. Housework and the care of children took many more hours than it does today, and only a small number of women had household help. Those who sought employment during the Nineteenth Century found it as domestic servants, underpaid workers, or in the degradation of prostitution.

But ferment existed in life as in literature. By the late Nineteenth Century businesses seeking females for low paying clerical jobs supported education for women. Education widened the horizons of women. It also opened a field of employment for women as teachers. Nursing became a profession, but one that paid badly and no longer attracted men. Those professions considered suitable for women were extensions of their roles in the home. In most cases it was understood, that a female teacher or nurse would abandon her profession upon marriage. To do otherwise would infer that her husband was unable or unwilling to provide for his family.

Clothing changed to make it easier for females to work in factory settings, use such office machinery as the typewriter, and move from work to home. Domicile changed as society accepted the fact that an adult female might live outside of her family home in a boarding house or a private dwelling.

The educated woman, and particularly the financially secure woman, often had leisure time that could be spent in reading and in writing fiction. The early female authors frequently utilized pseudonyms or their initials to earn public acceptance for their work. Books available to women before the turn of the century, even those by female authors, encouraged domesticity and femininity, dramatizing the problems experienced by independent women.

A fictional female in the Victorian Era might appear in an investigative capacity. Generally, this role would be justified to meet a financial emergency in her home or to prove the innocence of a loved one, father, fiancé, or husband. Once the emergency had been resolved, there would be a return to the home and an acceptance of domesticity. The skills possessed by fictional female investigators often were those of intuition; special training such as lip reading; and frequently exercised under the tutelage of a male.

Anna Katharine Green created an intelligent, self-sufficient female investigator in Amelia Butterworth, free of the constraints of a household, able to move within a large city through public transportation, and buttressed by her friendship with a male professional, Ebenezer Gryce. Although marriage was still a possibility at her age, Amelia could work with males without constraint.

A New Century—1900-1919

The first decade of the Twentieth Century was relatively quiescent, but America and England were changing. Industry and mechanization opened new fields of employment for women: typewriters, electric sewing machines, cash registers. Three-fourths of the states had granted women the right to own and control property. In all forty-eight, they were able to will their property at death, and in most they could retain their earnings from work other than in a family business. Both single-sex and coeducational colleges and universities had expanded women's opportunities for careers. New professions, still expansions of the traditional women's work, were home economics and social work. The emphasis remained on educating the sons in a family, because they would be "providers". Divorce was rare, but a settlement might include lifetime alimony.

Immigrant populations, as in the 1840's and 1890's, envisioned education as the ladder to higher economic status and increased income in America. Adult classes in English for immigrants were popular. Immigrants continued to work at the lower levels of employment; as domestic servants, on the railroad or in the building trades, and later in public service as their votes provided leverage. A small number of women entered medical schools and law schools, but found it difficult to obtain employment after graduation, and were denied professional acceptance. Educated women bonded together in sororities and organizations where they exchanged ideas. Philanthropist Andrew Carnegie endowed over 9,000 libraries. Many more were begun by organized women's clubs, later to become the National Federation of Woman's Clubs.

State legislatures, recognizing the increased numbers of women and children in the workforce, enacted protective legislation limiting hours and setting work conditions. Society experienced tremendous change with the development of the automobile. Highways had to be built and cheaper automobile models produced to increase sales. When this occurred, especially in America and England, people became mobile in a new sense. Telephones connected homes and businesses, providing employment for women. Radio and films brought fashions, ideas, and dreams to small town men and women.

The First World War had two distinct impacts upon women's status. While it focused attention away from the organized movement for suffrage, the war speeded industrialization and utilized women to fill jobs left vacant when men were mobilized. Women served in factories, government offices, and in the military. Most such opportunities were limited to single women, but they had interesting side effects. Clothing was less restrictive. Women rode bicycles and learned to drive automobiles. As the double decade ended, women had bobbed their hair, wore make-up, and enjoyed more personal freedom.

The end of the war, while it decreased employment for women, still found them better organized, more ambitious, and emboldened by their success in getting state legislatures to grant them the franchise. Congressmen, aware that they faced opposition in their home states, were open to change. American suffragettes were less militant than their English sisters. Led by the formidable Pankhurst family, Englishwomen marched, protested, endured prison and forced feedings, as dramatized by "Upstairs, Downstairs", the PBS series from England. However the English franchise was limited to women thirty and older until 1928.

Postwar advances in the workforce were more difficult. It was expected that men would claim their former positions in offices and factories. The unions had not accepted women and felt no need to plead their cause.

On the literary level, there was a movement toward more active heroines. The Stratemeyer Syndicate, publisher of many adventure series for boys, learned that girls were reading their books. They developed series in which girls and young women, singly or in groups, traveled, solved mysteries, and enjoyed excitement. Carol Billman in her book on the Syndicate, commented, "Since it is in childhood, starting with the highly patterned fairy tales, that readers acquire a taste for popular narrative formulas and begin to develop their literary habits and preferences, it seems important to consider juvenile fiction as part of readers' cultural heritage regarding the mystery genre." According to Billman, the Ruth Fielding series taught the Syndicate a lesson, which affected their policy. As Ruth was allowed to mature, graduate from college, take employment, marry and have children, the popularity of the series diminished. Later series, Nancy Drew and the Dana sisters, never allowed their heroines to develop to such a degree.

The most common format for adult mysteries remained the short story, often collected into hardcover form during these decades. Mary Roberts Rinehart was recognized for her novels, but often accused of developing the HIBK (Had-I-But- Known) school of mystery, in which the heroine retrospectively regretted the mishaps she encountered because she did not plan ahead. Other types of popular mysteries during this period included those featuring scientific detectives, religious detectives, and espionage thrillers, none of which was particularly adapted to the use of a female sleuth. When women appeared in espionage novels, they were more likely to be villainesses.

Four women characters were introduced in series of three or more during the years 1900-1919: English private investigators Dora Myrl by M. McDonnell Bodkin, and Mercedes Quero by G. E. Locke (a female who utilized her initials); and two Americans; private detective Millicent Newberry by Jennette Lee and working class Molly Morganthau by Geraldine Bonner. Three of these series were written by women; three featured professional investigators; two of the women married; one indicated that she had attended college.

The Changes Brought About by Excess and Depression—1920-1939

The illusion of a peace that would last and the booming of industry fueled by the capacity needed to fight a war created an illusory sense of optimism as the Twenties began. Returned servicemen, welcomed by their families, embraced civilian life. The stock markets boomed; jobs were plentiful. What could go wrong? Men accustomed to danger were aggrieved to find that the Eighteenth Amendment had abridged their right to drink alcohol. Smugglers from Canada, speakeasies where a password would gain access, and home made liquor filled glasses and energized organized crime.

There were other changes to be faced by the returned servicemen. The wife or sweetheart who had worked in an office or factory during the war had become more independent and assertive. Even their physical appearance was altered in a rejection of traditional standards. The "beauty parlor" provided short, permed hair, bright red fingernails, and pencil thin eyebrows for women who were remembered differently. The corset, long skirts, and demure blouses gave way to slim boyish ensembles with hems well above the knee. Young women were encouraged to smoke a cigarette rather than eat a sweet to maintain a trim figure. Alcohol, separate living quarters, and the closed automobile led to sexual intimacies by "nice girls" which would have been less likely before the war.

The theories of Sigmund Freud, which discouraged repression, accused women of penis envy, and blamed mental illness upon sexual experiences in childhood, may not have been well understood by most but they had considerable impact. Divorces nearly doubled over twenty years, although many states required a showing of adultery or significant abuse.

Women now had the vote on a national basis, but use of that privilege did not reach the expectations of those who promoted or opposed the Nineteenth Amendment. A "women's vote" did not materialize, although participating females were now included at national political conventions. The suffrage organizations, having achieved their purpose, splintered into a variety of personal and professional interest groups, including the League of Women Voters. Only a small core sought an Equal Rights Amendment.

The prosperity of the Twenties kept both men and women employed. The war had brought about a major migration of low-income whites and African-Americans to the North where factory work was available. Many remained in large cities after the war ended, although in lesser jobs. Educated women found additional openings as librarians or interior decorators, but were rarities in the traditional professions of medicine and law.

For those adult women who did not work outside the home and had household help or modern appliances, there were increased leisure opportunities: bridge, matinees at the movie theatre, book clubs and lending libraries. Lending libraries and publishing houses sought light fiction, including mysteries that women would enjoy. Both the Book of the Month Club and Literary Guild began in 1926. Hard covers sold for a dollar and under, but that was a hard-earned dollar. There were serious writers on the bestseller lists: Edith Wharton, Sinclair Lewis, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, along with westerns, mysteries, and romances. Because of the large female audiences, movies were designed to attract women, portraying them favorably. The hairstyles, clothing and mannerisms depicted in the movies were copied in the cities and small towns.

The Twenties have been dubbed the "Golden Age" of mysteries. The caliber of the best and most popular writers was exceptional. The British mystery focused on the wealthy and upper class end of society as depicted by Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, or Ronald Knox.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from Mystery Women by Colleen Barnett Copyright © 2002 by Colleen Barnett. Excerpted by permission of Poisoned Pen Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Contents